Express card speed

Hi own probably the first MacBook Pro released (its a 15" with 1.83 gighz processor, 1 gig RAM) and I use it to run a portable Protools Digi002 unit. Currently I plug the audio interface (Digi002) into my glyph firewire 400 port and then plug the glyph to my MacbookPro with a Firewire400 cable. I am daisy chaining two devices into one. My MacbookPro has only one firewire 400 port. It all works, but it is a little slow.
My question is this. I hear there are adaptors to give me additional connectivity via Express Card. If I buy one with E-SATA will I get that transfer speed through the Express Card slot? Or should I buy an express card with Firewire 800? Can anyone recommend a good adaptor?
I'm hoping I will get better performance once I quit daisy chaining all my devices.
Thanks!
Gary

If you are going to go through the trouble, go with the eSata. Since you are planning on multiple drives you need to be sure to buy an Expresscard/34 with an eSata interface that supports a port multiplier and NCQ. There are several manufacturers and prices range quite a bit. Check out Other World Computing as they have good pricing. Their Apiotek card supports Macs along with RAID 0/1/5.
Also, if you want some real performance you will need to max out your RAM. I run 4GB on my MacBook Pro. It is a 2.4Ghz 17" model. The additional RAM makes a big difference. Another suggestion is to upgrade your internal hard drive. They have a number of new models out and you can run a 7200 RPM drive with up to 320GB of capacity inside a MacBook Pro.
Good luck!

Similar Messages

Speed of eSATA2 express card/34

Good morning. I want to ask if anyone knows the real speed of eSATA2 express card/34. Because the site of one of these cards (http://www.equip-info.net/english/index.php?main=10&gruppe=500&prod=2080) it sais
"• SATA II Spezifikation, data transfer rate up to 3 Gbps
• Express Card data transfer rate up to 250 Mbps "
SATA2 HDD speed i know is 3Gbit/s. If Express Card has 250Mbit/s speed, the HDD who is connect in this express card, what speed can run????

Morpheus2007,
Expresscards can use one of 2 methods to communicate with the system bus: PCI-Express or USB 2. The card being used determines which method will be used.
Via PCI-Express, maximum bandwidth to the system bus is 2.5 GBs/sec. Given the current state of eSATA2 drives, this more than exceeds the actual speed of an eSATA2 drive.
While the potential speed of eSATA2 drives and connections is 3 GBs/sec., single drives will not reach this potential. The eSATA2 connection can handle it, but the drives, themselves cannot deliver this much speed. The only time you will see true 3 GB/sec transfer rates is when using a RAID array.
Single-drive eSATA2 units, last time I checked, were delivering up to 1.5 GBs/sec., maximum.
Scott

NitroAV FireWire 800/1394b Express Card (34)

After some foot dragging by FireWire direct, today I finally received the NitroAV FireWire 800/1394b Express Card ordered almost a month ago.
First Impressions: Unimpressive at best.
According to the FireWire direct rep, it is supposed to work using the Mac OS built in drivers and require no additional driver....
Upon first insertion, my MacBook Pro promptly went into a kernel panic.
NOT a good introductory performance!
Upon restart, I did get the thing to work, "sort of".
First, it requires AC power even with a 2.5" external drive meant for bus power. Bummer, but so be it. However, less acceptable: it is VERY fussy about sequence, reminding me of evil SCSI voodoo rituals from the past century. Seems it only likes to work once- if I remove the card, it requires a reboot to recognize anything attached to it subsequently.
Functionality is intermittent. Sometimes I can mount and unmount a drive several times in a row, sometimes just once before it fails to recognize the drive and requires another reboot. One drive it took a long time to recognize but eventually it did- only to freeze up rock solid soon thereafter requiring an uncomfortable long push on the power button to shut down- nothing else worked. That drive was a known to be working Lacie, the first a known to be working WiebeTech and both are totally reliable on my G5 and previously completely reliable on the MacBook Pro using the integrated FireWire 400 port.
Unscientific results so far show a modest speed increase transferring a few large files, nothing like double the FireWire 800 speed hoped for. In any case if it ain't reliable it ain't gettin' used. Hoping for a driver solution in 10.4.7? (Wishful thinking)
No one likes a fussy device, much less one doomed to corrupting directories with that kind of behavior. I'm disappointed with Apple for omitting the FireWire 800 port on the 15 inch model and leaving us with this cheesy "solution".
I am not a big fan of dongles, or things like Express cards which are just asking for trouble by introducing intermediary third party connectivity issues exactly like these...
Oh yeh, and the little metal door on the Express Card slot tends to hang open and not snap closed- just to add insult to the whole process.

Well, after two days of use I have a bit of data regarding the NitroAV (and Apple's implementation of ExpressCard/34).
First some general observations: like bigwheel, there are a few too many rough edges to be fully pleased. After inserting the card, a menu bar icon appears next to the Airport icon. On mouse over, the drop down shows "Unknown Vendor" and "Firewire Controller" are greyed out, while the 3rd "Power off Card" is selectable but does NOT power down the card. Looks like I have to shut down the MBP, then eject the Nitro card.
I also can confirm intermittent unmounting and remounting. My latest experiment is to leave the drive mounted and then have it wake up after sleep. So far it's worked once, but will post if it continues to find my FW 800 drive over time.
One major design flaw of the ExpressCard implementation - to engage the card you push in until it clicks, while to disengage the card you merely push in a second time. But how are you supposed to ATTACH FW800 cables?? I find I have to try to hold the ExpressCard firmly so it doesn't go in while fumbling with the FW800 connector. WAY too fussy...
OK, here's some actual test data, involving transfers of 1,000 MB of files (147 Canon RAW files, approx 7 MB each).
I used three hard drives for various transfers -
1. Internal stock 100 GB - 5400 rpm (TOSHIBA MK1032GSX)
2. FW 800 / 400 500 GB - 7200 rpm (Seagate 3500841A in OWC Mercury Elite case)
3. FW 800 / 400 250 GB - La Cie 7200 rpm drive
All test are transfer of 1 GB of files from HD to HD-
Test 1: Internal to FW 400 - 68 seconds
Test 2: Internal to FW 800 - 65 seconds
Test 3: MBP built in FW 400 daisy-chained - 54 seconds
Test 4: Nitro FW 800 daisy chained - 43 seconds
Test 5: Nitro FW 800 port A to Nitro FW 800 port B - 43 seconds
Test 6: MBP built in FW 400 to Nitro FW 800 - 35 seconds
So it looks like there is some speed increase, but I was surprised that mixing the FW 400 and FW 800 ports gave the fastest transfer speeds! The Nitro card is dependent on Apple's implementation of buses, and this seems to be the winning combo. Not that intuitive that shifting one of the FW 800 devices down to FW 400 will speed things up, but that's what my simple test seemed to imply.
I didn't test read times only, but it would seem that these should speed up (and hopefully speed up my primary application of Aperture).
MBP 2.0, 2GB Mac OS X (10.4.6)

Purchasing an Airport Express card...Is this the right move?

Hey Folks,
I've recently been given an older iMac (it's the all in one purple one from around 99-2000) i talked to two different apple employees in two different stores (chicago and milwaukee) the concensus sounds like i need to purchase the "airport express card" and open up the hatch and install it manually in order to get the wirless internet that is already hooked up in my apartment builing. Is this the right purchase? i'm not clear on if this mac is airport ready, and am worried that 120 bucks later i will find out the hard way, any suggestions/advice?
thanks everyone!

Jason my model is most certainly the Mac Rev C, i copied and pasted the information available below, turns out it is the Grape Imac, what does this mean for my wireless connectivity, and does this change my purchasing options, thank you so much for you help!
CPU
CPU: PowerPC 750
CPU Speed: 266 MHz
FPU: integrated
Bus Speed: 66 MHz
Data Path: 64 bit
ROM: 1 MB ROM + 3 MB toolbox ROM loaded into RAM
RAM Type: 144 pin SO-DIMM
Minimum RAM Speed: 100 MHz
Onboard RAM: 0 MB
RAM slots: 2
Maximum RAM: 256 MB
Level 1 Cache: 32 kB data, 32 kB instruction
Level 2 Cache: 512 kB backside, 1:2
Video
Monitor: 15"
VRAM: 6 MB SGRAM
Max Resolution: 24 bit 1024x768
Storage
Hard Drive: 6 GB
ATA Bus: EIDE
Optical Drive: 24x CD-ROM
Input/Output
USB: 2
Audio Out: stereo 16 bit mini
Audio In: stereo 16 bit mini
Speaker: stereo, SRS
Microphone: mono
Networking
Modem: 56 kbps
Ethernet: 10/100Base-T
Miscellaneous
Codename: Lifesavers
Gestalt ID: 406
Power: 80 Watts
Dimensions: 15.8" H x 15.2" W x 17.6" D
Weight: 40 lbs.
Minimum OS: 8.5.1
Maximum OS: 10.3.9
Introduced: January 1999
Terminated: April 1999

Express Card 34

Does anyone know if an adaptor exists to adapt a Compact Flash card into the Express Card 34 slot on a MBP? If not how about CF to Firewire or USB?

There is an adapter by Delkin Devices called the eFilm express card 34 compact flash adapter. Cost = $60 I haven't ever tried it so I can't comment on how well it works but there is one out there if you want to use the EC 34 slot for CF card reader.
But what I use is a typical Sandisk Compact flash card reader via USB2. It's a lot cheaper and the speeds are fast enough. My CF use is for digital photography. Got mine at Best Buy, I believe. You can also, of course, buy a firewire CF reader for the speed of transfer only, if that is very important to you, but the cost for those is expensive too.
Also, the CF adapter for express card 34, I am pretty sure that it is NOT flush with the mac book pro when inserted, so it will stick out there a ways, so it wouldn't probably be an adapter you'd want to leave installed if you move your laptop around a lot. That was the reason I decided to stick with the USB2 CF reader.
Hope the info helps.
Regards.

Does any company make a Express Card 34 that can be used in the 17 for USB 3.0

I want to use an external seagate external USB 3.0.
Is anyone making one for the Express34 PC Card and if so do you get the extra speed for read and write.

Theoretical and acual speeds for all types data connections can differ due to several variables. I cannot tell you if my eSata connection has ever achieved the theoretical maximum speed because I have never measured it. However I have compared transfer times against Firewire with large files and it is noticeably faster (at least by 50%+). Therefore I highly recommend having it if you need to transfer large files from one HDD to another.
If you have a recent MBP, you already have a Thunderbolt connection. I do not believe that there will be a Thunderbolt Express Card for older MBPs because they are not configured to accept that technology.
Ciao.

R61i USB 3.0, 54mm EXPRESS CARD adapter

Hi there again.
After doing all the possible upgrades on my laptop ThinkPad R61i TYPE 7650-D7G 15.4in,
I have this problem with the Express Card slot.
I've bought this 54mm USB 3.0 express card but when I stick it into the slot it doesn't seem to fit. It just gets into the slot without "locking" anywhere.
So my question is this. Is there something wrong with my card (new buy) or doesn't my laptop accept such a card?
Is it just a CardBus slot? And if so, is there a way (adapter, hardware) to use my USB 3.0 Express Card?
Here's a photo of the card I bought. This cable came with the Express Card. Don't really know what it's for... It seems that one end goes into the slot between the Card's 2 usb slots.
Link to image
Thanx a lot.
just found this... would this work or won't i get the actual usb 3.0 speed?
http://www.amtron.com/expresscard/cbexp34a.htm
Moderator comment: Image(s) >50KB converted to link(s). Community Rules.

To answer the question in your first post, the USB cable that came with the ExpressCard was for power. The other end would have connected to one of your laptop's existing USB ports. You would've used that for certain devices which required more power, in which case you would've only gained 1 USB 3.0 port, not 2
The picture of your laptop (with the "O" on the eject button) means you definitely have a CardBus PC Card slot, not an ExpressCard slot. You won't be able to use that ExpressCard. PC Card, also referred to as PCMCIA card, is an older, slower technology. As you now realize, a 68-pin Cardbus PC card will fit that slot. If your objective is to gain extra USB ports, your best bet is to return that ExpressCard and search for "usb pc card" online. There are PC Cards which provide 2 USB ports or even 4 USB ports. However, you will be limited to USB 2.0 speeds. Yes, you could use a CardBus-to-ExpressCard Adapter but, once again, you will be limited to USB 2.0 speeds. (Also note the one you link to in your first post converts PC Card to ExpressCard/34 only). An even more inexpensive solution may be a "USB port hub."
Basic comparison/ diagrams and size charts of PC Card, ExpressCard/34 and ExpressCard/54 here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExpressCard
Have a great day. (I do not work for Lenovo)

FW Express card

for some reason i can't post in the Mac book pro forum, but wondered if anyone was using or had a recommendation for a Firewire 800 Express card.
I have a WD 800 HD and Saffire pro 26 (fw400). I want to put my drive on a separate bus and get max speed. Anyone know if you actually get the full 800 speed using express card (another user posted a speed test with 56mbs instead of 80mbs when using express card)
cheers
JD

FWIW, For maximum HD speed, your best bet is to get an Express Card eSATA controller... and use an eSATA HD.
I'm doing this - note that under Leopard, there are some compatibility issues in the driver for the Sil3132 (the chip inside virtually all the current expresscard eSATA cards), that cause a variety of issues if you have an external HD that has multiple interfaces (ie, USB+eSATA, FW+eSATA etc).
On my WD MyBook drive, the disk hangs after half an hour or so, so I've moved this back to the FW port until these issues get resolved in the next driver version. My other audio drive is Ok on eSATA I think...
It is pleasantly faster than FW....

Best Express Card?

I have a Sony A1U and I want to begin taping in 1080i and editing on my MacBook Pro Dual Core. Does anyone have any experience with the cards listed below? I plan on purchasing a card tonight or tomorrow morning, but I would like to know if those on my list are good. If those are not good, can you post a solid express card...sata or fw800? my only problem with SATA, is that I can't find any portable, bus powered SATA drives like the Lacie All-Terrain.
The cards I am reviewing to purchase :
Belkin FW 800 Express Card
SIIG FW 800, 1-Port card
2-Port NitroAV FireWire800/1394b Pro Express Card (34mm)

Check this out:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ih=002&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWN%3A IT&viewitem=&item=120044861033&rd=1&rd=1
Supports MacOSX, Linux, Windows with RAID and FIC based switching (port multiplier), so you can use one cable to connect up to 5 drives. Thats 10 drives for this card in total.
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/4-Bay-HotSwap-SATA-eSATA-PORT-MULTIPLIER-Enclosure-Case_W0 QQitemZ120083480944QQihZ002QQcategoryZ3757QQtcZphotoQQcmdZViewItem
This is one of those cases which comes with port multiplier. It's big and heavy, but you can get up to 300 Mbytes/s drive speed (have to use 4 or more drives for that).
I just bought all of this equipment and waiting for it to come .
Here is official web site for SATA technology info:
http://www.sata-io.org/portmultiplier.asp
Regards,
Ayrat.
MBP 15.4" Core Duo 2.16Ghz, 1GB DDR2, 256 GDDR3, 100GB HDD Mac OS X (10.4.8) + Windows XP Pro SP2

Future upgrading from current MBP express card 34 capability to54 possible?

My MBP arrived this morning and (my bad) I just noticed lack of FW800 port. I came here to discussions before tearing the seal on the protective envelope in case I might need to return based on your answers:
From reading here, I see people saying express card is better than FW800, but saying 34 is bad, 54 is good/wave of the future.
If I keep this MBP, will I be able to have the internal 34 upgraded to 54, or is the physical slot opening in the body unable to do this, making this MPB already obsolete?
And assuming that there is eventually an expressCard34 adapter eventually made for FW800 (current links provided on the board only led to expressCard54 adapters to FW800), will I be getting FW800 speed (or faster)?
Sorry if these are dumb questions.
MBP, PowerBookG4, etc Mac OS X (10.4)

ExpressCard 54 cards are wider than 34's (hence the name), so no, the slot on a MacBook can't support them. It's possible someone will come out with an adapter with some kind of a dongle that plugs into the 34 slot, but it would be cumbersome to use.
When a FW800 ExpressCard 34 comes out, it should be full FW800 speed, since the ExpressCard bus speed exceeds the speed of FW800. But you'll have to check the individual card vendors to see what they provide on their products.

Express card 34 (Sony SXS) reader that connect via usb 3.0

Just bought a blazing fast new PC to run Premiere and realized that although I now have lots of USB 3.0 ports on it I don’t have a Express card that supports USB 3.0
Looking for a faster way to unload an SXS card into my PC – Searched but can’t seem to find anything. Ideas?

I feel your pain. My USB 2 Sony SXS card reader/writer tranfers XDCAM EX files at 31MB/s, which means you can copy 31 GB ( about 2 hours) in about 17 minutes.
With my Dell Precision M6600 and its Express/card slot, the same operation only takes 3 minutes and 17 seconds at 160 MB/s.
Expect transfer speeds of 80-90 MB/s with a USB 3.0 reader/writer but Sony has yet to come up with one.

Workaround for the missing express card slot on the 15"

I was ready to click the buy now button for the new 15 inch and then realized that there is not an express card slot. I know there is one in the 17 inch, but that is out of my price range and try using it while flying coach.
Anyway I edit film and video. I use the express slot for ingestion of P2 data and estata cards, not to mention a Matrox MXO2.
Question: How are users with the 15 inch going to get data input speeds higher than FW400. You can edit HD, but it barks at you.
Since the only port that is open is the ethernet, can someone invent an adapter that will allow the ethernet jack to be the input for devices? I am just asking for speculation. I also assume that the SD card slot can only be used for SD. I would be afraid to have anything other than an SD card sticking out of the MAC.
Anyway, I will try to look for the last generation 15 inch and can get the new 17inch, but since I hook my current 15 inch up to an external monitor and use it for rough editing in the field, I would really love to have a 15 inch that can do what I need.
Cheers.

What I did was just got a refurbished model. Really the new version is not really upgraded from the last version in any significant manner. They moved the product line around a bit, and changed a connection. As a Mac "Genuis" told me, 1 nice thing about the refurbs is that the unit has been looked over carefully before its sent out. You'll save a few hundred dollars and you can get a 2.66 or even a 2.53 or 2.4 with the express slot and everything else pretty much the same, oops, hmmm except for the 8GB ram, that's actually a big feature. However, many say the 15's will take 6GB though not officially supported by Apple. Anyways, it's a way to get a computer with the express slot and save some money. Just a thought:)

Express card for MacBook Pro

I have a 15in MacBook Pro (Early 2008). and i have bought an Express Card from ST Lab which i cannot seem to get to work.
When i look in the Systems Report, were does the Express Card show up??
And were is the driver? will it automatically load up?
Thx
John

I just bought the same st-lab USB3.0 expresscard on offer from Maplin, to try in a 17" unibody MBP, 2009 running Snow Leopard.
I downloaded and installed the LaCie USB 3.0 driver, which recognized the card, since it uses the same chipset as Lacie's adapter and LaCie don't seem to have enforced any vendor tie-in (they might have for usb3.0 drives, though, not sure yet).
In System Profiler (About this Mac -> More Info) it shows up under PCI regardless of driver, and, with the LaCie driver installed, it appears also under USB as a "USB Super-Speed Bus".
I haven't tried it with a USB 3.0 drive yet (none to hand) but it runs USB2.0 drives just fine, power issues notwithstanding (it won't supply enough to run e.g. an Iomega 1TB USB2.0 pocket drive - needs a 2-ended USB cable with extra power supplied from one of the Mac's USB ports, or external 5v plugged into its power socket).
I haven't tried it on a Thunderbolt equipped mac (mine is too old for that), but the LaCie driver claims to be Lion compatible.
I also downloaded CalDigit drivers - these are based on open source code so while people report that the driver as-supplied doesn't work with non-CalDigit drives, they do provide source code under the GPL. which one could readily modify to suit other vendors. The also provide a brief PDF doc describing (very vaguely) the process to build the driver from source - this is enough for a reasonably experienced programmer but won't be of any use to the average user. The CalDigit documntation suggests issues with thunderbolt systems, implying that some or other Apple update may have stopped their driver working (this is speculation - when the LaCie driver worked I didn't investigate further.)
All trademarks acknowledged, and it goes without saying that neither Apple, ST-Lab, Lacie nor CalDigit will support any of this in this context.

Does T61p can work with any USB3.0 Express Card?

Does T61p can work with any USB3.0 Express Card?
For example AKA BC398 with chip NEC 700200?
Or any other?

i don't think many people have tested these cards, theortically it should support them, but not at the full speed. Since the ExpressCard slot is 1.0 standard.
Regards,
Jin Li
May this year, be the year of 'DO'!
I am a volunteer, and not a paid staff of Lenovo or Microsoft

Express Card 34/slot

I would like to use a mac for mobile wireless access. Just bought a MacBook but having trouble finding any way to do this.
I am considering upgrading to the Mackbook PRO. Can I use it at the office for high speed mobile intenet? There doesn't seem to be a wireless service provider (verizon, cingular etc. )offering a modem for the express card 34/slot yet. Anyone know how long I have to wait before this is a real service?

I am in the UK, does anyone know if there are any items coming to the market to fit this slot ? I really need a compact flash card adaptor for downloading the images from my digital slr, I have moved from a windows machine with the standard PCMCIA slot but cannot locate anything to fit the new express card slot, I have to use a multi-card reader plus all cabling which is not the most compact when travelling.

Express card speed

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