ExpressCard Slot - Is There Anything In Yours?

[FZ21Z]

What it says on the tin, have you found a use for it?

 

[wallyinnc]

I only use Visa

 

[FZ21Z]

 

[Dinesh]

If i understood you correctly, you are talking about the PCI Express slot n the motherboard?

 

[wallyinnc]

Hey, it's the Chillout room

 

[MaDDN3ss]

I think he is talking about the ExpressCard Slot in most notebooks.

Official Home Page for ExpressCard Technology from PCMCIA

They stay pretty much empty these days due to everything being onboard now. My Dell E6400 doesn't have an ExpressCard slot because it has everything onboard including HDMI, SmartCard reader, LAN, Etc etc...

 

[wallyinnc]

But have you ever noticed it is the exact size of a credit card? I don't recomend putting it there though. Anybody got a paper clip? :shock:

Last thing I used in a PCMCIA slot was a 56k modem, 4 laptops ago. Nowadays ppl use it for their Uber-slim mice or GSM/GPRS cards. I rely on Wi-Fi and Blackberry
Any other applications?

 

[FZ21Z]

I think he is talking about the ExpressCard Slot in most notebooks.

I was indeed. I was looking at this earlier - Lexar ExpressCard[SIZE=-2]TM[/SIZE] SSD, and just wondered if anyone had found a useful, use for their slot.

 

[Dinesh]

In my laptop, there are 3 pci slot and 1 pci express slot and all of them are empty.

 

[FZ21Z]

But have you ever noticed it is the exact size of a credit card?

Oh, it might not be what I was on about then, as you couldn't get one in mine, see attachment.....

 

[zrtom]

I use an ExpressCard eSATA adapter on my laptops for running faster backups to an eSATA backup hard drive.
Tom

 

[wallyinnc]

Indeed. Is that PCMCIA? Not a SD card reader?
Mine is like this:

 

[darkassain]

i believe his is the smaller ExpressCard 34 while yours is the fuller bigger version....
also PCMCIA comprises of also the PC Card slot i believe (as that is the name of the Association promoting both the PC Card spec and the ExpressCard Spec)
i have the smaller longer version but like most of you is not used...

 

[FZ21Z]

Indeed. Is that PCMCIA? Not a SD card reader?
Mine is like this:
View attachment 28498

Mine is smaller than that, and my card readers are on the front. What I was thinking about, and let me know your views, as I know they are varied opinions on the matter, but utilizing my slot with an SSD for the page file?

 

[wallyinnc]

I would say that the only reservation would be if the data trasnsfer rate of the PCMCIA was not faster than of the HDD itself, you could have worse performance than leaving the page file in the HDD (like it would if you were to use a USB drive for the page file, or even a SD card via the USB port). Now, as they specifically advertise that SSD for performance improvement, I believe the end result shuodl bring you advantages over the HDD solution. I have no experience with it, just my conclusion from reading the ad: "This allows you to access the data stored on your ExpressCard faster than accessing it from your hard disk drive."
Now, how much improvement you would have, I can't say.

 

[FZ21Z]

I was just looking for prices for the Lexar 8GB, and the average price is about £35, which is ok so might get one and see. Have a look at expansys, and it's £90!

 

[whs]

I am not using it because for serious work, I mainly use my desktops and not the laptops. But I could see it to be useful for adding eSata capability.

 

[Bituser]

I have nothing in it. I can't find anything I want that will fit in it.:huh:

 

[FZ21Z]

I have nothing in it. I can't find anything I want that will fit in it.:huh:

Makes you wonder why the don't just utilize the space better, and just put two HDs in every laptop.

 

[darkassain]

Indeed. Is that PCMCIA? Not a SD card reader?
Mine is like this:
View attachment 28498

Mine is smaller than that, and my card readers are on the front. What I was thinking about, and let me know your views, as I know they are varied opinions on the matter, but utilizing my slot with an SSD for the page file?

making it a paging disk/swap disk would not be a good thing...

the incredible number of writes would utterly destroy the ssd very quickly....
Mark Thompson (AnalogX) he killed his NVRAM chips in a hour of pagefile usuage...:shock:

Steve: It does work. Mark Thompson, my buddy at AnalogX, years ago he was curious about whether non-volatile RAM really was hurt by writing. So he used a PCMCIA EEPROM, a non-volatile memory. And he set it up as a Windows swap drive.

Leo: Oh, boy.

Steve: Windows killed it in one hour.