Initially SxS cards didn’t work with the EchoExpress, but Sonnet recently released a dedicated SxS driver that allows the EchoExpress to work as a SxS card reader.

The transfer speeds with my original version EchoExpress are not as fast as when I had a built in ExpressCard slot, but it’s still a massive improvement over USB, about 4 times faster. This is where the Sonnet EchoExpress became a “must have” add on, as it provides an external ExpressCard slot connected to the computer using Thunderbolt.īy using the EchoExpress box along with a Sonnet eSATA express card adapter I can connect eSATA devices to my MacBook Pro. So I decided to upgrade to a new MacBook Pro, but this then meant the loss of the Express Card slot. However, the processing power on my older MacBook was falling somewhat behind the modern machines and when trying to transcode from the uncompressed Gemini DPX files to ProRes or DNxHD was taking ages. I have a Convergent Design Gemini which records on to SSD’s and the fastest way to offload these on location (for me at least) was to plug an eSATA PCI Express card into the slot on may older MacPro and then connect the Gemini Docking station to one port and then an external eSATA drive to the other.

When Apple removed the express card slot from their MacBook Pro laptops, they severely restricted the ability to connect high speed external hard drives. There are two versions of the EchoExpress, the standard one, which is the one I have and a “Pro” version that offers higher speed transfers when using PCIe 2.0 adapters. I have had this little box for a couple of months now, but until the recent release of SxS drivers by Sonnet you couldn’t use it as an SxS card reader.

Sonnet sxs reader thunderbolt 2