USB 3.0 card readers

[jimeos]

Has anyone on the forum used a USB 3.0 card reader yet? Seeking some feedback about the Lexar or Delkin models available. Thanks.

[ricktas]

Ive got 8 usb3 ports but not a single usb3 device yet. I will be interested in feedback on this one too!

[ausguitarman]

I've got one of these and so far have been quite impressed.

Perfect for laptops as it will plug in nicely to a side port. A little painful on a tower if your USB 3 ports are at the rear but I use a USB extension lead to get it on my desk top.

Postage was a bit slower than usual but the price seemed reasonable.

[Tannin]

I've got one ... Postage was a bit slower than usual

I thought USB 3 was supposed to be faster!

[ApolloLXII]

The transfer speed of USB 3.0 is, in theory, 5 Gigabits which is about 10 times faster than USB 2.0 but you have to have a computer or laptop that supports USB 3.0 to achieve that kind of rate of data transfer. USB 3.0 is backwards compatible with USB 2.0 but you'll get USB 2.0 speeds only so a hardware upgrade would be required on any computer/laptop that only supports USB 2.0.

[ricktas]

It is also interesting to note that USB3 is also faster than firewire, which up till now has been the 'standard' for high speed transfer for card readers. speeds of around 3x faster than USB2 are more likely to be real world experience from what I have seen, and read on the net. This may improve as more devices and drivers become available that can make use of the full USB3 speeds.

A friend of mine tested it with a 24gb file on a USB3 enabled external hard-drive, transferring to an SSD in his computer, using USB3 port that was directly linked to the motherboard (ie not via a hub etc) Transfer time was a little over 3 minutes. Moving the same file from a USB2 external drive took a 11.5 minutes.

[mercho]

Just remember the limiting factor here at this stage will be the Cards themselves, no point having USB3 if you only have 30MB/s cards!

But I'm keen to get hold of some USB 3 devices as well

[Bennymiata]

Personally, I love the USB plugs, as they are just so much better than the myriad of other plugs and cables you used to have to have, but with all the money they spent on it, to say nothing about the time etc., why the hell didn't they make the plug double sided, so it doesn't matter which way you plug it in.
After all, it is a digital plug, so making it double sided would't have been much extra trouble.

How many times have you had to plug something into the back of your computer, which is buried under your desk etc., and you have to keeop twisting the plug around, probably 5 or 6 times, to make sure it is going in the right way?

I love the way the charger plugs into recent MacBook computers, as it doesn't matter which way you plug it in, and having a magnet built in is terrific as the plug gets sucked into the computer.
That's the way ALL plugs should be.

[davros]

Just remember the limiting factor here at this stage will be the Cards themselves, no point having USB3 if you only have 30MB/s cards!

But I'm keen to get hold of some USB 3 devices as well

interesting to see that they are making USB 3 card readers for this exact reason. Now it's been a couple of years since I bought a new SDHC card, but I don't recall seeing a card with speeds beyond USB 2 capabilities. USB 3 drives on the other hand are great! The speeds are better than firewire, but remember the speeds listed for USB are burst traffic were as with firewire they are sustainable speeds.

[rsanders]

On paper, they look really fast but I don't know how that would perform in reality. It has been always an almost but not quite situation with these stuff. They said that it has a high signaling rate at 5GBps, so transfer speeds could reach 625 mb/sec.

If that's the case, then that would be fast. Though it still is different when you transfer a lot of items with a large file size compared to transferring one with an enormous file size.