esata or usb 3 card reader

[daviddbfotoart]

<p>I have finally updated my computer from the dodgy old laptop I was using. The motherboard has usb 3 and esata inputs, and whilst the usb 2 reader I now have is a major upgrade from the usb 1 reader I was using, I'd like to know if there is a faster card reader on the market yet? I will often come home from a days shoot with upto 30gb of images.</p>

[franklin_polk]

<p>The Lexar Firewire card readers ( http://www.lexarmedia.com/readers/pro_udma_reader.html ) are the fastest out there, but for top speed, you also need to be using fast cards.</p>

[Ed_Ingold]

<p>I have a Sandisk Firewire 800 reader which downloads Sandisk Extreme (60 mb/s) cards at 25 MB/s with a FW400 adapter under Win7. This is about twice as fast as USB2 in my computer. FW800 is still unreliable under Windows 7. With FW, you need to provide external power to the reader or adapter, which means you need a wall wart for a PCMCIA or CardExpress adapter.</p>

<p>There are a couple of eSATA card readers listed by B&H, in the $1000 category. They are intended mainly for P2 and SxS video cards, but will accept CF cards and can read more than one card at a time. eSATA is very fast - I transfer files at 35 MB/s or better with external SATA drive enclosures (R+W operations).</p>

<p>Using a free utility, ATTO Benchmark, I get in excess of 120 MB/s R/W with eSATA in my desktop and 80+ MB/s in my laptop. Card readers are too expensive, but eSATA is definitely the way to go with external hard drives, laptop or desktop. Look for a card (internal or CardExpress) with multi-port compatibility, and you can use multi-drive enclosures and easily set up a RAID.</p>

[brad_smith8]

<p>Although technically USB 3 has higher bandwidth than eSATA, benchmarks I've seen put eSATA on top.</p>

<p>Both are much faster than Firewire.</p>

[daviddbfotoart]

<p>Thank you for your info. Very informative Edward. I'm not keen on firewire 800 as its a windows thing. Are there any internal card readers that connect via a sata connection?</p>

[Ed_Ingold]

<p>I haven't seen (or looked for) any internal card readers. Why would you want to take up valuable space in the panel for something like that?</p>

[brad_smith8]

<blockquote>

<p>Are there any internal card readers that connect via a sata connection?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I searched around and none seem to exist. <a href="http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/camera_multi_page.asp?cid=6007-9784">The fastest CF cards out there cannot be read much faster than 35MB/s</a>. USB 2.0 is 11MB/s. So I would suggest a USB 3.0 external card reader, which of course again, dooesn't seem to exist.</p>

<p>Nice thinking ahead though, someone needs to make one since we're still hamstrung by USB 2.0 on this one.</p>

[scott_ferris]

Express card readers have the potential to work at esata speeds if the bus is up to it. There are several express card 34

card readers available.

[garrison_k.]

<blockquote>

<p>I haven't seen (or looked for) any internal card readers. Why would you want to take up valuable space in the panel for something like that?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I use them. It sits under my dvd burner. It sure beats having card readers dongling around the desk and making a mess.</p>