- I have a MacBook Pro and I have just ordered an external hard disk which will have an esata interface as well as USB 2.0. I know that esata can be a lot faster than USB 2.0 but I remember reading (unfortunately I cannot find where I saw it) that the expresscard/34 slot in the MBP has a USB2.0.
- Mac notebooks use the USB bus to communicate with the SD card slot. They have a maximum speed of up to 480Mbit/s. Mac desktops use the PCIe bus to communicate with the SD card slot. Desktops can transfer data at a faster rate. Check the packaging that came with your SD media to determine the maximum transfer rate that your specific card uses.
Add SuperSpeed USB Connections to Your MacBook Pro or PC Notebook Computer
Laptop Expresscard
Expand your computer's connectivity options with the SIIG USB to ExpressCard. It quickly adds an ExpressCard slot to USB equipped desktop or notebook computers to work with USB-based ExpressCard devices. Installation is transparent, no driver installation is needed, simply plug it into any USB port and begin connecting your ExpressCard devices. The Slim eSATA ExpressCard Adapter from Other World Computing adds a 3 Gb/second eSATA port for Apple's MacBook Pro. The adapter is AHCI compliant and requires no drivers or additional software.
Your MacBook Pro or PC notebook computer has USB 2.0 ports, and they’ve served you well. Talk about compatibility—keyboards, mice, printers, scanners, joysticks, digital cameras, flash drives—what couldn’t you plug in? Talk about performance—well, that’s where USB ports 2.0 are merely passable—they limit data transfer speeds to around 25–30 MB/s. For most peripherals, that’s perfectly adequate, but when you connect an external drive and expect great performance, that bottleneck is a problem—video editing, backing up, and others ExpressCard slot to exploit the full performance potential of these fast drives.
What Is Expresscard
Sonnet’s USB 3.0 ExpressCard/34 works in ExpressCard/34 and ExpressCard/54 slots. This card supports hot-swappable storage connections. Insert Sonnet's USB 3.0 ExpressCard/34 adapter into your MacBook Pro or PC notebook to experience the super speed of USB 3.0 connectivity firsthand.