Currently you can purchase USB 3.0 cables. A 3-footer is about $9 and a 6-footer is $12. But what about cards, cases and motherboards?

I checked out NewEgg to see what was currently available.

Cards

This is most likely how the majority of you are going to delve into the world of USB 3.0. Fortunately the starting price for a PCI Express card is $19.99. The PCI (non-express, and most likely the one you would want) starts at $34.99. NewEgg at the time of this writing has 15 add-on USB cards. Not a ton of choice, but a decent selection.

Cases

Very limited choices at present. Only two cases available with USB 3.0 ports on them, and both are ridiculously expensive.

One is the Lian Li PC-A77F at a whopping $349.99 (not including shipping). It does have four real true-blue USB 3.0 ports in the front, but wow does it set you back a pretty penny to get this case.

The other is the Antec DF-85. On first appearance, many of you will be instantly turned off by the way it looks as it could be seen as somewhat tacky. This case goes for $189.99, however it only has a single USB 3.0 port. The other three USB ports are 2.0 spec. A USB 3.0 hub can cure the single-port ill quickly however.

Motherboards

Surprisingly, there are lots of choices when it comes to motherboards with USB 3.0 ports on them in either Intel or AMD flavor. On the Intel side there are 47 choices, while with AMD there are 46. You’ll see all the brands you’re familiar with, so if you’re a "I only buy X brand" type of shopper, you’re covered in the motherboard department.

Prices are reasonable and do not differ all that much from motherboards with USB 2.0 ports on them.

As for how many USB 3.0 ports you get, the vast majority of the motherboards available have two.

This is admittedly a transition period for motherboards in general, just like it was many years ago when the industry shifted from ISA to PCI slots. For a while there were many boards built with both ISA and PCI until ISA finally became obsolete. I predict this is going to be the exact same situation with USB 2 and 3 – but with one huge difference. USB 3 is backward compatible to 2 from the get-go.

Sounds great! What can I connect to USB 3.0 now?

Upgrading to or adding on USB 3.0 ports is more of a planning-for-the-future maneuver more than anything else currently, because there really isn’t that much USB 3.0 stuff out there at present.

One of the few native USB 3.0 items that has wide availability right now are data storage mediums, so let’s take a look at those.

In the external hard drive department (you’ll have to scroll down a bit on that linked page before you start seeing the USB 3.0 offerings), the lowest price presently is around $115 for a 1TB drive – and that’s not bad at all. It is USB 3.0 so yes, she’ll be really, really fast on file transfers and you’ll be wowed at the speed. Some of you will compare it to FireWire speeds of years ago. USB 3.0 should prove to be just as fast if not faster in some respects, and be more stable with the super-large files such as DVD images and extra-large video files.

When copying/moving files from your local HDD to your USB 3.0 HDD, the transfer should act more or less the same way as if you had a secondary 7200 RPM HDD installed in your PC.

The Big Question is this for you large-file movers out there: Would it be worth it to put down the cash for a card and external USB 3.0 HDD?

Yes. You’ll finally have the convenience of USB with the speed to match. It will be great for copying files and for full-drive backups. As a bonus, as 3.0 adoption starts to grow, you’ll be ahead of the curve.

While you’re at it, you might want to check out the adapters available. Want to plug in IDE, SATA or eSATA to USB 3.0? Not a problem.

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