Dear Dan at al,

With the advent of USB 3.0-equipped laptops, the Pretec P240 card reader (Pretec - Press Release 2010 Vol. 6 (http://www.pretec.com/news-event/press-room/item/press-room/press-release-2010-vol-6)) looks like a great solution for off-loading CF cards in the field. Does CD know when this device is going to be available?

Or, is another similar solution already available? My new fast laptop doesn't have ExpressCard slot, but has USB 3.0....

TIA,

Piotr

What laptop is that? Curious about USB 3.0 and how it is quickly becomming a replacement for expresscard slots.

Yeah, well... As to "becoming a replacement", in high-end laptops you have both: the ExpressCard reader, and the USB 3.0 ports.

However, in mid-range and multimedia machines it's true - USB 3.0 is replacing USB 2.0, and the ExpressCard slot is not always available. One of such machines is the new Dell XPS notebook.

HTH,

Piotr

I'm shopping for a new laptop right now and seeing a number of high-end models without ExpressCard slots, and even more with no firewire port! I asked a friend about this and he thinks manufacturers are expecting USB3.0 to replace both options since it's so much faster. But that's a pain if you need a firewire connection.

Any update on the availability of this or other USB 3 CF readers?

I tried the Lexar Expresscard CF reader but it must be inserted when booting up my PC so I only get this CF reader or SxS.

Today I received a Buffalo USB 3.0 Expresscard unit with 2 USB slots, and a Buffalo USB 3.0 external drive. The drive plugs into one of the two slots on the Expresscard and the other is available for another USB 3.0 unit. Tomorrow I will have the new Delkin Devices USB 3.0 CF card reader for that slot.

Amazon.com: Buffalo Technology DriveStation SuperSpeed USB 3.0 ExpressCard 2-Port Adapter Card IFC-EC2U3/UC: Electronics
Amazon.com: Buffalo Technology MiniStation Stealth 500 GB USB 3.0 Portable External Hard Drive HD-PCT500U3/B (Black): Electronics
USB 3.0 Universal Memory Card Reader (http://delkin.com/i-6483222-usb-3-0-universal-memory-card-reader.html)
Caldigit---CalDigit SuperSpeed Expresscard for laptop (http://www.caldigit.com/avdrive/Card_laptop.html)

Initial tests show that even with the USB 3.0 drive in 3.0 mode, the transfer times from a USB 2.0 CF card reader are identical to USB 2.0 to USB 2.0 times. This seems normal. I am also testing with an SDHC card in the SD card slot of the laptop, and testing the Buffalo drive in both USB 3.0 and 2.0 configurations and getting the same results. I don't feel transfer times will improve until I plug in the USB 3.0 CF card tomorrow and do transfers on the Expresscard bus.

The Buffalo USB 3.0 Expresscard unit only works on PC/Windows. It comes with a Windows drivers disk that installs the drivers automatically. I have also ordered a Caldigit USB 3.0 Expresscard 2-port from Adorama which does have Mac drivers written exclusively by Caldigit, however, with the Jewish holidays I'm told by the website that it won't arrive until sometime next week.

So far that's the skinny, more to come.