Syba PCMCIA USB 2.0 CardBus

Gadgeteer Hands On Review by William Ray Jr.

August 18, 2004

Product Requirements:
Device:
A computer running Win98/Win98SE/2000/ME/XP
CardBus PC Card Slot
 

When I purchased my laptop, I sacrificed USB 2.0 ports for processor speed, hard drive space, and a CDROM burner. I hate being on a budget. I never seem to have enough money to buy what I really want, so I always end up scouring through pages and pages of specs and reviews looking for the best deal. Did I mention that I hate being on a budget?

Enough with my little rant -- I could probably be rich if I hadn’t squandered my twenties drinking and partying too much. OK. You called me on it – this socially unacceptable behavior actually extended on into my thirties, but by my 32^nd birthday I was an outstanding citizen. Anyway, I don’t have much money and this resulted in a lack of USB 2.0 ports on my laptop. Bear with me while I try to get back on track here.

I noticed that Brando had some PC Card adapters that provide USB 2.0 capabilities to devices with CardBus slots. CardBus is a 32 bit PC Card standard. From what I have read on the web, these have been standard equipment for years, but it seems that electronic vendors have only recently begun to manufacture devices that take advantage of the additional bandwidth.

Julie asked Brando to send us one of each of the three USB 2.0 CardBus adapters that he had listed on his site (I noticed today that he has added another one). He sent them to us and I have tried them out. Unfortunately, only one of the three ended up working for me. Of the other two, one failed to automatically install the necessary drivers and actually locked up my laptop until it was removed from the PC Card slot -- no real harm done, but a scary moment, nonetheless. The other one seemed to install the driver, but it would not recognize USB devices when I plugged them into one of the two ports on the card. I had Julie try these two cards in her laptop, as well as another machine, with pretty much the same failures all around. I will list the two bad cards here:
Quick Win PCMCIA USB 2.0 CardBus
CL PCMCIA USB 2.0 CardBus

The third time was the charm. When I inserted the Syba PCMCIA USB 2.0 CardBus into the PC Card slot on my HP laptop, the drivers installed automatically.

The card has two integrated USB 2.0 ports.

I plugged a variety of different devices into both USB 2.0 ports and Windows XP was able to consistently connect to all of them, both 1.1 and 2.0 version devices.

My speed testing yielded somewhat inconsistent results. The Syba card does not seem to provide a consistent write performance increase (e.g., copying files from the laptop to an external hard drive). I mainly use USB 2.0 to copy picture files from my camera’s memory cards or my external hard drive over to my laptop. At home on my desktop I frequently have other uses for USB, but on the road I have not needed use USB to out put files from the laptop. This limitation does not really bother me.

The card does provide a very significant increase over USB 1.1 when it comes to transferring external data into my laptop – but it does not quite equal the speed of the USB 2.0 ports integrated into my desktop at home. For example, I can copy 4.4 GB of pictures files from my external hard drive onto my desktop in 6:30. This same copy takes 16:30 from my external hard drive using the Syba card and my laptop.

Some or all of this decrease in performance might be attributed to the slower hard drive in my laptop as compared to the high speed 160GB Maxtor hard drive I recently installed in the desktop. At any rate, it is still a great deal faster than using the native USB 1.1 ports in my laptop. This same 4.4 GB copy showed an estimated time for completion of over 2.5 hours in the copy progress dialog box when I used the same external hard drive cabled to a USB 1.1 port on my trusty HP Pavillion. I wandered off after about thirty minutes, so that time is an estimate. Let’s just say that it was a lot faster and I will continue to carry the Syba card until I can afford a laptop upgrade.

Here is a photo of the card with my Hotway Hotreader.

The Syba PCMCIA USB 2.0 CardBus is available from Brando Workshop USB page. Brando has recently added a new card, the ACG PCMCIA USB 2.0 CardBus, as well as another card by the same manufacturer that provides IEEE 1394 ports. I haven’t had a chance to test this one yet.

Price: $35

Pros:
Affordable way to add USB 2.0 ports to a laptop
Easy to install and use

Cons:
Inconsistent write performance