The first round of USB 3.0 consumer products are on show at the CES trade show in Las Vegas this week, after the USB Implementers Forum announced the first 17 devices to pass compliance and certification testing.
USB 3.0, also known as SuperSpeed USB, provides the bandwidth to transfer data at close to ten times the speed of USB 2.0 and offers improved power management, according to the USB Implementers Forum.
The group finalised the specification a year ago, but only now are products supporting it hitting the market. A number of motherboards, storage devices and laptops have been announced with USB 3.0 support.
The first wave of certified SuperSpeed USB consumer products includes products from ASMedia, Asus, Fujitsu, Gigabyte, HP, I/O Interconnect, LucidPort, Ratoc Systems, SIIG, Symwave and Western Digital.
A number of other USB 3.0-supporting products are also on show at CES.
HP, for instance, has launched a new range of EliteBook laptops. Up to three SuperSpeed USB ports are included on the high-end EliteBook 8540p and EliteBook 8540w workstation laptops, and a broader range of HP machines supporting the technology is due later this year.
HP said the addition of USB 3.0 ports will help laptops communicate at a much faster rate with high-speed external devices. Around 1GB of data could be moved from a USB 3.0 flash drive to a host device in 3.3 seconds, compared to 33 seconds for USB 2.0, according to USB-IF representatives.