Im looking to get an external HDD for my lappy. Initially I was thinking the obvious option of USB2.0, but reading around convinced me that eSATA would be faster. The sticking point is my lappy doesnt have eSATA, so then I thought about a Cardbus eSATA card. It turns out that what I thought was a Cardbus slot is actually an ExpressCard slot, so good thing I havent bought the card yet! Further reading indicates that Expresscard slots work either as a x1 PCI Express slot, or in "USB 2.0 mode" which as far as I can tell makes them just a glorified USB 2.0 port.

I assume that if my EC slot is doing the latter, Id be better off saving my money and just using a USB 2.0 enclosure in the first place? So the £1,000,000 question is, how can I tell if my Express card slot is a nice fast PCI Express one, or just a jumped up USB2.0 port?


Assuming that I do have a fast slot to plug it in to, does anyone know of an Expresscard eSATA controler which plays nicely with Ubuntu Linux 8.04?

esata will be much faster..... but make sure you get the right kind of external drive.... because some of them are basically the same as your express slot.... they might be esata but theyre running at usb speeds

try to get an esata only one