Internal Card Reader Speed

[jimfoto]

I need an internal card reader to upload from CF cards. I saw some that also contained firewire and eSATA ports and having eternal drives that connect this way, I thought it would be a nice feature. I noticed that the interface on a lot of the readers is USB 2.0. What good does firewire or eSATA do with a 2.0 interface on the card?

I did find one that is USB 3.0 @ $40 but now I'm wondering if just getting a cheap card reader and an eSATA card isn't a better idea.

 

[stargazr]

e-sata is faster than USB 2.0. It's simply a special SATA connector designed to be unplugged a lot more often than regular SATA connectors, such as an external drive.

Some people still use firewire.

USB 3.0 requires either a motherboard with a controller or a PCI-e card, along with a USB 3.0 device.

 

[mfenn]

IF you have fast CF cards, they can certainly be bottlenecked by USB 2.0. I'd say to go for one of the eSATA or USB 3.0 ones if you find yourself transferring files to and from CF a lot.

 

[Cerb]

Can it be internal? If so, check out 3.5" ones, like these. Set the SATA ports to legacy (IDE), and off you go.

However, beware: you will need to be using CF cards that support UDMA. Otherwise, you'll be stuck in PIO mode, and it will be slow, leaving you no better off than a regular USB card reader.