Hot on the heels of Sony Optiarc's new external 3D BD drive comes another, this time from Buffalo and featuring USB 3.0.

Buffalo's BR3D-12U3 uses SuperSpeed to up the disc burning speed from 6x - over USB 2.0 - to 12x for both single- and dual-layer BD-R media. BD-RE discs are written at a slower, more standard 2x, but DVD burning is accelerated to 16x.

The desktop drive will of course connect to computers that only have USB 2.0 ports.

The BR3D-12U3 goes on sale later this month for around £200. It comes with CyberLink Media Suite 8 for playback and burning on Windows-based machines. ®