The PC Report

OCZ has released some quality SSDs in the past, and their going to be adding to their line-up this CES. First up are the brand new ultrathin USB 3.0 external solid state drives which will support transfer rates up to a whopping 5Gb/s (~625MB/s). They will be available in 64GB, 128GB and 256GB capacities. OCZ is also releasing a new range of internal SSDs named Vertex 2, as well as new PCIe drives that look like they are going under the same Z-Drive name. We aren’t sure of the exact specifics of any of the drives, or their release dates or pricing, but we’ll know soon enough.

If you’re one of the lucky few with a new motherboard that packs a USB 3.0 port then this new adapter is the perfect device to speed up external hard drives. The Brando Unitek USB 3.0 to SATA adapter will connect up your old (or new) SATA hard drive via USB 3.0 and a standard power jack. There is even an option to connect IDE hard drives via an extra dock.

The device will cost you US$48, which isn’t bad for a device using new technology. The upside is that the adapter will instantly turn your HDD into an external, USB hard drive with theoretical speeds of up to 500MB/s; the downside is that there is no enclosure for the hard drive so you’ll have to be careful when transporting the hard drive around.

You can grab one now from Brando, and the device will support your hard drives up to 2TB capacity on your Windows 7, Vista, XP or Linux machine.

USB 3.0 is starting to make a push into the retail world, as companies start implementing the technology in their cameras, external hard drives and optical drives. With this push though, you’ll need to upgrade your motherboard to support it, and if you’re an i7 user, this Asus X58 board should suit your needs. Unfortunately though, the Asus P6X58D Premium motherboard only sports two USB 3 ports, however I think we’ll cope for now.

Other features of the board include support for 24 GB (yes, twenty-four) of DDR3 RAM via six slots, three PCIe 16x slots for your graphics expansion cards, two SATA 6Gbps ports plus those two USB 3.0 ports and four USB 2.0 ports and the LGA 1366 slot for your Bloomfield i7 CPU. The motherboard is available now for purchasing for US$310 via Newegg.

Asus axed its last attempt at a USB 3.0 motherboard in July “not for any particularly interesting reasons.” It looks like Asus is having another crack at a USB 3.0 motherboard with the P7P55D-E, which will be supporting SATA 6Gbps alongside USB 3.0 like the cancelled P6X58. Sadly though, the motherboard only carries two USB 3.0 ports, unlike the 10 USB 2.0 ports. SATA 6Gbps is also lacking with only 2 of those ports vs. 6 SATA 3Gbps.

Other than the USB/SATA, the motherboard is designed for the latest Intel i5 and i7 (and upcoming i3) processors with its LGA1156 socket and P55 chipset. It also carries both CrossFire X and SLI with its two PCI-E slots, and can support DDR3 RAM up to 2200MHz. The motherboard will be hitting retailers early next month for US$299.

Fujitsu have announced today that they have started to ship some nice little USB 3.0 chips to go on motherboards in early 2010. The MB86C30A is a USB3-to-SATA bridge chip and can support the full 5gbps available from the USB SuperSpeed specifications. This chip is perfect for external hard drives thanks to the USB3-to-SATA bridge – meaning external storage will become much faster. The first engineering samples of this chip are expected for August.

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