Recommendations for an Expresscard34 USB 3.0

Looking to buy an Expresscard34 USB 3.0 for my T410s with integrated graphics.

Would like the following features:
1) Sits flush with or almost flush with the side of the laptop.
2) Will operate a near full speed of USB 3.0 without a supplemental power supply. Especially one with an electrical adaptaper. One that uses a USB cable to draw power from a powered USB port would be acceptable.

Appreciate any feedback that you can give me on this.

 

None of the USB cards I've seen are anywhere near flush with the side of the laptop. They all stick out pretty good.

 

AKE Expresscard 34 USB 3.0 no external power input near 12-15$ on ebay



Shentek expresscard 34 usb 3.0 external power input near 30$ on ebay


they both use nec chip, as i know.

 

I stand corrected.

 

Thanks for the information.

Nandarou, have you had the opportunity to use the AKE expresscard34 USB 3.0?

 

You can get one from dxextreme for $18.20 delivered, I have used them for a few years and it normally takes around 10 days to be delivered to the UK.

DealExtreme: $18.20 34/54MM Express to USB 3.0 Card for Notebook

 

I have AKE esata expresscard 34.

 

Thank you Tinderbox (UK), and Nandarou for the information that both of you have used the AKE USB 3.0 expresscard and were happy with them.

I am going to go ahead and order one for myself. Thanks again.

 

Can someone with the AKE usb 3.0 exprescard help me out? Does the card provide any power through the USB? I know I probably wouldn't be able to plug in a portable hard drive, but could I plug a USB 2.0 flash drive into the port and it would get enough power to run?

 

^^^
Similar cards with optional supplemental power seem to be able to power a portable hard drive without actually using the external power, but I haven't found anything specific for the AKE usb 3.0 card.

I am now also interested in this, because 2 I have two AKE USB 3.0 cards on the way and one is part of a gift. Luckily for me, the other part of the gift is an externally powered hard drive.

 

Is this hard to eject since it is somewhat flush?

 

I received an Ake Expresscard34 USB 3.0 last week. Some power is transferred from the expresscard slot to Lacie 3.0 HD. To get the full benefit of USB 3.0 speed, you will may need an external power supply.

 

Thanks so much for clearing this up for me.

 

Damaph - The Ake Expresscard34 USB 3.0 is very easy to insert and remove. Like I said in my previous post, I am very happy with this card.

 

In that case, I wonder if a USB powered USB 3.0 HDD enclosure could supply enough power to get the full benefit of USB 3.0, such as this one listed at DealExtreme: $18.02 USB 3.0 2.5" SATA HDD Enclosure with Leather Pouch - Black + Red.

Only thing stopping me from buying it is I don't know if that little USB power cable is supplemental or if it is the primary power supply. One person mentioned his external HDD not powering up at all with the USB power cable that came with his expresscard; his review is on amazon, here.

External HDDs with their own power supplies are too bulky for me since I typically take my little portable toshiba with me on the road, which is easily powered by the USB port. But if getting an AC powered HDD is the only way to speed up my backup and transfer times then it'll be way worth it.

 

from amazon

This Buffalo ExpressCard adapter seems to be able to power one non-powered 2.5in USB 3.0 drive enclosure, even with a large capacity (1TB) HDD in it.

Using a combination of 1 un-powered enclosure together with 1 powered enclosure works.

Using 2 powered enclosures works.

And this is logical. I think that power of expresscard near identical to the one usb port of your notebook. One conventional USB 2.0 (without standart power limitaion) port can power one 2.5" HDD.

 

I'm sure powering up will be fine. However,

My only concern is getting more than USB 2.0 speeds with only the power sent over the expresscard. And if the power is anadequate, I'd want to acheive at least 80 MB/s, if possible, by supplementing the hard drive or enclosure with something other than an AC adapter.

 

Nice flush USB 3.0 cards!

As far as I know, a 2.5" disk will be able to run on a 500mA USB port, but not a 3.5" which requires more current.

As far as I know the Expresscard bandwidth follows the PCIe bandwidth, so you would need at least the PCI Express 2.0 standard on the motherboard like on the Intel HM55 (for e.g. i3, i5, i7 processors) to have the sufficient bandwidth to use USB 3.0 within its specifications.

You might find more specs at the expresscard-page of USB-IF or the PCIe-page at PCI-SIG

 

I received the AKE Expresscard34 USB 3.0 ordered from the DealExtreme. Took about 2 weeks to arrive but that was over the Xmas period. It arrived in a generic expresscard adapter box which had check boxes for; USB 2.0, ESata...but no USB3.0. Still it looked like the picture...

Also in the box was a mini CD - you know the ones about 3" diameter. That was no good for the slot-load optical drive on my Dell, but no worries I have another lappie I could copy the CD contents to a flash drive on.

No documentation whatsoever with the card - just the card and the CD. On the CD we have 6 directories (working from memory here) two of which have 'USB3' in their title. What do I install? Do I need the other folders? Dunno. Do I install the drivers 1st? Do I need to reboot? Do I need to plug in the card while the machine is powered down? Lots of questions and no answers.

So I forged ahead and installed the installations from the 2 folders with 'USB3' in the title. Then I plugged in the card while the machine was still running. I got a pop up saying something like "installing drivers"...then "...driver installation failed-X!" or some such. Windows kept making the "dadum!" it makes when you plug in say a flash drive and it's ready..."dadum".."dadum"...and so on. I unplugged the card and plugged in again (pressing it in again a few mm then letting go pops it out about 1cm). When I plugged in again no "dadum" and no message from windows.

So, I left it in a rebooted. No message from windows on statup about new hardware being ready and waiting as I was hoping. So, I plugged in my new Iomega USB3.0 2.5" portable drive...and the light came on. I had a look in Windows Hardware Manager and SystemInfo (SIW.exe) but couldn't find anything refering to USB3.0.

I copied a file (blu-ray ISO about 40GB) to the drive and windows transfer speed settled down to around 76MB/s. Definitely better than USB2.0! Success! Copying another file of similar size about halfway through the drive just disappeared as if it had been unplugged...but it hadn't. I tried again, but about halfway through I pushed the card in to make sure it was in properly, which of course ejected it when I let go! Doh! This hung my laptop completely. So force a power down and keep fingers crossed when starting again...

Plugged card in again while the computer was off (hot-pluggins is OK with these cards?) and re-started. This time copied a whole file successfully with similar spped. Not the 100MB/s I was hoping for, but ~75MB/s isn't too shabby.

The Iomega drive comes with a Y-cable for with 2 USB connectors - one for extra power. So I plugged the 2nd one into another USB2.0 port on my laptop. Was this feeding more power to the drive? Who knows? It didn't increase the transfer speed.

This might be a 'feature' of my Dell laptop as much as the card. Think about how it mounts/dismounts - push it in until it clicks then let go to mount, push in again to dismount. What happens when you plug in your drive to the port in the card? Unless you're very careful you end up unplugging the card - doh! Not good.

So, experience so far has been good and bad. I've still no idea if I've installed the correct drivers for the card, but it seems to be working. Presumably as a USB3.0 port, given 75GB/s. Anyone know which are the correct drivers and/or if later ones are available online? Using the port is a bit tricky, but if I manage to plug the drive in without ejecting the expresscard, it seems to work pretty well.

 

OK guys, im looking for some serious help.
I bought an I/O brand 34mm USB 3.0 x 2 express card and had it brought down to me in Ecuador. And so here i am with this old laptop of mine trying to get the last miserable ounce of juice out of it, by giving it USB 3.0 capabilities.
My specs:
Toshiba Tecra M7 /Intel Core 2 CPU / T7200 @ 2.0 Ghz x2 / 4MB L1 L2 Cache / 2.0 GB Ram / Nvidia Quadro NVS 110M /1440 x 900 WVGA / 64 GB / Bluetooth / WIFI / tablet / Win 7 Ultimate 32-bit / (purchased in 2006 for a ton on money)
But as it turns out, my driver CD came damaged, and getting a new one was futile, for i just downloaded the driver (NEC UPD720200 as it stated in the manual) off of the many websites that host it.
But here is the issue, no matter what i do, it gives me nothing. It wont show up in device manager, when i click on the program that gets installed into my start menu "USB 3.0 Host Controller" i get an error message. its not working at all. But im afraid its not the card, it may be my system. so i ask the community for help.
What is the problem here? is it my firmware? is my CPU unable to handle this new technology? do i need to flash my system and run Linux to get this to work? or is the problem in the BIOS? back in 2006 USB 3.0 didnt exist, so how do i set up my computer to be able to accept it now?
And above else, what other information can i give to maybe help find an answer? or where can i go with this issue? and lastly, is this a futile effort? should i give up on my quest and try to save up for a new laptop?
Thanks, yours truly.