Told you these guys at Buffalo Technologies weren’t going to keep quiet. And no, “SuperSpeed” isn’t my lack of imagination at work, its the given name for USB 3.0, the technology that sets Buffalo’s latest offering apart. USB 3.0 allows for data transfer at 10 times the speed and a third of the power that USB 2.0 operated at. Put that into a Blu Ray burner, and what do you have? Great competition for the portable hard disk industry, that’s what.

SuperSpeed is here

In case you’re wondering Buffalo’s smart enough to have gotten there first as well. Yes, they also have a SuperSpeed hard drive, despite industry predictions that the first USB 3.0 products would be out only by 2010. Talk of a headstart.

This one on the left is the Buffalo BR-X1216U3, an external burner that can match the fastest in the market with 12x write speeds. An external drive has to look good too, so this burner measures an all-black 164mm(W) x 50mm(H) x 281mm(D) (roughly 6.5 by 2.0 by 11 inches) and weighs just 4 pounds.

In terms of performance, the 12x write speed, combined with the SuperSpeed USB 3.0… translated into Ungeek, means that you can write a 25GB Blu Ray disc in under 11 minutes. And in case your PC hasn’t upgraded to SuperSpeed, it’s backward compatible with the prevalent USB 2.0 standard, allowing for a burning speed of 7X. It’s also compatible with Windows 7, so your shiny new rig is all set for this Blu Ray flamer.

It’s also got DVD Upscaling, but I guess it is default for any self-respecting Blu Ray drive.

It’ll hit Japanese shelves by end-December for ¥39,100 (that’s $450)… a lot of money *sigh*…

…ahem. No news yet on when it can be expected in the US.