Aluratek USB 3.0 ExpressCard Review Discussion

If you're like most laptop owners,you might be interested in the latest super-fast USB 3.0 external hard drives, but don't have USB 3.0 ports on your notebook. Aluratek comes to the rescue with an adapter that brings USB 3.0 to your old laptop. Keep reading to find out more.

Read the full content of this Article: Aluratek USB 3.0 ExpressCard Review

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Nice article Jerry, but I must take issue with a couple of points. Those despairing of having an ugly blob sticking out of the side of their sleek laptops - as was I - need not. Flush (or nearly flush) fitting adapters can be found. Check out this discussion

http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...sb-3-0-expresscard-adapter-2.html#post6990970

I am currently having a mostly good experience with this one (for the princely sum of $20 including postage!)

DealExtreme: $18.20 34/54MM Express to USB 3.0 Card for Notebook

Another point which might cause some disappointment - from the article

"What was that? An external power supply? Yes."

In fact (qualified) No. Doesn't requiring an external power supply defeat the object of a USB port? Pretty much - you're no longer mobile. But despair not - you will note that the AKE adapter does NOT have an external power jack. Yet, to my Iomega Ego USB3.0 portable drive I am getting significantly higher transfer speeds without the need for any additional power.

See attached CrystalDiskMark scores from two machines I've tested on; an ASUS G50V with expresscard/54 port and my DELL Studio 17 with expresscard/34 port. Apart from the '4K' and '4K QD32' write tests my speeds equal or better Jerry's via the 'native' USB3.0 port.

I'm not disputing that more juice and hence an external power jack might be needed in some/many circumstances, but not it would seem to realize the potential of the Iomega Ego USB 3.0 HDD - or at least a good deal of it's potential.

Real-world actually moving files (big 30GB+ ones) to/from the drive I've experienced consistent speeds of 75~85MB/s and up to 90MB/s. Wayyyy better than USB2.0 and all with no external power supply.

In fact the Iomega drive has a Y-cable which I've plugged into another USB2.0 port on my laptop for more juice but it made no difference to speed (either from CrystalDiskMark bench or actually copying files).

 

I just want to say that with Sandy bridge notebook, expressport 2.0 will be there. It delivers the 5 Gbits/s from a native USB 3.0.

So, they will have the same speed, by native or by expressport.

 

i still wonder what solution is going to come up for notebooks without expresscard like my G73.. don't exactly need USB3.0 but could do with something for e-SATA maybe using the LAN port.. is there such a thing?

Panther214

 

I see I didn't have the same file size setting as Jerry in CrystalDiskMark - 500MB. Here's my scores with this set.

This is for the Iomega Ego 1TB USB3.0 portable HDD via AKE Expresscard/34 USB3.0 single port adapter only with no additional power.

 

Wow that AKE mode is pretty damn cheap. I remember a while back looking for a firewire 800 express card adapter for my MBP and even the cheapest one was over $80 bucks, USB hubs of the same kind were just a pricey. Any reason these are priced lower?

 

Who knows...it's made in China. Whatever, it's working well at the moment.