It has a fair number of USB ports but not for cards like
Sandisk's I use in my camera. The 8500 has them in
front (4 different sizes and 2 quite large that I have no
idea what would connect to them maybe a video camera?)
and to be honest I didn't know what they were for when I
bought it.

I started to clone the 780, I put a blank hd in the Startech case,
then labeled it but when I connected it to the 780 there was no
response or pop-up or icon to safely remove it. I had to restart
the computer twice to remove the USB cable and opened the
Startech case to check the seating of the hd. Then tried it again
but this time on the right USB port.

Now this is strange, I was pulling it in the left port and nothing
happened but the right port connected. So it appears I have a bad
or dirty left USB port on the 780.

The right side connected and am now in the process of cloning
Win7 Pro then to make it bootable I'll replace the hd with the clone
to make sure it boots and then put the old hd back and repeat the
process. (2) hd's for the 780 and (2) hds for the 8500.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Robert