Addonics intros two eSATA-enabled multicard readers for the brave and gullible
By Darren Murph 
posted December 15th 2009 4:22PM
posted December 15th 2009 4:22PM
There's no denying that the two newest multicard readers from Addonics can connect to one's PC via eSATA as well as the conventional USB 2.0 method, but frankly, we've our doubts about the honest-to-goodness speed benefits of linking through the former. The outfit claims that when its (external) Pocket eSATA / USB DigiDrive is hooked up with an eSATA cable, any flash media you insert can be used as a bootable device with read / write speeds of up to 150MB/sec, but of course you'll want to slap the quickest SDHC or CompactFlash card you can find in there to fully take advantage of the extra bandwidth. There's also an internal version for those tired of looking at the gaping hole where your floppy drive used to be, and considering that both retail for $59.99, you'll probably spend the next four or five hours just choosing which you really need.
Believe it or not, I can see this having a lot of use for pros with high-end and high-res cameras. The D3X has 50MB raw files when shooting in 14-bit, this requires large memory cards up to 32GB a piece. Since a D3X can handle two of those, the speed increase when offloading ~64GB of flash memory over eSATA onto archival spinning media would be considerable.
This is great for RED camera users. We can shoot out 16GB CF cards in minutes; high-speed hardware is always appreciated.
@outlaw240
Why aren't you shooting directly 1394 Hard Drives to begin with?
@barCODE
RED can't shoot directly to typical hard drives except for a proprietary drive system that is in my opinion, not very well built. It can't handle vibrations, movements, or anything that applies shock to the system. Cards are the most versatile, and because its non-volatile, also the safest.
I think you're still going to bottom out on the cards, considering that USB can push 480mbits.
Predicting the transfer rate is more complicated than just looking at the reader-to-host bus speed, such as USB 2.0's 480mbps or eSATA's 1.5 to 3 Gbps. The sophistication of the flash card-to-host bus circuitry can have a great impact, and the ultimate performance of this Addonics product will be determined by its chip set design. The web site www.robgalbraith.com has a wealth of performance testing of various CF/SD card and reader combinations and the transfer rates achieved are all over the map, especially for some of the faster cards in their particular category. I'm hoping that they give this new Addonics reader the same testing treatment and report their findings.