For many months, we have been anticipating the arrival of the SuperSpeed USB 3.0 specification for its incredible power to revolutionize the NAND flash market and its usefulness in everyday computing. In fact, just thinking about the usefulness of having a 64GB USB 3.0 flash drive in hand can be fantasizing for some. Thankfully, the wheels of innovation are starting to turn and feasible products are just over the horizon.

Recently, Taiwanese-based NAND flash manufacturing giant Power Quotient International (PQI) announced its very first USB 3.0 flash drive lineup. The product is someone informally named Cool Drive U366, and it comes in 16GB, 32GB and 64GB variants. The drives feature an aluminum casing with a clear plastic lid and will initially ship in blue and gray colors. The dimensions are relatively small and practical, measuring in at 87 x 22 x 12 mm (3.42 x 0.86 x 0.47 inches).



The PQI Cool Drive U366 works with USB 3.0 as well as USB 2.0 and USB 1.1. However, we have reason to believe that consumers won’t be using this drive in 2.0 or 1.1 mode. In perspective, it can provide up to 97MB/s in SuperSpeed USB 3.0 mode which goes unparalleled by anything else we've seen thus far. Most of you are probably scanning this story for pricing information at this point, but this information will be announced shortly during CES 2010.

The convenience of having a 64GB pocket-sized flash drive that can run SATA desktop hard drive speeds already sounds like a dream come true in itself. We are definitely looking forward to seeing PQI’s latest flash products at CES 2010 as well as many other various new manufacturer lineups in the market.