Yesterday we reported that the first USB 3.0 controller was certified by the USB-IF. That little product isn't the only piece of USB 3.0 goodness coming our way in the near future, however. According to PCMag.com the Intel Developer Forum, which began today, is chock full of USB 3.0 devices.

LucidPort Technology brought several SuperSpeed USB hard drives to the show, from manufacturers like Netac, MacPower, and SSI. At least a few of these USB drives will be available in stores before the end of 2009. That's good news for all of us, because it means we can get some ultra-fast USB 3.0 hard drives to store all of our digital Christmas gifts on.

These new SuperSpeed products are capable of sending data at a rate of 250 Mbytes/sec, while existing 2.0 USB drives only run around 20-30 Mbytes/sec. That's an enormous jump in performance, and it should make keeping extensive data back-ups much easier as a result. The other nice thing about USB 3.0 is that it is totally backwards compatible. While you won't get USB 3.0 speeds if you use a 2.0 cable, you'll at least be able to transfer data still.