Review of Two USB 3.0 34mm Expresscards

Hello hello! Today I have a double review for you of two products that are very similar., they both provide the same functionality but they’re just a little different.  USB 3.0 is here finally, we’re seeing motherboards coming equipped with it and you can even buy PCIE add-in cards as well for your computers. One thing though I’ve noticed is that there aren’t many notebooks that are USB 3.0 capable yet, and let’s face it getting a new laptop just for USB 3.0 is an expensive prospect. So what does one do when they want USB 3.0 capability on their laptop or netbook? Well they can go to Brando USB and inexpensively pick up one of the two products I’ve got for review today a USB 3.0 34mm Expresscard can quickly and easily add this functionality for you.  Today for review I’ve got two USB 3.0 34mm Expresscards, each feature two USB 3.0 ports and they’re basically the same really. One is from Unitek and the other is a no-name or generic one. Is there really a difference between them? Read on to find out…

Since this is two reviews in one I’m going to do it a little bit different than other review, I’ll look at the specs and the cards separately then get into the testing of both.

First up is the Unitek:

UNITEK 2 Port USB 3.0 ExpressCard/34mm

Price: US$47.00

Features:
-NEC UPD720200 chipset
-Compliant with ExpressCard Standard Release 1.0
-Compliant with USB 3.0 Super-Speed (5Gbps), USB 2.0 Hi-Speed (480Mbps), USB 1.1 Low-Speed (1.5Mbps)
-Compliant with xHCI Specification Revision 0.95
-ExpressCard/34 form factor module
-Max. 900mA per Port
-Bus Interface Express Card
-Support Window 7 (32-bit and 64bit) / Vista / XP
-Dimension: 113 x 42 x 14mm (approx.)
-Weight: 31g

Package Contents:
-UNITEK 2 Port USB 3.0 ExpressCard/34mm
-CD Driver

The card comes in a plastic clam shell style package and comes with a mini-CD-Rom with drivers on it. The side has a hole for an alternate power source, but they don’t provide one for you. The back end is where you’ll find the blue colored USB 3.0 connections. Not much else to say really, it looks like most other expresscards..

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Next up is the no-name or generic card:

ExpressCard USB 3.0 2-Ports Hub

Price: US$39.00

Features:
-Compliant with ExpressCard/34mm Standard
-USB 3.0 SuperSpeed
-USB 3.0 2-Ports Hub
-Compliant with USB 1.0, USB 1.1, USB 2.0 and USB 3.0
-Support Window 7 / Vista / XP
-Dimension: 116 x 40 x 14mm (approx.)
-Weight: 32g

Package Contents:
-ExpressCard USB 3.0 2-Ports Hub
-USB Power Cable
-CD Driver

The first thing you’ll notice is that this card is actually $8 cheaper than the Unitek branded card, but it comes with a power cable…

The card comes in a generic box, inside you’ll find a plastic box with the card, USB power cable and driver mini-cd. The side of the card does have the hole for power like the Unitek card and on the back you’ll find the blue USB 3.0 ports.

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Now let’s get into the testing here:

Installation, Testing:

Here’s the two cards together:

Now for testing I’m comparing the cards to each other and to the regular USB 2.0 interface on my netbook. It’s just an Atom Based 10.1″ netbook, but it does have a 34mm Expresscard slot which is nice…

The Unitek card does have a green LED on the top to let you know it’s powered on, and the other card has an LED inside of it that you can’t see unless you look inside the USB ports. Installation was very simple, I just plugged them in and installed the drivers.

For my testing I used a Unitek USB 3.0 hard drive dock actually with a 750GB Western Digital Caviar Black hard drive. You’ll find the reasoning behind this shortly…

Since the dock uses an external power source I didn’t need the additional power cable.

I used ATTo Disk Benchmark for testing.

We’ve pretty much tripled the read speed when going to USB 3.0 and more than tripled the write speeds. Not bad at all. They are some very nice speeds truly.

You might be wondering about using a portable hard drive instead of a dock as I did, well so was I.

…and it doesn’t work on either card. I have two USB 3.0 hard drive enclosures that have 2.5″ drives in them and neither one would power on. They seem to get power but the drives wouldn’t spin up at all.

I used the extra power cable with the generic expresscard and the indicator lit up on my drive but it would just click and not spin up. Using the Unitek card though the indicator wouldn’t even turn on, but the drive clicked so there was some power getting there.

So if you want to use an external hard drive you’ll need to use one that has it’s own power supply as even with the extra power it wouldn’t work.

This could work fine for doing backups etc as many people use 3.5″ enclosures with power supplies for their backups, but if you’re using a 2.5″ style you’ll need to figure something else out because obviously this isn’t going to work.

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Conclusion:

These cards work but not as I expected them to, for my netbooks I use either a USB drive or a 2.5″ portable hard drive for backups and transfers.

So yes on one hand this is a quick and easy way to add USB 3.0 functionality to your portable computer, but as you saw there are limitations to its actual usability.

Looking at the actual cards, I don’t see any reason to buy the more expensive Unitek brand card, the performance is the same and you don’t get the power cable with it. ( not that it mattered much though..)

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Pros:

+Simple t0 install and use

+Much faster than USB 3.0

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Cons:

-Limited functionality

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Disclosure: This product was given to iGadgetLife for review by the company for review purposes only, and is not considered by us as payment for the review, we do not, and never will, accept payment from companies to review their products.

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