Hi all,
Just wanted to post my 1st impressions of Sonnet's "Pro Dual Compact Flash Adapter ExpressCard 34" reader which runs off the ATA bus in laptop computers via the ExpressCard slot.
I first read about Sonnet's CF reader on Rob Galbraith's site (he had a Mac version). Based on his positive comments, I e-mailed Sonnet to see if they had a version available for PC's.
As it turns out, they were having problems with the drivers for the Mac version, but had the PC version figured out. Even though Sonnet is not advertising the availability of their ExpressCard CF reader in PC form...I can tell you that it DOES exist, as it is currently inserted in my PC laptop (running Windows 7 Ultimate) :-)
The reader comes in a package marked "for Macs", and the reader itself has "For MacBookPro" printed on it. I was worried when I saw that, but a quick call to Neal at Sonnet reassured me that this "for Mac" reader would work on my PC...and it does.
Ironically, Sonnet says that they are still having problems with the Mac drivers (apparently an issue with Macs running more than 2GB of memory). My Dell D830 laptop has the max 4GB of memory installed.
OK - so how did it work?
Well, as expected, it is FAST. Previously it took this same machine running XP Pro around 2 minutes per GB to 'ingest' RAW CR2 files with a USB reader. Now with Windows 7 installed - the Sonnet reader via ExpressCard slot took around 1 minute to 'ingest' 2GB of RAW CR2 files.
So with my setup, the Sonnet reader is approximately *4 times* as fast as my old USB reader. The CF cards I'm currently using are Sandisk Extreme IV UDMA 45/mb's.
*This was not a scientific test - just my 1st impressions...and I was not using a stopwatch.
For me, the time savings is significant. Enough to easily justify the cost of the $99 Sonnet reader. As CF card capacities get bigger and their throughput speeds increase, ExpressCard readers look even more attractive.
It's not unusual for me to ingest 20GB at a time. The old way with USB, it would take around 35-40 minutes...with the Sonnet, only 10 minutes. That's pretty impressive -
and with the latest CF cards, it will take even less time.
I also have a Sandisk firewire reader, and I'm guessing that this new Sonnet will be about 2-3 times as fast as that in practice.
With this product, Sonnet has raised the bar and set a new standard in CF readers.
Cheers,
Scott
Link: http://www.sonnettech.com/product/produalcfadapterexpress34.html
Id love to get some real world reports on how this stacks up against the Delkin CF reader for Expresscard
I think my main problem is the Dell has a cr@ppy south bridge, and data transfers suffer no matter WHAT I use (tried a expresscard eSata drive and got speeds nearly identical to a USB drive, and even the USB tops out at 20-30Mbps
Id love to try it, but not for 99$, which makes the delkin look good, but if it isnt at least as fast as the USB, and stable (had issues with that eSata card and plug and play...) more tempting
