I got tired of seeing all these nifty USB2 devices, feeling trapped inside my Powerbook. Yes, it's got firewire and USB 1.1, but golley... digital cameras, scanners, and all sorts of other stuff, not to mention cheaper external HD enclosures... are all coming with USB 2.0, not firewire! We all know how *slow* USB 1.1 is for most purposes. Well, my Pismo has a PCMCIA "Cardbus" slot that I've never found particularly useful....
So I started exploring the PCMCIA to USB 2.0 adapters that various companies sell. Some are inexpensive, others are not. Some have 2 ports, some have 3 or 4. Some include firewire. Most require an external power supply, some using a PS/2 adapter cable, others using a dedicated AC adapter. Few claim Macintosh compatibility. I didn't expect that system 9 would support them, since there were no USB 2.0 Macs during the production of OS 9. And I've had my share of troubles with PCMCIA cards under OS 9 as well, but that's a different story.
I finally decided to just give it a shot. My main consideration was power: I knew that PCMCIA *can* supply power, because I used to have a PCMCIA-linked hard drive back in the days of my powerbook 1400, and it was fully bus-powered. But none of the cards I found, with one possible exception, claimed bus power. Some weren't even clear HOW they were powered. I planned to use the adapter for a USB-to-compact flash adapter, and for a 2.5" external hard drive. Both need bus power.
I shopped around online, but felt pessimistic and decided to start with the cheapest. Ordered a "house brand" 4-port adapter, model UC214, from PCMicrostore.com, for a mere $17 (plus $4 for US Mail delivery). This product never even mentioned Macintosh.
It arrived. It came with a small, dedicated AC power adapter, an instruction leaflet (for windoze users only), and a CD of drivers. The label on the CD actually does mention Mac OS X, but I was reluctant to let some generic "house brand" install drivers on my Mac, so I tossed the CD aside and ignored it.
Plugged it into my PCMCIA slot, plugged the AC adapter in, and plugged my drive in. AND IT WORKS!!! It works with my compact flash adapter, too! So now my Pismo has USB 2.0 and it only cost me $17! And all with the drivers built-in to Jaguar.
You want details and benchmarks? You got it: I'm running Mac OS X "Jaguar" 10.2.8 on a Pismo at 500MHz, with 1GB RAM. My internal hard drive is a partitioned IBM 40GB model 40GNX at 5400rpm with 8MB cache. The external hard drive is a 20GB 2.5" Toshiba MK2016GAP at 4200rpm with 1MB cache, in a Welland model ME-910U2F enclosure (combo USB2.0/USB1.1/firewire 400). As a simple measure of throughput/speed, I finder-copied a 375MB JPG, with various arrangements as follows:
COPY from internal drive to external drive, via built-in USB 1.1 bus: 526 seconds.
COPY from one partition to another partition, both on my internal hard drive: 49 seconds.
COPY from internal drive to external drive, via UC214 USB 2.0 adapter: 34 seconds.
Copy from internal drive to external drive, via built-in firewire: 26 seconds.
So this PCMCIA to USB 2.0 adapter isn't as fast as firewire, but it sure beats the socks off of USB 1.1 by a WHOPPING 15.5 X FASTER! (Perhaps a different external drive & enclosure would perform even better under USB 2.0 with this pcmcia adapter.)
But for $17, plug-and-play, I'm VERY satisfied with this "house brand" UC214, from PC Microstore.
Other models you might like to consider:
** Startech CB2U2F (dual firewire400 plus dual USB2.0), explicitly Mac compatible. Costing $90 at MacMall.
** Startech CBUSB2 (triple USB2.0), explicitly Mac compatible. Claims to be bus powered. Costing $44 at MacMall, $30 at computerstop.com.
** Koutech 7400 (dual firewire400 plus dual USB2.0), explicitly Mac compatible, Powered by USB 1.1 cable. Costing $47 at outpost.com, $53 at newegg.com.
** Koutech IOFlex 2002-2a (dual USB2.0). Costing $22 at newegg.com, $19 at outpost.com.
**IOGear/Aten GPU202 (dual USB2.0), explicitly Mac compatible, even with System 8.6 (USB1.1). Costing $40 at amazon.com, $37 at MacMall.
Good Luck! --Jim.
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