x61 PC Card slot

A quick question...

The PC-Card slot, I have read alot about it online and was told you can use it to support a express card.

1) What else can a PC-Card slot support?

2) I know the express card can be used to hook up external drives, read the threat about eSATA through it. What are the benifits to this over firewire/usb.

3) whate else can it be used to support?

4) Can you give me some links to an express card that is supported by the PC Card slot on the x61.


Thanks alot for the help, cant wait to get my hands on my x61, it sits in my house while I am still trying to get to it...

 

PC Card (or PCMCIA) cannot support Expresscards. Expresscard is an improvement on the older PCMCIA and has a much larger bandwidth than PCMCIA.

 

PC Cards (also called PCMCIA) and ExpressCards are two different types of slots. However, if a PC Card slot is all you have, but you have some sort of an expresscard adapter you need to use, there are PC Cards that are ExpressCard adapters. This will allow you to use an expresscard in a PC Card slot (in most situations). http://www.duel-systemsadapters.com/

I suggest reading this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExpressCard

and this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC_card

Do a search on wikipedia if you need more information about eSATA or Firewire (also called IEEE 1394).

You can find all sorts of PC Cards and Express cards from newegg:
http://www.newegg.com/Store/SubCategory.aspx?SubCategory=421&name=Laptop-Add-on-Cards

There are lots of things you can do with express cards and pcmcia cards. Most common uses are to make various types of ports available on your laptop, there are also cards that can be used as storage space.

 

Stallen,

Thanks for the info, definetly cleared it up to me. For some reason wasnt putting PC Card slot to PCMCIA slot. I have only ever used it for wireless network reasons before.

Which would be the fastest for portable dvd drive/hard drive...

eSATA through a PC Card
USB 2.0
Firewire

Thanks agian for the explanation already given. Trying to figure out how to get the fastest read/write times from a dvd burner and access from portable hard drive setup.

Plex

 

eSata will be the fastest.

 

^^^yep

eSATA is the fastest - Just to mention... eSATA is the same as SATA, only it has a more durable connection, I have had regular SATA connections on cables and motherboards wear out QUICKLY from plugging and unplugging too much, eSATA is mad to hold up like a USB cable. Also, I have found that not all eSATA cables are created equal. I have had eSATA cables that simply will not make a good connection. I though something was wrong with an optical driveuntil I realized I had to wiggle the esata connection just right to make the connection. Get SIIG eSATA cables. A little pricey for a cable, but very nice.

Firewire is most likely faster than USB 2.0. In theory, USB 2.0 should be slightly faster than firewire, but in real life applications firewire will usually beat out USB.

Another bit of advise, not all optical drives are created equal. If you want a SATA drive, I highly recommend the Samsung SH-S203B it is about the fastest drive out there, not to mention you get excellent quality burns. http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16827151153 Another nice SATA drive is the LG HL-DT-ST GSA-H62N (currently unavailable from newegg.)

Do some homework before you dive into this. Personally I only use Taiyo Yuden DVD+R x8 media available from rima.com, supermediastore.com, or meritline.com . Not all DVDs are created equal. Taiyo Yuden is known among the "cdfreaks" to be about the best you can get. If you get wrapped up into this and want more information check out the forum on cdfreaks.com They aren't as friendly as this forum, but you'll find everything you need to know about this topic.