One of the great new features of the new Apple portables is the addition of USB 3.0 capabilities. Now we can get data transfer speeds faster than FireWire 800 out of the same port we use for our printers and wired keyboards. More importantly, we can finally get some decent, bus-powered external drive performance on the MacBook Air, that is also able to be used on earlier systems.
Of course, the trick to getting that speed is making sure both sides of the USB chain are USB 3.o capable. Hooking a USB 2.0 drive up to a USB 3.0 port is going to – you guessed it – only run at USB 2.0 speeds. Fortunately we’ve been bringing our line of Storage Solutions over to USB 3.0 for a while now. These solutions currently have at least one USB 3.0 configuration:
- OWC Mercury Elite Pro Classic
- Newer Technology Guardian MAXimus
- OWC Mercury On-The-Go Pro
- OWC Mercury Elite Pro mini
- OWC Mercury Rack Pro
- Newer Technology Voyager drive dock
- OWC Express enclosure
All these models are ready to go, whatever your SuperSpeed storage needs may be. Of course, if your favorite enclosure line isn’t currently configured for USB 3.0, don’t worry; odds are that it will be soon. Stay tuned to the OWC Blog for future release details as they become available.
