Thinkpads Forum

Hi all
I've recently purchased another t60P (2007-96U) and didn't realized that it does not read SDHC for my videos.
Does anyone know if there's an adapter that will sit flush within the T60P? i don't know what that big space for some type of card on the side of left palm is for but wondering if i can get a SDHC card to fit inside ...looked around the forum but could find any answers..
Iam looking for a sdhc card adapter (class6) that will sit flush in the T60P ..does Lenovo make one? or any recommended brands..thanks much

chazz wrote:Does anyone know if there's an adapter that will sit flush within the T60P? i don't know what that big space for some type of card on the side of left palm is for...

The big space on the left hand side under the palmrest is a Combo slot - The lower slot is for a PCMCIA card (aka CardBus) & the upper slot is for an ExpressCard.

There are a good few SDHC ExpressCard readers on ebay, however if you do not have an ebay account try Amazon - Check out the four gallery pictures, which shows this product in use etc. Note that the SDHC card will only insert into the ExpressCard reader approx 2/3 way in and hence will stick out.

Once upon a time there were ExpressCard reader made by Griffin that featured a spring-loaded slot in which the SD card was fully enclosed into the expresscard, unfortunately this reader did not support SDHC cards etc.

There is also a PCMCIA (CardBus) multicard reader that fits fairly flush into the PCMCIA slot of your T60 - See pictures in auction description.

I have both ExpressCard (as per Amazon link above) & PCMCIA (as per ebay link above) readers and can confirm that the ExpressCard is generally much faster than the PCMCIA (as you would expect?).

Happy hunting -

Please be careful to properly differentiate between PCMCIA and CardBus. Both terms are often indiscriminately mixed, although their features are actually worlds apart from each other, speed wise. Citing en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CardBus about how to easily distinguish them from each other: "CardBus cards can be distinguished from older cards by the presence of a gold band with eight small studs on the top of the card next to the pin sockets".

The PCMCIA SDHC adapter shown in ebay item 280637089337 won't be any match to a real CardBus SDHC adapter like the one shown in items 300467818479 and 280561966790, or also 220661093554. The original requestor would be well advised to choose either a CardBus or even ExpressCard adapter, but to avoid any kind of old PCMCIA item like the plague.

The bottom line is to avoid any PCMCIA gadget, and to make sure to choose a true CardBus device instead, in order to not sacrifice any speed. An ExpressCard device would probably be even faster, but i doubt it would make any real difference for normal usage (apart from the /34 versus /54 form factor).

I recently bought one of the latter mentioned CardBus SDHC adapters for my T61, but i am still waiting for delivery. I also separately bought an ExpressCard SDHC adapter (ebay item 190391593129) for speed comparison purposes, but it has not been delivered yet either. Watch this space for a future update about my non-scientific comparison results.

rumbero - Welcome to the forum

Many thanks for PCMCIA & CardBus info - appreciated -

This is the one I use:
Sandisk SDAD-109 ExpressCard Reader/Writer
Sits flush and works flawlessly, including SDHC. Note that just the adapter sits flush. The card, when inserted, sticks out a bit.

Would this work for SDHC from Lenovo?

http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/cont ... u_area=yes

It says it's compatible with the T60.

chazz wrote:Would this work for SDHC from Lenovo?

http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/cont ... u_area=yes

This is a security Smart Card reader and does not seem to support SDHC cards.

rumbero wrote: I recently bought one of the latter mentioned CardBus SDHC adapters for my T61, but i am still waiting for delivery. I also separately bought an ExpressCard SDHC adapter (ebay item 190391593129) for speed comparison purposes, but it has not been delivered yet either. Watch this space for a future update about my non-scientific comparison results.

So, the second of the two SD card readers has finally been delivered, and therefore i've taken some time for a non-scientific speed comparison for both adapters. I was using the same AGFAPHOTO 4GB Class 4 SDHC card under Debian Linux with kernel version 2.6.37-2-amd64 on my T61 8895-WFJ workhorse for this very task.

The first test consisted in writing a 2GB size file to the card, measuring the times for both the command completion and the subsequent sync routine time for actually writing the data to the storage device. After remounting the card, the second test consisted of reading and feeding the same 2GB file with the cat command to /dev/null, again measuring the execution time. I repeated this for both adapters, using the same SD card.

For my extremely non-scientific human impatience measuring approach, both the CardBus SDHC adapter and the ExpressCard SDHC adapter did perform almost the same, with maybe a 5% advantage for the ExpressCard version. I consider this difference to be neglectable and would recommend either of both cards.

Just a word about the slight difference in handling of SD cards between both adapter versions:

- The CardBus SDHC adapter can stay permamently inserted in the CardBus slot, and will recognize any card all by itself, assigning it to the Linux standard SD device file /dev/mmcblk0p1. So it actually acts like the standard built-in SD card slots we can find in some widescreen ThinkPad models.

- The ExpressCard SDHC adapter rather works like a standard USB device, and doesn't recognize any SD card upon insertion by itself, if it is already put into place in the ExpressCard slot. In fact you have to insert the SD card into the adapter before plugging it into the ExpressCard slot. Once you push the adapter including the SD card into the ExpressCard slot, Linux will recognize the SD card as a standard USB storage device and assign it a disk device file /dev/sdb (or whatever). Then you can mount the relevant partition it contains as a standard disk storage device.

Just choose the adapter that suits your connection needs and possibilities best. The CardBus SDHC adapter would maybe serve as the most suitable approach if you are using an older ThinkPad like a T23 or similar. I like the CardBus SDHC adapter version because it can easily stay permanently inserted into the CardBus slot, as it doesn't stick out.

Hope this helps!

@Peak2Peak: Thanks for the welcome! Nonetheless, i am no stranger to the forum since quite a few years now. I was already reading along for very long time, but never felt the need to register, as there was nothing to contribute from my side up until now. There, now i finally did it!

Thanks rumbero and everyone for chiming in..

rumbero your comparison cleared it up.. I should have been more precise, I am looking for CardBus SDHC that fits flush into the T60p. I should have been more specific.. oh well since I've already ordered a ExpressCard SDHC last week..we'll see how that goes.. Thanks all for your help...