Buffalo on Thursday set a minor milestone by launching what should be the fastest Blu-ray burner to date. At 12X even with dual-layer discs, the BR-X1216U3 ties with Pioneer for a 50 percent speed boost over 8X drives but is unique for supporting USB 3.0. The 5Gbps interface theoretically lets it transfer data faster than USB 2.0; Buffalo says the drive is backwards-compatible with USB 2.0 but is limited to writing at 7X using the older standard.
