richfx Posted August 13, 2011 Share #1 Posted August 13, 2011 Advertisement (gone after registration) I use a Sandisk card reader with my iMac and M9, which works great. I've ordered a Macbook Pro, which comes with a card reader slot onboard. Is it necessary or advisable to use a card reader with the Macbook in light of its card reader slot? In other words, is there any advantage in doing so, or will the slot serve the purpose as well or better than a card reader? Thanks, Rich Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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Walt Calahan Posted August 13, 2011 Share #2 Posted August 13, 2011 You can use any method of card reader you want. The difference is bandwidth of the connection. Firewire 400 is slower than USB 2.0. USB 2.0 is slower than Firewire 800. The slot port on the MacBook Pro offers a larger bandwidth than Firewire 800, so using a card reader than inserts in the slot will give you faster download speed from the card to the computers hard drive. If you have a new machine with a Thunderbolt port, it would offer the fastest speeds, but I have seen any card readers built for Thunderbolt yet. They may be on the market now, but I haven't seen any. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
richfx Posted August 13, 2011 Author Share #3 Posted August 13, 2011 Thanks, Walt. When you talk about the slot port, do you mean that plugging an SD card directly into the MacBook Pro's SD card slot would result in slower data transmission speed than through a card reader into a USB or other cable port? Rich Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Walt Calahan Posted August 14, 2011 Share #4 Posted August 14, 2011 You can easily time how long a download will take with each system. My MacBook Pro has a PCI card slot that I use to attach a card reader. It is the fastest connection for transferring data to the hard drive. My MacBook Pro is a little older, so does not have a built-in SD card reader, so I can say from experience whether it is faster or slower than an external card reader. The bottom line is it does not matter which download method you use so long as you are happy with the speed. In fact, you can download multiple cards at once using a PCI card reader, firewire card reader and a USB card read all plugged into your laptop. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
richfx Posted August 14, 2011 Author Share #5 Posted August 14, 2011 Thanks again, Walt. Rich Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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