I need a USB 3.0 Card Reader with USB 3.0 ports, to plug into a PCI-Express x16 slot

[Zak33]

Lo people

My old man has a new camera.. which takes some astonishing HD movie.. but the silly camera only comes with USB2 compatibility and it's SLOW getting lots of HD video off it.

And his mobo has no USB 3.0 ports

The PCI and PCI-express x1 slot are taken.. but it's got 2 x16 slots.. on for his graphics card,,, and a spare.

So... I'm sure I can stick a PCI-e x1 into a 4x or 16 x slot so that's ok.

I've seen front port USB 3.0hubs... buit do the CARD readers also support the USB 3.0 speed? Cos if it's just the USB 3.0 ports on them.. then we'll need another card reader.

Silly.. but needs solving?

Would like something that someone's used before, preferably.. ie real life experiences. Or a really high Amazon review rating

Any idea's lovely people?

thank you most kindly

[kalniel]

This thing is FAST:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B004P8J1D..._df_B004P8J1DU

Even if on USB2 you'll find it very fast as it gets far closer to theoretical speeds than cheap readers.

I have one and love it - use it for large RAW transfers.

[Zak33]

Thanks Kal...

so does that have a USB3 pci ex connector? Or do I still need to get the PCI express - > USB3 connector?

[kalniel]

Thanks Kal...

so does that have a USB3 pci ex connector? Or do I still need to get the PCI express - > USB3 connector?

You'd also need a PCI express based USB expansion card if you wanted 'USB3.0' and didn't have a port on the mobo. Sorry I misunderstood and thought you had one of those already. Something like:
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/dynam...-30-pci-e-card
or
http://www.ebuyer.com/240329-plexus-...sb2-0-2portusb

would do the job, but no personal experience of them here.

But I'd be tempted to just try the card reader I mentioned on an existing USB2.0 port, you might be surprised how fast it is without needing USB3.0 - your card transfer speed might also be the limiting factor before you exhaust USB2.0 speeds (with a decent card reader).

For example, I use relatively posh expensive cards, but they still have a limit of 30MB/s transfer speed. That's 240Mbps, which is only 50% of the theoretical USB2.0 limit. Of course, you get nowhere near the theoretical limit in practise, but with the above card reader I do get closer to the cards limit.

[Zak33]

so assuming he uses CLASS10 cards, the theoretical download speed on those is a MINIMUM of 10MB/s and in theory, USB 2.0 should do 3 times that speed....?

so USB 3 wont help.... I need to make sure the USB card reader is as good as it can be?

Kal... can you (or anyone else for that matter) work out how long a full 32gb card should take on USB2 and a Class10 card if it's all top grade kit?

[Iain162]

Kal... can you (or anyone else for that matter) work out how long a full 32gb card should take on USB2 and a Class10 card if it's all top grade kit?

if your card/card reader can manage to saturate the full bandwidth of a USB2 port (35MB/s) im guessing that would mean to copy a full cards worth of data (32GB worth) it would take just over 15 and a half minutes..

Heres my math, 1024*32 = 32768MB, 32768/35 = 936.22 seconds, 936.22/60 = 15.60 minutes.

I know this is technically impossible since your 32GB card will be rounded to 1000MB per gigabyte so you'll actually have around 28 to 30GB of true storage but it should give you an idea of what to expect in an ideal situation..

As far as im aware i dont think theres any storage cards that actually support USB3 speeds anyway, i could be wrong but the last card i saw to even claim to have even USB2 speeds were the sandisk extreme class 10 cards at about 30MB/s

Edit: just checked and found some 95MB/s SD cards, but im guessing you dont have one of these..

[peterb]

Does the camera use SD or CF cards?

I have used the CF version of this and get very fast transfer speeds

http://www.usbnow.co.uk/USB_Card_Rea...duct_info.html

[Zak33]

SD peter...

[Zak33]

if your card/card reader can manage to saturate the full bandwidth of a USB2 port (35MB/s) im guessing that would mean to copy a full cards worth of data (32GB worth) it would take just over 15 and a half minutes..


As far as im aware i dont think theres any storage cards that actually support USB3 speeds anyway, i could be wrong but the last card i saw to even claim to have even USB2 speeds were the sandisk extreme class 10 cards at about 30MB/s

Edit: just checked and found some 95MB/s SD cards, but im guessing you dont have one of these..

all good answers and what I was looking for.

cheers.