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    expresscard interface

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by jisaac, Apr 21, 2008.

  1. jisaac

    jisaac Notebook Deity

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    i'm thinking of using a cf to expresscard adapter, the cf can reach speeds of 40mb/s however i'm afraid that the expresscard interface will be a bottleneck.
    is this the case?
    if so, what speeds can i expect to achieve?
    thanks
     
  2. John Ratsey

    John Ratsey Moderately inquisitive Super Moderator

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    The ExpressCard interface is fast. I don't know what the theoretical limit is, but I've seen an eSATA ExpressCard adaptor run at 60MB/s. I think it may be capable of double that, so much faster than your CF. The specs to check would the the CF adaptor to be sure that it can support the speed you want. Some media card readers are much slower than the media.

    John
     
  3. Lithus

    Lithus NBR Janitor

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    Theoretical limit is either same as USB (480 Mb/s) or PCI-E 2.0 (2.5 Gb/s) depending on the mode.
     
  4. FloydTheBarber

    FloydTheBarber Notebook Consultant

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    ExpressCard (using the PCI-E bus) can reach speeds of up to 2.5Gbps [312.5 MBps]
     
  5. Tusin

    Tusin Notebook Evangelist

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    Yeah, my Free Agent Pro 500GB esata external with a expresscard to esata adapter hits over 70MB's.
     
  6. jisaac

    jisaac Notebook Deity

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    i read a recent review about the sandisk extreme IV compact flash card, showing that when connected using a firewire adapter hdtach showed read/write speeds of about 37mb/s, but when connected in usb it showed speeds of only 18mb/s. Since i am using an expresscard slot (which is based on usb) for my expresscard to cf adapter, will i see speeds at the same speed as the usb (18mb/s) or will there be an increase/decrease? The adapter i will be using states speeds of up to 33mb/s supported.
     
  7. jisaac

    jisaac Notebook Deity

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    help anyone?
     
  8. fabarati

    fabarati Frorum Obfuscator

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    ExpressCard is not soley based upon USB. In fact, it's pretty much a PCIe x1 slot, in a different formfactor with extra USB capabilties. The speed will depend on the Adapter itself: if the manufacturers were smart and used the PCIe link or if they were cheap and used the USB link.

    Do you have the card and the adapter? If yes, then why don't you try it out?