It really is frustrating when a new and better technology comes out but your computer doesn’t have the necessary hardware to make use of it, isn’t it? Unfortunately, in this situation you can’t just download and install new device drivers to fix the problem.

Buffalo has come to the rescue! At least for providing a way to add USB 3.0 to your existing hardware. Buffalo’s new USB 3.o PCMCIA adapter makes it possible for you to get ‘almost’ USB 3 speeds on your old laptop.

So what do I mean by ‘almost’ USB 3 speeds?

I assume that the limitations of the Express card interface are what cause the adapter to be slower then USB 3.0 ports located on a new motherboard although the slightly slower speeds could also be caused by the older hardware and device drivers on the existing motherboard. So you might want to update them too.

Benchmark testing on the new adapter using a USB2 hard disk showed that large files were written at 69.4MB/s and read at 106.2MB/s while small files were written at 42.3MB/s and read at 50.4MB/s. While that is slower than an on board USB port’s speed, it is considerably faster than any USB2 disk. In fact, it is as fast as most eSATA disks.

Buffalo’s new adapter uses the NEC USB3 chipset and costs around $50. The only drawback I see is that, like all PCMCIA card adapters, it is easy to unplug them when removing cables and, of course, they do stick out of the side of your laptop and can get broken if you forget to remove them before putting the laptop in its case. (I managed to break an N wireless card that way once.)

However, you can’t beat the cost for getting much faster USB speeds for removable drives.