Need a Good Card Reader

[RC]

Looking for some suggestions on a good CF card reader, I've put this off too long.  I'm tired of mine crapping out and resetting my PC when I insert my card    

I have one of those internal all-in-one 3.5 floppy/CF/SD/etc/etc drives I bought years ago from Tiger 

Interested in an internal (3.5 drive bay) as well as external.  Need reliability and speed.

Using Sandisk CF Extreme cards, 16 GB, 60/Mbs


PC - Windows XP w/ SP3
Intel Core 2 Quad 166 Mhz
4 Gig RAM
USB 2.0
External SATA & 1394

Thank you!

[Mt Spokane Photography]

Looking for some suggestions on a good CF card reader, I've put this off too long.  I'm tired of mine crapping out and resetting my PC when I insert my card    

I have one of those internal all-in-one 3.5 floppy/CF/SD/etc/etc drives I bought years ago from Tiger 

Interested in an internal (3.5 drive bay) as well as external.  Need reliability and speed.

Using Sandisk CF Extreme cards, 16 GB, 60/Mbs


PC - Windows XP w/ SP3
Intel Core 2 Quad 166 Mhz
4 Gig RAM
USB 2.0
External SATA & 1394

Thank you!

Good luck1  I haven't seen a good internal reader yet.  They are all too slow.  and, as you say, some of them will fail as soon as you insert a card.

On the other hand, I have  Sandisk and a Lexar external firewire 800 readers that are fast and excellent.

The USB 3 readers are now  available.  They will be very fast, if you have USB 3, and all pc's will have USB 3 in the future.

Thats what I'd buy if I needed something fast.  i'd also stick to Sandisk, Lexar, Delkin, there are likely others that are brands with a history of excellence.

http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&keywords=usb%203%20card%20reader&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Ausb%203%20card%20reader&page=1

[pwp]

I have a blindingly fast internal. It's an eSATA CF reader. Like the Mazda commercial....zoom zoom....

I also recently picked up a Lexar USB3 external. It's been completely perplexing how slow the rollout of USB3 hardware has been since USB3 was announced a few years ago. The motherboard on my 2 year old PC's have front & rear USB3 ports. So yippee when I saw the Lexar at my local dealer.

It does not always work. Sometimes the reader simply is not seen, and if it is recognized, it may deliver USB2 speeds. The very simple though irritating work-around is to unplug it and plug it in again. Ahhhh! That's better.  More zoom zoom. My Sandisk Extremes will dump their load at over 60 Mb/s. I've been used to 12-15 Mb/s from my USB2 external. That's time for lunch if you've come back from a job with 2 near full 32Gb cards.

So I read up on USB3. There are problems with it which we hope will be sorted eventually. If you have Mac, look out for Thunderbolt readers...they'll suck the files out of your cards in 30 seconds less than no time.

Paul Wright

[handsomerob]

I use Lexar's USB 3.0 reader with no problems what so ever. It's pretty fast, around 77MB/s (coming very close to the FireWire 800 readers), takes about 7mins to dump a full 32GB card (connected to a USB 3.0 port). USB offers backward compatibility so it works on a USB 2 ports as well, with reduced transfer rate. On my laptop I don't have USB 3.0 and the transfer rate is around 33MB/s, which seems to take ages If you upgrade your PC, you will most probably get a motherboard with USB 3.0, then you can see the real benefit.

I prefer external readers because I can easily take it with me & use it also with my laptop.

[Isaac]

Transcend card readers are great.

[candyman]

I am just curious. Why a cardreader. What about connecting your camera through USB to your PC? I do that with my 7D, goes fast using the EOS Utility. (Cards Sandisk 60MB and Transcend 600x)

[RC]

I am just curious. Why a cardreader. What about connecting your camera through USB to your PC? I do that with my 7D, goes fast using the EOS Utility. (Cards Sandisk 60MB and Transcend 600x)

Good question

1.  I use to do this but like a dummy I kept forgetting to unplug the cable from my PC and damaged one of my front USB connectors  .   I guess I was enjoying my new images so much I forgot  .  I figured I better quite this method before I damage my camera connector then I'd really be ticked .

2. I now have a quick automated way via Lightroom which streamlines the process.  I like this method better than the camera transfer method.

[handsomerob]

I am just curious. Why a cardreader. What about connecting your camera through USB to your PC? I do that with my 7D, goes fast using the EOS Utility. (Cards Sandisk 60MB and Transcend 600x)

For me, mostly because it's slow (compared to USB 3.0 or FireWire 800). I find the transfer rate important, since I copy & paste all images twice (normal storage + backup).
Also, there are times when you want to keep shooting (with a second card) while the first card is being copied to the hard drive. So you need the camera to be not-occupied.
And also, I don't want to waste battery power (even if it's not a big drain) for transferring files to the computer.
These are enough reasons for me to use a card reader rather than attaching the camera directly.

[SixeL]

I just got Lexar 24-in-1 Card Reader

Looks nice and works well!

[Fab_Angilletta]

Transcend card readers are great.

i had 2 times problem with Transcend cards so i don't buy their products, anymore!
i use sandisk now and it works perfect.

[pwp]

For me, mostly because it's slow (compared to USB 3.0 or FireWire 800). I find the transfer rate important, since I copy & paste all images twice (normal storage + backup).
Also, there are times when you want to keep shooting (with a second card) while the first card is being copied to the hard drive. So you need the camera to be not-occupied.
And also, I don't want to waste battery power (even if it's not a big drain) for transferring files to the computer.
These are enough reasons for me to use a card reader rather than attaching the camera directly.

Handsome Rob it sounds like you would benefit from bigger capacity CF cards. Recent price drops make this a fairly painless proposition. 32Gb cards offer the most Gb's per $$ right now.

Paul Wright

[handsomerob]

Handsome Rob it sounds like you would benefit from bigger capacity CF cards. Recent price drops make this a fairly painless proposition. 32Gb cards offer the most Gb's per $$ right now.
Paul Wright

Yes cards are cheap now but I rather wanna save toward a 1Dx

[bainsybike]

Quote from: candyman on November 24, 2011, 11:15:55 PM
I am just curious. Why a cardreader. What about connecting your camera through USB to your PC? I do that with my 7D, goes fast using the EOS Utility. (Cards Sandisk 60MB and Transcend 600x)

For me, mostly because it's slow (compared to USB 3.0 or FireWire 800). I find the transfer rate important, since I copy & paste all images twice (normal storage + backup).
Also, there are times when you want to keep shooting (with a second card) while the first card is being copied to the hard drive. So you need the camera to be not-occupied.
And also, I don't want to waste battery power (even if it's not a big drain) for transferring files to the computer.
These are enough reasons for me to use a card reader rather than attaching the camera directly.

An argument against using a card reader is that the pins in the camera connecting to the CF card have a finite life.  If they get bent, the camera's useless and you have an expensive repair job on your hands.  If you use the USB connection and it goes wrong, you can still use a card reader. 

[RC]

Quote from:  bainsybike on November 25, 2011
An argument against using a card reader is that the pins in the camera connecting to the CF card have a finite life.  If they get bent, the camera's useless and you have an expensive repair job on your hands.  If you use the USB connection and it goes wrong, you can still use a card reader.

Very good point!  Best argument for using the camera-to-computer transfer method.  I might just reconsider using a card reader.

[PhotoPol]

I am using a Belkin Universal Card reader (bought from Amazon) for last four months. It has not given me any trouble till now. The product description for this card reader says it can read and write fifty six different types of cards. But I have not tested them all, simply because I do not have so many types of cards at my disposal. I have used it to read from CF, SDHC and microSD cards without any trouble though. Windows 7 automatically recognizes the reader and downloads and installs the required drivers for the reader when you connect it for the first time to the computer. For Vista and XP there is a driver CD supplied with the card. Not sure about Mac or any other OS. Hope this helps.