Thursday, July 13, 2006
The Hagiwara ExpressCard CompactFlash Card Adaptor
Posted by Jason Dunn in "HARDWARE" @ 08:00 AM
If you’re not familiar with the term ExpressCard, it wouldn’t surprise me. This replacement for the venerable Cardbus standard (often confused with PCMCIA) has been largely unknown, mostly because there’s not much need for it. I read a review recently of a laptop where the reviewer commented the ExpressCard slot was useless because there wasn't a single accessory for it. Fifteen years ago, laptops lacked much of what is now integrated (Firewire, Ethernet, later WiFi, etc.) and Cardbus slots were always crammed with one card or another to enhance functionality. By comparison, the only thing I’ve used in a Cardbus slot for on my laptops in the past five years is a CompactFlash card adaptor. I do most of my digital photo processing work on a Fujitsu N6220, a 17” widescreen powerhouse with two 100 GB 7200 RPM hard drives. Now that I’m shooting in RAW mode regularly with a Nikon D200, my 4 GB Kingston CompactFlash card fills up quickly. The problem is that moving 4 GB of photos from the CF card to my laptop using a PCMCIA adaptor takes a full 59 minutes (I tested it). That’s painful – the type of timeframe where you have to start the move not touch the laptop for an hour. My laptop also has an ExpressCard slot (I had to look up the name since I had never used it!) so I did a bit of research and discovered that there weren’t many things that plugged into that slot, but one of them just happened to be a CompactFlash card adaptor.
And that brings us to the Hagiwara ExpressCard CompactFlash card adaptor (pictured above and available direct from Hagiawara for $59.95 USD). It's L:89mm x W:54mm x H:5mm in size, and weighs in at 20.6 grams. As you can imagine, it only does one thing: it allows you to access any CompactFlash memory card, Type I or Type II, via the ExpressCard slot. It mounts as a removable storage device accessible in My Computer just like a USB Flash Drive, and doesn't require drivers. So why would you go this route versus the more common (and cheaper) Cardbus adaptor? One word: speed. The ExpressCard standard offers a limit of 500 MB per second bandwidth, much more than the 132 MB per second offered by Cardbus. In my tests with the same 4 GB worth of photos mentioned above, I was able to complete the transfer in 10 minutes 52 seconds. That’s almost 600% faster than using the Cardbus adaptor, and to me that time saved is precious because I can get right down to editing rather than watching a long copy process finish.
The Hagiawara adaptor unfortunately isn’t flush with the ExpressCard port (see photo above), meaning you can’t travel with it in the slot. That’s quite unfortunate, because I’m in the habit of leaving my Cardbus CompactFlash adaptor in the slot making it a permanent part of the laptop. And given the cost, some may prefer to still use a Cardbus adaptor even if their laptop has an ExpressCard slot. Still, for my needs, the Hagiawa ExpressCard CompactFlash fulfills it's purpose quite nicely and has become a permanent part of my digital photography kit.
And that brings us to the Hagiwara ExpressCard CompactFlash card adaptor (pictured above and available direct from Hagiawara for $59.95 USD). It's L:89mm x W:54mm x H:5mm in size, and weighs in at 20.6 grams. As you can imagine, it only does one thing: it allows you to access any CompactFlash memory card, Type I or Type II, via the ExpressCard slot. It mounts as a removable storage device accessible in My Computer just like a USB Flash Drive, and doesn't require drivers. So why would you go this route versus the more common (and cheaper) Cardbus adaptor? One word: speed. The ExpressCard standard offers a limit of 500 MB per second bandwidth, much more than the 132 MB per second offered by Cardbus. In my tests with the same 4 GB worth of photos mentioned above, I was able to complete the transfer in 10 minutes 52 seconds. That’s almost 600% faster than using the Cardbus adaptor, and to me that time saved is precious because I can get right down to editing rather than watching a long copy process finish.
The Hagiawara adaptor unfortunately isn’t flush with the ExpressCard port (see photo above), meaning you can’t travel with it in the slot. That’s quite unfortunate, because I’m in the habit of leaving my Cardbus CompactFlash adaptor in the slot making it a permanent part of the laptop. And given the cost, some may prefer to still use a Cardbus adaptor even if their laptop has an ExpressCard slot. Still, for my needs, the Hagiawa ExpressCard CompactFlash fulfills it's purpose quite nicely and has become a permanent part of my digital photography kit.
