Delkin product offerings -- any specs?

[skirkpatrick]

Now that raw files are starting to crowd everything else out of my laptop's disk, the idea of 60 GB on my belt is really appealing. But the speed of transfer is critical to understand. Can you point to anyone's comparison of the times required to move, say 1 GB of .crw, .nef, or .orf files in and out of the PicturePad? Or do your own test and post the results? (Or loan me a Pad and I'll be happy to try it?)

The cases of interest could include

fast CF card (e.g. SanDisk UltraII or Lexar 40x) to Picture Pad

Picture Pad over USB 1.1 to any laptop/PC
Picture Pad over USB 2.0 to equipped laptop/PC
(using the Delkin adapter)
Picture Pad over Firewire to IBook or G4/5 Mac
Picture Pad over Firewire to cardbus Firewire adapter on Laptop
Picture Pad over Firewire to Firewire equipped PC

I suppose this will show up on RobGalbraith eventually, but I don't think it is there at present.

[wcpaul]

Yes, please. All these product announcements without real world download benchmarks are useless.

The only product with a lot of impartial test data online is Super Digibin 2. It seems to download a 1GB card in 6 minutes.

One product has the nerve to claim a 4x DVD writer but the fine print reveals this speed only applies when the unit is a slave connected to a PC.

All name-brand MP3 storage devices with 20GB+ have a USB interface. Why can't any of them offer host functionality for an attached CF reader? That would be a VERY simple piece of firmware and allow a device that many people carry on vacation anyway to provide photo backup.

[skirkpatrick]

I sent a more general version of this question to their webinfo id, and got a really silly response: "USB is rated to 480 Mbps, while Firewire can only offer 400 Mbps." (I am shortening and paraphrasing.) I answered "No one sees these numbers in the real world, tell me about actual measurement," and the response was "well, those are the limiting speeds." There is some information available on individual websites, which you can find from the "storage and media" forum at dpreview. It's pretty incoherent, though, and there are signs of "experts" who don't understand how to operate their gadgets.

[theoldmoose]

USB hosting is more than just a 'firmware' change. It involves a differently-enabled support chipset in the player, and also the willingness to source battery voltage to the client-attached USB device.

This is all part and parcel of the USB spec, which, unlike FireWire, was never designed to operate peer-to-peer (or to be able to reverse roles client/server).

Odd enough, most recent embedded processor chips that have USB in them, also sport USB-host ports, but virtually no manufacturers will bring the pins out to a proper USB port on the module. Again, there is a perceived cost/benefit issue -- they don't see any real use to increase the per-unit cost of all their units, and there is that nasty supply voltage problem, a real issue if you are fighting for every milliwatt of power you can eke from today's battery/cell technology.

A couple of years ago, there was a push to implement a new standard, called 'USB to go', which would support peer-to-peer connects amongst USB devices, but as far as I can tell, it died an unglorious death somewhere along the way of 'good idea' to 'it will cost money'.

So, we have a couple of scattered implementations of USB-host to USB-host adapters, and the rest of us can just go pound sand.

One bright spot: at least one manufacturer of PDAs seems to 'get it' -- the new Sharp Zaurus sports a USB-host port, mainly to support USB-attached external keyboards, but being a Linux-based PDA, folks have already invented all manner of interesting ways to hook things to it, including Sprint phones for unlimited 140kps Internet browsing. I'd have one of these things myself, being a Linux geek, but I already have two of the previous versions 8-), unfortunately with USB-client only ports 8-(.

[skirkpatrick]

Moose, I hadn't appreciated the need to supply power to the client as a major obstacle to devices like the PicturePad (or others) providing full host services. The differences between USB (from Intel) and Firewire (an industry consortium plus Apple plus Sony, doing three slightly different things) have their roots in the early 1990's. The battle was won, as always in the PC business by being (a) Intel, and (b) cheapest, and (c) finally convincing Microsoft to support it (around 2001).

A gadget that had a CF 32 bit slot, plus USB2.0 and Firewire with which to download further, ability to change the drives when they get full, and just enough intelligence on board to run something that acts like Windows Explorer (resolution to the file, only rudimentary preview capability), would get my $$. If it can read any card I put in, I am not sure that it has to be a USB host.