This week at the Intel Developer's Conference (IDF) Freecom announced the first line of USB 3.0 hard drives to hit the market. The Hard Drive XS 3.0 comes out far ahead of the pack of new 3.0 devices, most of which are set to roll out in 2010. Freecom's hard drives, however, will be out in Europe starting mid-November, according to PC World.

The company did not state when or if their drives would be available for sale outside of Europe. They did announce that the product would come in three sizes; 1 TB, 1.5 TB, and 2 TB. Prices will start at around $175 for the 1 TB drive, which is a fairly low fee to pay for the honor of being an early adopter for one of the coolest new technologies.

USB 3.0 is as much as 10 times as fast as its predecessor, capable of moving 5 GB of files from one device to another in 38 seconds. Thirty-eight seconds. It would take several minutes for any current USB drive to complete the same task. Hot damn do I love progress!