I use a camera that has Compact Flash memory cards, specifically I use thew 16Gb variant of these -
http://www.sandisk.com/products/dslr/sa ... flash-card
When it's time to copy into the computer, I used to just plug the CF card into a USB2 card reader. The typical copy speed was about 3Mb per second. That's very slow when you're looking at up to 16Gb.
I got a new USB2 CF card reader and managed to get the copy speeds up to 8Mb per second.
Still pretty slow.
I got myself a dedicated photo computer with the latest greatest hardware, including USB3. Wouldn't you know it, I'm ahead of the game... I buy Windows 7 64 bit, and they don't even have drivers for USB3 yet, let alone USB3 CF card readers.
So... On to eBay.
I bought one of these.
Shop clever and you'll get it for less than $5. (pic)
I took out the hard drive from an external USB 3.5" SATA case, and installed this. Put the card in, and away it copies at typically 25Mb per second.
Better, but the card is rated up to 90...
I tried hooking it straight up to the SATA port on my motherboard but it cannot detect drivers for it, so I will try that on my XP computer next time the cover is off.
So.
I connected it to one of these. $3.74 delivered.
Then I hooked it up to the internal IDE cable. It needs a reboot to detect it, but it will then copy at an average 50Mb per second.
But the connection is a bit dodgy, easy to break little bits of plastic.
I now have one of these and am yet to do some testing.
I do not know how they can do them so cheap. It sure saves me some time when copying files after a shoot.
Ask away if you want to know more.