Some Laptops Have No SD Card Slot. Solution?

A photographer having SD Cards whats up with no Slot on some computers?

What are you guys doing or using to read them with any kind of speed?

Thanks,

 

USB? Just like many SD card slots that connect via USB.

There are some SD card slots out there that are pcie based though I dont think they have been formally loosed in the wild.

 

If an SD card reader is absent and I want to transfer stuff fast, then I use a cable for the camera. my GH5 uses USB-C 3.1 and its pretty fast.

I'd still get a USB 3 SD card reader though if I had a laptop with no integrated reader (pathetic if they can't fit a reader at all). But both my machines have readers built in and they're fairly fast at 80MB/s.

 

Because most laptops aren't targeted at photographers or other creative types that would need such a thing, and companies want to cut costs wherever they can. For the times I need to dump dashcam footage, I have a USB reader that I bought for $5 on Newegg.

 

Be careful - many of the SD card readers in the store are only USB 2.0 - this can lead to very long wait times, especially if you take video, as I do. Take the time to find one that supports USB 3.0, and connect it to the proper port on your laptop. Makes a very big difference.

 

Thanks guys. I do have a nice Sandisk ImageMate Pro USB 3.0 Reader at my desktop thats pretty fast.

So........... other than this I want one with a RJ45 jack also and its like the reader, hard to find. I want these and to be able to add a 2nd SSD.

Point me at the if they exist?

 

Are you talking about for the laptop in your signature? If so, according to what I've found, it already has an Ethernet port. It also has a USB-C connector, and there are literally dozens of hubs that have SDCard, Ethernet, and USB-A ports. There aren't any I know of that have any sort of additional storage - you'd need a separate drive for that.

 

How fast do you want it to go? There's 1gbps / 2.5gbps / 5gbps

For the SSD you'll need an enclosure but. do you want to do 2.5" 3.5" or M.2 SATA /NVME?

A good place to start is startech.com as they are reliable source for innovation just to see what's out there but, they tend to be on the higher $ side. I went with this one for $40 since I have an NVME sitting around for fast copying after swapping 1 of them from my laptop for a different brand that ended up performing better ~1.5GB/s vs 1GB/s.

Personally I went 5gbps because that's the fastest option for a laptop through USB-C and my server data transfers max out around 400MB/s which is almost a direct translation in speed. - $70
2.5gbps ~ $20-35

For enclosures you're limited to the drives you're using and 2.5" drives max out at ~560mbps but if you go NVME you can hit 1gbps in an enclosure unless you're using TB3 where you can max things out dependent on the HW.