Thunderbolt has arrived on the PC after being exclusive to the Macintosh platform for more than a year. With its promise of 10Gb/s‑per‑channel throughput, what self-respecting power user wouldn't opt for a Thunderbolt-based external backup solution? Well, before you get too excited, let's compare T-bolt point-by-point …

USB data transfer is about to get a hell of a lot faster. The USB Promoter Group is rolling out SuperSpeed USB, a supplement to USB 3.0 due out later this year that should surge your speeds two-fold.

Charging via USB is something we all take increasingly for granted; hell, it's become so ubiquitous you can have USB ports alongside your wall outlets. So it bodes well for a future ruled by USB charging that the powers-that-be have decided that the connection should be able to supply a whole 100 watts of power—enough…

USB thumb drives that are bigger than my hard drive circa 2001 are great. Waiting 5, 10, 15 minutes for the files to move to that USB 2.0 drive isn't so great. Now that USB 3.0 is becoming a common thing in laptops and devices, we can finally get faster flash drives as well.

During his keynote address at IDF this morning, Intel vice president and Kangol enthusiast Mooly Eden confirmed that the revolutionary Thunderbolt I/O technology will be making the jump from Macs to PCs when as-of-yet unidentified Asus and Acer models ship in the first half of 2012.

When Apple added Thunderbolt to their computers, many assumed that Apple's support for USB 3.0 hit the back burner. Not entirely true. According to VR-Zone, Apple's still looking to add USB 3.0 to their products and may even do it before Intel does it.

The thumb drive you see in this video is thicker than the opposable digit of an infant—and yet it can hold up to 2TB of data.

The Seagate GoFlex portable hard drive has the amenities you'd expect for its price range. 500GB. USB 3.0. Support for FireWire and eSATA. But what makes it stand out is that it offers full data recovery right out of the box.

Shocking as this news may be, not everybody uses a Mac (*raises hand*). For those of us not drinking the Cupertino Koolaid, here are 5 solid alternatives to the new products from today's Apple announcement.