Delkin Devices CARDBUS 32-BIT HI SPEED ( DDCARDBUS-AD )

by Delkin

Product Details

• Item Weight: 4 ounces
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B0000ET7JF
• Item model number: DDCARDBUS-AD
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #37,179 in Electronics (See Top 100 in Electronics)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: October 10, 2003

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

CardBus is a high-performance 32-bit version of the PC Card standard. CardBus cards are able to take advantage of internal bus speeds that can be as much as four-to-six times faster than 16-bit PC Cards. The CardBus CompactFlash Adapter will allow consumers to get the maximum capability out of their high speed CompactFlash cards without the bottleneck of the older 16-bit standard.

Since 1998, virtually all high-end notebook products have incorporated CardBus technology. With the CardBus CompactFlash Adapter, laptop users will finally be able to take full advantage of the equipment they already own. Like all CardBus cards, the CardBus CF Adapter employs a special keying mechanism, which prevents insertion in systems with slots that only support 16-bit PC Cards. Therefore, CardBus cards cannot be used in systems that lack CardBus slots. All CardBus cards can be easily distinguished from standard PC Cards by the gold grounding shield strip across the connector.

CardBus transfer rates are, theoretically, up to 132MB a second. Actual transfer rates for the CardBus CompactFlash Adapter will depend on the CompactFlash cards controller speed. Customers with high-speed CF cards, such as the eFilm PRO, will notice a significant speed difference when downloading files, compared with a standard PC Card adapter. However, customers with slower CF cards may not notice any difference at all.

The design provides for a compact, rugged card/adapter combination that can be inserted completely within its host computer without any external cabling. Many photographers, especially Pro's, are looking for ways to reduce the amount of extra equipment they have to carry during photo shoots.

The CardBus CompactFlash Adapter will continue to support the hot-swapping and plug-and-play capabilities that users have come to expect from 16-bit PC Cards.

The high transfer rate and ease of use make the CardBus CompactFlash Adapter competitive with USB 2.0 and FireWire readers.

Windows XP, 2000, ME and 98/98 SE operating systems are supported. The required driver software uses a simple plug-and-play installation.

Product Description

Many photographers, especially Pros, are looking for ways to reduce the amount of extra equipment they have to carry during photo shoots. The CardBus CompactFlash Adapters design provides for a compact, rugged card/adapter combination that can be inserted completely within its host computer without any external cabling. The CardBus CompactFlash Adapter supports the hot-swapping and plug-and-play capabilities that users have come to expect from older 16-bit PC Cards. The high transfer rate and ease of use make the CardBus CompactFlash Adapter competitive with USB 2.0 and FireWire readers.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Mac OSX Driver Available, September 20, 2004

By 

Richard Peterson (Indian Hills, CO United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Delkin Devices CARDBUS 32-BIT HI SPEED ( DDCARDBUS-AD ) (Personal Computers)

The review above says Mac not compatible. However, there are now OSX drivers on the Delkin site.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Faster picture downloads, April 15, 2004

By 

anon (Upstate NY, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Delkin Devices CARDBUS 32-BIT HI SPEED ( DDCARDBUS-AD ) (Personal Computers)

I've been using this for a couple of weeks now. The performance of this adapter with a *fast* CF or Microdrive is awesome - I can download at least 3 times faster than I could with a standard (16 bit) PC card adapter - I think even faster than my FireWire CF card reader.

However, if you try this with the typical 4x speed CF card, you'll see no difference, because even a 12x and a 40x card seem to run at about the same speed on a 16-bit PC adapter.

This Cardbus adapter seems to be able to get every last bit out of the faster CF cards.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Pretty fast reads, fair writes, January 24, 2008

By 

eyestrain (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Delkin Devices CARDBUS 32-BIT HI SPEED ( DDCARDBUS-AD ) (Personal Computers)

Card was easy to get working with Windows XP and Windows 2000, I didn't try on Vista.

Using HDTach, I get read speeds with UDMA cards of about 33-35MB/sec. Using a CF-SATA adapter, my fastest card (35MB/sec in Delkin) can be read at 42MB/sec.

Access times are good, with best card, .5 ms, compared to .4ms in CF-SATA adapter. CPU usage was 4% compared to 7% with CF-SATA.

If you're using this for reading photos, you probably don't care about write speed... but there's other uses for this device. With a stopwatch and copying large files from a Ramdisk, I get about 11MB/sec with my fastest card.

EDIT: Note that there might be different versions of this card. Mine has the same model number as listed here, but is followed after a space by "BAK". The sticker is a little different, showing "UDMA" on it. If you buy one, just in case, you might want to make sure the sticker says "UDMA".