14 DAY TRIAL // Last year was a time when multiple technological advancements were made, even despite the fact that the IT industry was struggling because of the economic recession. SSDs came a long way, a new graphics technology was invented (DirectX 11), the first CPUs with integrated graphics were completed and even a pair of faster storage interfaces were developed. One of these new technologies, however, has not advanced as quickly as the others.
It is the SuperSpeed USB 3.0 standard that has not advanced as rapidly as it could otherwise have. Though SATA 6.0Gbps support is already built into the newest chipsets, the same cannot be said about the former. As such, companies have come up with workarounds, such as controller chips set directly into motherboards, or ways to let previous-generation systems upgrade without platform changes.
Transcend has just announced a USB 3.0 PCI Express x1 Expansion card. Though it cannot operate on just the power supplied by the slot (it needs and extra MOLEX connector), the adapter will give any desktop a pair of USB 3.0 ports, which flash drives, HDDs, SSDs and any other compatible device can then use to communicate with the PC at speeds of 5Gbps. The card is also backwards compatible with USB 2.0 and USB 1.1 ports, for compatibility with older gadgets.
“Transcend`s USB 3.0 Expansion Card is a perfect solution that allows them to join the SuperSpeed USB 3.0 revolution. The card`s PCI Express 2.0 single lane connection interface is compatible with virtually all current motherboards, and guarantees unrestricted two-way communication between the computer and any USB devices plugged into the card.,” the press release states.
The product is known as TS-PDU3 and will make sure that, even though native USB 3.0 support won't come for quite a while, consumers will still be able to take advantage of the technology itself. The component is fully compatible with Microsoft Windows 7 and can be found available for pre-order at 23 Euro, with a two-year warranty.