EggXpert

I currently have a HP Officejet Pro L7580 all in one with scanner. Would a pass through scanner or a flatbed scanner be faster than what I currently have. I have alot of photos and then documents to scan. I have a need for speed.

I am going to be scanning alot of old photos, so I need something that would be gentle on them.

You might want to look for a scanner that has an infra-red beam to detect and automatically remove dust..  Dust was a HUGE problem for my on my HP scanner, I couldn't scan any photos without tons of dust specs sticking to them.. Blowing them up large really didn't work out very well at all.. Most of the time, you can't even see the dust when your eyes look at the photo itself, but there's something about the bright light of the scanner beam that really makes the dust shine back light..  Can't wipe it off with your hands because then you get a fingerprint on it, and if you wipe it off with a very fine dust cloth (paper towels or just about anything else leaves more dust than it takes off), you have a whole 10 seconds to get it through the scanner before it picks up dust again..

As far as faster scanners, ya, the more expensive scanners are faster at a given scan resolution..  It's just a matter of how much money you're willing to spend.. Though the speed of scanning never was that big of a deal for me..  I have a dedicated HP Scanjet, it's not too bad, but there are definitely WAY better photo scanners out there than any scanners HP makes.. 

IMO, HP's scanners are better for text documents, not so great for photos due to no infrared anti-dust pass and their poor performance at photo resolutions.