What's the point of the ExpressCard/34 slot on my MacBook Pro? I've been looking for peripherals for nearly a year and have found zilch. (An eSATA adapter might be nice, but the ones I have seen are only for ExpressCard/54, and those all have two ports. Why do I need two ports?!) Any thoughts?
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ExpressCard slot useless?
- Thread starter Jessy
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Thanks. They make an eSATA device in the 34 size. Still, why does it have two ports? I only need one. I don't want to pay for the other.
http://www.siig.com/product.asp?catid=130&pid=1100
http://www.siig.com/product.asp?catid=130&pid=1100
You can rest assured the cost of including an extra port is not half the price of the card.
Jessy - don't understand what you are talking about - even minimal search efforts will yield a number of eSATA 34mm ExpressCards. Go look at caldigit.com AND firmtek.com AND sonnettech.com.
You need to learn how to search and check out various vendors if you have been doing this for a year and found nothing.
Agreed. I've got the FirmTek one and it works great.
Why NOT have two ports? additional cost is negligible. Just deal with it
If you ever get a dual bay enclosure (like my FirmTek /2EN2) it could come in handy. Plus it means true double throughput with a RAID-0.
Why NOT have two ports? additional cost is negligible. Just deal with it
If you ever get a dual bay enclosure (like my FirmTek /2EN2) it could come in handy. Plus it means true double throughput with a RAID-0.
It seems many if not all of these express 34 slots stick out, is this how they all will be? I like my stuff portable, the old laptop slots had a button to eject because most of them would sit flush with the laptop.
It would be amazing to have an express 34 eSATA card that had one slot and didn't protrude at all!
It would be amazing to have an express 34 eSATA card that had one slot and didn't protrude at all!
I don't have my MBP with me at the moment - check out the thickness of the eSATA connector and compare it to the thickness of the ExpressCard slot opening.
Therein will be your answer - and I suspect there will be no eSATA card that will be flush with the MBP.
i saw an expresscard 34 CF card reader somewhere a while ago, looked the goods. stuck out a bit from the machine, but needs to, to fit the CF card... well designed, looked the goods. I'm keen actually
I use a flash memory reader often.
I have an '8-in-1' flash memory card reader that fits flush. The slot is 'click-in, click-out', so you press in and the card locks in, then you press in on the card again, and it clicks in a little, then springs out. (My memory card adapter is the same way, which means if I want to change memory cards while the card reader is in, I have to be very gentle, since at least the memory card reader takes less effort than the ExpressCard slot.)
I've added a picture showing my ExpressCard flash reader with a Memory Stick Duo adapter with a Memory Stick Duo in it.
I have an '8-in-1' flash memory card reader that fits flush. The slot is 'click-in, click-out', so you press in and the card locks in, then you press in on the card again, and it clicks in a little, then springs out. (My memory card adapter is the same way, which means if I want to change memory cards while the card reader is in, I have to be very gentle, since at least the memory card reader takes less effort than the ExpressCard slot.)
I've added a picture showing my ExpressCard flash reader with a Memory Stick Duo adapter with a Memory Stick Duo in it.
ehurtley ... what make is you card reader? i am in the market for one and if you recommend yours it would be a good start!
Wow that card reader looks amazing! Does it support M2 cards?
I don't need one at the moment but I'm going to look into that one, what company makes it?
The 5-in-1 reader is pretty nice, but unfortunately I typically need to read CF cards. Delkin makes what seems to be a reasonably priced one ($50 from Amazon) that I might pick up.
I think it's the Griffin Tech one. Here's the specs.
I don't know who actually makes it, it looks like the Griffin one, though. (It was a throw-in with a Sony notebook, so it had a Sony sticker on it.)
As for CompactFlash, just to warn you, CF cards are wider than an ExpressCard/34 slot, so any EC CF reader either is a EC/54 card, or it would stick out of the computer by quite a bit.
As for CompactFlash, just to warn you, CF cards are wider than an ExpressCard/34 slot, so any EC CF reader either is a EC/54 card, or it would stick out of the computer by quite a bit.
Yeah, that's the downside. Of course, it's better than carrying around the USB adapter.
Thanks for that link, emw. I've been waiting for all the replacement pieces to become available so I can upgrade to a MacBook Pro, and that CF reader is exactly what I was looking for.
M2 cards go into a Memory Stick Pro adapter just like MS Duo Pro cards.
Belkin makes an 8in1 right here
Link
I just bought one of these off ebay, even cheaper than the ones on this forum and it seems to be about as good. I'll post more comments on it when I receive it.
I hope they come out with some other express34 expansions though I don't know what yet. The 8 in 1 is awesome. Gonna have to get that for sure!
WIth that I'll finally be able to load my w810 up with good music, something I've had trouble doing considering how slow it transfers over USB. It's DISGUSTINGLY slow!
Well Yeah it is not HiSpeed 2.0 only regular so basically 480Mbp/s vs 12Mbp/s. HiSpeed USB 2.0 Card reader all the way.