Sonnet measured read performance for three manufacturers' 600X (90MB/sec) CF cards in the Qio, connected to a MacBook Pro:
Lexar Professional 600X...86MB/sec
Transcend 600X...............71MB/sec
SanDisk Extreme Pro........61MB/sec
Yes, but you must hot plug the Qio's interface card into the ExpressCard/34 slot of the 17" Thunderbolt MacBook Pro. The Qio will not be recognized in the 17" Thunderbolt MacBook Pro if you boot or restart with the Qio plugged into the ExpressCard/34 slot. See FAQ 632 for more infomation about compatibility connecting Qio via Thunderbolt.