Which SD and USB standards are supported by my laptop?

[Henrik11]

Hi, I want to want to expand my storage using a USB-stick or SD-card. I reckon that USB is faster than SD, right?

Which are the highest USB and SD standards that my Spectre x360 (15-eb1014no) supports and can take advantage of?

For example:

5 Gbit/s, USB 3.1 Gen 1

10 Gbit/s, USB 3.1 Gen 2

20 Gbit/s, USB 3.2 Gen 2x2

SDHC

SDXC

SDUC

and so on...

[TzortzisG · Accepted solution]

Hi Henrik11.

According to your spec page https://support.hp.com/lv-en/document/c07038982 you have 2 Thunderbolt™ 4 with USB4™ Type-C® 40Gbps signaling rate (USB Power Delivery, DisplayPort™ 1.4, HP Sleep and Charge); 1 SuperSpeed USB Type-A 10Gbps signaling rate (HP Sleep and Charge);

So that would mean:

1x USB 3.2 Gen 2×1 (usually just called USB 3.2 Gen 2): SuperSpeed+ USB at 10Gbps

and 2x T4 (equivalent to USB4 Gen 3×2 at 40Gbps)

About your card reader, I couldn't verify the exact type of sd cards it can support (I looked everywhere). It is possible that it can support the fast sduc format cards. However, it's not (imho) very likely. This format appeared in HP laptop card readers with 10th gen intels and up (so this includes you) but on the top tier products (zbook worktstations mostly). So my guess is it supports plain sdxc and below....

I have to point out that card readers aren't actually limited by the formats they support and the card speeds, but by their hardware. What I mean is that although sdxc card readers should (with high quality cards) be able to reach 300MB/s, HP's card readers usually perform (if you're lucky) like a fast spinner HDD (~130MB/s).

Regarding your storage expansion, I've tried many of these options you're exploring in the past, and the only one I found worthwhile is using a usb adapter/enclosure to expand my system with an SSD drive. Originally I used the 2.5'' SSDs and later on I started using enclosures with m.2 nvme SSDs. USB sticks are not a good choice for these kinds of "makeshift" secondary storage solutions......

[Henrik11]

Thank you very much! May I ask why USB sticks are not a good choice for these kinds of "makeshift" secondary storage solutions?