USB 3.0 Adapters Available Now

Update: USB 3.0 finally arrives on consumber laptops.  CES: USB 3.0 arrives in HP laptop: Yes, it's fast.

November 25, 2009 8:00AM PDT

We may not have readily available computer systems with USB 3.0 yet, but there are USB 3.0 host cards and cables available now for compatibility testing of USB 3.0 supported devices. Several motherboard manufacturers have announced offerings with USB 3.0, but until we see them in mainstream computer systems, it will be hard to justify their use for testing USB 3.0 supported devices.  Third party USB 3.0 adapters, on the other hand, are available to consumers and are a perfectly reasonable addition for your compatibility test matrices.

The adapters and cables listed below are available for purchase now:

USB 3.0 Super High Speed 2-Port PCI Express Card for Windows 7 and Vista

ExpressCard USB 3.0 2-Ports Hub

USB 3.0 Hi-Speed PCIe Card 2-Port

2-Port ExpressCard SuperSpeed USB 3.0 Card Adapter

USB 3.0 Super High Speed Cables

Throwing Hard Disks With USB 3.0?

It has been difficult to find shipping USB 3.0 adapters, but this research has not been without some humor. I ran across an interesting article titled "Buffalo wants to be the first ones in throwing hard disks with USB 3.0", and could not resist reading it.  Given the title, the following sentence from the article seemed to make sense:

It is clear that he has not too much sense to acquire a disk like that if we have not a compatible groove with USB 3.0 in the computer.

I think anyone that throws hard disks with USB 3.0 probably "has not too much sense" to begin with.