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Question

Is there a tablet with a microSD port which has a bus speed

Jul 29, 2014 5:56AM PDT

I purchased an ASUS T100 recently and it looks like it's not going to work out for me. My #1 requirement is to be able to QUICKLY transfer files from a microSD card to an external hard drive (using a Seagate Backup Plus Slim 2TB). With the T100 I'm only able to get to around 23MB/s regardless of the card I try.

Anyone know of a tablet which will allow faster transfer speeds from the microSD slot?

Discussion is locked

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Clarification Request
What does work?
Jul 29, 2014 6:45AM PDT

Time to test some of the better laptops in my opinion. 23MBs second sounds like the speed of the card.
Bob

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Answer
Re: transfer speed
Jul 29, 2014 6:09AM PDT

23 MB/s isn't bad at all for transferring to an external USB-disk (even if USB3). Are you sure the limiting factor is the microSD port, and not the card itself or the USB-side of the copying?

Easy to check by splitting it: (1) microSD to internal disk, (2) internal disk to external disk. What did you find. And now we're on the subject, what is the speed of your laptop and desktop for the same operations (assuming they have a microSD card reader) using the same card and the same external disk?

It's easy to say some hardware is SLOW, but it doesn't say anything if not compared with other hardware.
For example, I read about SDHC: "Version 2.0 also introduces a High-speed bus mode for both SDSC and SDHC cards, which doubles the original Standard Speed clock to produce 25 Mbyte/s." That's very near your 23 MB/s, I'd say.

Kees

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Tablet with microSD port with USB 3.0 bus speed
Jul 29, 2014 6:13AM PDT

I am sure. The microSD port is apparently capped at USB 2.0 speeds.

Other transfers (internal disk to external disk, etc.) are faster and my read/write speed I get with the card is higher than 23MB/s. I even purchased a sandisk extreme plus to be absolutely sure.

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Re: tablet
Jul 29, 2014 6:29AM PDT

If it isn't in the published specs of the high-end tablets and hybrids (that's easy to check on the net), it's a perfect question for the customer services or the sales dept of the high-end makers (like Apple, Asus, Samsung, LG, Lenovo). If they don't have it, it's unlikely that the cheaper Chinese no-nonames offer it, so it will cost you only a few phone calls or mails.

Moreover, a good shop will let you try before you buy the device with them, if it's a knock-out criterion. Why the need for a tablet to do this? Why not a (more configurable) laptop or (very configurable) desktop?

Kees

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Tablet with microSD port with USB 3.0 bus speed
Jul 29, 2014 6:39AM PDT

Leaving for a trip to Africa in a few days and need to be able to pack extremely lightly and with something that doesn't draw a lot of power - so portability is huge and I'd like to get the fastest transfer from microSD to external drive that I possibly can. It seems to me that a tablet would be the best device to facilitate a file transfer like this.

Large file sizes (it's all HD video and so I'm packing a few 64GB cards) so the transfers need to be quick.

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Re: Africa
Jul 29, 2014 5:08PM PDT

The weight and power consumption certainly are good reasons.

If you find 50 minutes transfer time for 64 GB too long and prefer 25 minutes, keep searching. But since you don't have to wait for it (just start and walk away to do other useful things) I wouldn't spend too much time and money on an alternative., But that's just me, of course.

Kees

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Answer
My choice...
Sep 1, 2014 2:36AM PDT

I am using the Thinkpad Tablet 10. Other tablets I know that get the card reader hooked to USB 2.0, a lot of laptops also suffer from that though.