Samsung has updated its range of external hard drives with a new USB 3.0-ready version, aptly called STORY Station 3.0. Featuring ten-times the theoretical transfer speed of a conventional USB 2.0 drive, with a maximum transfer rate of 5Gbps compared to the 480Mbps of its predecessor, the STORY Station 3.0 has "been built for advanced users who demand fast transfer speed and data security without sacrificing design."
Of course, we don't expect to see such a speed burst over USB 2.0 in real world scenarios. StorageReview has put both models to the test and recorded maximum sequential read and write rates of 114MB/s and 106MB/s, respectively, with the USB 3.0 version compared to 35MB/s and 30MB/s on the USB2.0-equipped STORY Station. Performance on the newer drive varied quite a bit, though, dropping to around 53MB/s on occasions while the USB 2.0 remained constant.
Random 512K reads and writes also saw a twofold improvement with the newer interface, but the benefits of USB 3.0 began to dwindle when working with smaller files. Overall, the performance advantage of the STORY Station 3.0 over its older sibling was quite noticeable though.
The drive is available in 1, 1.5 and 2TB capacities, with suggested retail pricing of $154.99, $194.99 and $269.99 respectively. All models feature a three year warranty as well as three energy saving modes (idle, sleep and suspend) so that users can leave it on for extended periods without significant power draw.