Remember a couple years back when it seemed that every new device that was coming out had a sort of iPodish look to it, a whole bunch of matte white cigarette packs? Ever since then, Apple Fanboiz will say that any small device with a screen is ripping off Apple, and to be fair, Apple’s influence in product design is powerful and widespread.

However, they aren’t the only design sheriff in town anymore….behold the first SuperSpeed USB 3.0 external harddrives, from Dane-Elec.

Look familiar?

I have been waiting a long time to say this…“Dude, that so totally is ripping off the Zune HD…”

Damn but that felt good.

As for the drive itself, it is the So SuperSpeed line of HDDs and SSDs (The So? What is it with names today?). Thanks to USB 3.0 the drives transfer data at up to 250MBps, which is about ten times faster than current external drives. More info after the jump.

The So SuperSpeed line consists of USB 3.0 HDDs from 500GB to 2TB in both 2.5-inch or 3.5-inch formats. The line will also include 80GB and 160GB Solid State Drives (SSDs).

As most PCs and laptops don;t support USB 3.0 as of yet, Dane-Elec will also sell USB 3.0 adapters for PCIe or ExpressCard slots.

The So SuperSpeed drives should be available as of December 11th, timed to go along with the launch of USB 3.0-compatible laptops and PCs. All that speed won;t be cheap, as prices start at $180 for the 500GB HDDs. The SSDs are obviously pricier, $400 for the 80GB capacity and $800 for the 160GB version.

Zealot (471 Posts) - Website | Twitter | Facebook

By day a department manager and writer for a major network device vendor...by night Zealot stalks the mean magnetic streets, striking fear into the hearts of bandwidth abusers and theme park mascots. Zealot has been involved with mobile devices for more than a decade now, starting off with dumb phones, moving to PDAs and then to smartphones, notebooks and netbooks with the odd PMP thrown in. Most of his mobile time currently is spent on a Treo Pro, Zune HD, Thinkpad T61, Gigabyte M912M or a Hackintoshed Compaq Mini 704. He proudly groks the Geek community and considers himself a Neo Maxi Zune Dweebie (thanks Will Wheaton!).