MMCmobile + Card reader - 1500KB/s copy!
 

Hi,

I have a Kingston 2gb MMCmobile memory card for my 770 and three different USB card readers. Both the reading and writing speeds are 1500KBps from/to the MMC card. It is very slooooooooow! I bought my third card reader because it's specification said it supports MMC 4.0, MMCplus etc. But it is slow also.

Is it normal or am I just unlucky with the card readers (they work fine with SD cards)?

Re: MMCmobile + Card reader - 1500KB/s copy!
 

Yes you are unlucky :-) I have this one http://www.sharkoon.com/enghtml/usb.htm#xcplus and read speed is over 10MB/s with kingston card. It has all 13 mmc pins (in two rows) and can even take mmcmobile card without adapter. I have non-SDHC version but now they made new revision that supports SDHC too.

Re: MMCmobile + Card reader - 1500KB/s copy!
 

I don't suppose you know where I could get the Sharkoon USB Flex-Drive XC+ (that supports SDHC) from in the UK? A Google search has turned up quite a few German websites selling it; including Amazon.de, but nowhere in the UK, Amazon.co.uk says that it's currently unavailable. Pixmania are selling the XC version but I really want SDHC support, any suggestions?

Re: MMCmobile + Card reader - 1500KB/s copy!
 

I found that card on only one importer's lkist in Hungary but they don't have it anymore :(. What about the Kingston 15in1? Do you thing it supports the 13-pin cards?
Can I just look into the hole and see if there are more pins than usually? Is it a reliable test? :)

Re: MMCmobile + Card reader - 1500KB/s copy!
 

Well the second row is just a bonus and means that the reader can support even the 8bit MMC data transfer mode (no such SD mode exists). But even the 4 bit mode (over 9 pins, like SD) can still do 50MB/s in theory so the extra pins are not needed for fast transfer rates of current cards. But yes, if they bothered to put in more pins usable only for MMC 4.x cards, the support for high speed MMC modes should be in.

So yes, it shouls be reliable test but you rule out other 9 pin readers that could support it too.

Re: MMCmobile + Card reader - 1500KB/s copy!
 

Sorry, no :-(

BTW yesterday I bought the SDHC version too (~$10) and it looks exactly the same as the non-SDHC one except USB IDs (VID,PID) are different. The non-SDHC version works fine with most cards but it does not read some of them (like the 64MB mmcmobile one that comes with N770). The newer SDHC revision reads this card pretty well so probably they later also fixed some compatibility issues in the firmware. So the SDHC version may be a better choice even if you don't have SDHC cards now.

Re: MMCmobile + Card reader - 1500KB/s copy!
 

Hurray!! The Kingston card reader does support the MMC 4.1 correctly!
http://www.kingston.com/flash/15in1.asp?id=8
~17MB/s reading speed for the Kingston, and 15-16 for the original Nokia card :). No adapter needed to use the card.

Thanks for your help (and also for your good hacks ;)), fanoush!

Re: MMCmobile + Card reader - 1500KB/s copy!
 

hi, there is another option
http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.6858
I ordered it few weeks ago and it arrived today and simply works. Not sure about SDHC (don't have such card yet) but it reads mmcmobile cards quite fast. This is Kingston 2GB in cygwin in windows XP
Writing files is slower due to FAT filesystem but when measured in windows explorer copying one 41MB file took 6 seconds.

So far I have good experience with dealextreme.com - 2 orders, both arrived and both had everything included and 100% working. They have free shipping for everything without any limits and you can pay by paypal. The only issue is that shipping from HK is quite slow (2 weeks or more). Of course YMMV, this is cheap Chinese stuff so quality may vary, read some reviews there to get the picture.

EDIT: actually it looks like this reader has same chips inside as the Sharkoon one, it has same USB VID & PID and same fake USB serial number (0123456789..), only the case is different (slightly worse IMO) and has only 9 pins connected