New FW 800 CF Reader Available

[EvilTed]

I thought I'd share this seeing as I spent hours trawling the net trying to find a fast CF reader for my MBP.
I had a FW 800 Sandisk reader but sold it when I moved from a Nikon D300 to a D7000.

Now I'm switching to a 5D MK3, I need a fast FW 800 reader.
It seems the Sandisk and Lexar are no longer available and sell for ridiculous amounts.

Never fear, I found a new alternative

http://fstoppers.com/gear-fw800-cardreader

Update: Got my card reader today. Used it with a Lexar Professional x1000 32GB UDMA 7 with RAW images from my 5D MK3.
On OS-X Lion 10.7.3 it mounted as a regular drive and it took 10seconds to copy 1.5GB to my desktop.
Seems like they fixed the firmware as I suspected
Enjoy

ET

[neuroanatomist]

Great find, thanks! 

FWIW, I currently use an ExpressCard CF reader with my MB Pro, and I'm still hoping someone comes out with a Thunderbolt CF reader which would work with my MB Air.

[airforceones25]

Lol. I actually just ordered one of these bad boys a couple days ago. Came to $59 after shipping. I wasn't willing to shell out a couple hundred dollars for a discontinued SanDisk or Lexar.

[Mt Spokane Photography]

I have both a Lexar and a Sandisk firewire 800 reader.  I don't bother to use them any more.  I didn't know they were worth anything. 

[scruffysaint]

I've been using the Delock firewire reader for nearly a year now and it has served me extremely well. The only issues have been that it wasn't recognised by OSX Lion so I had to change back the OS and one of my Photofast CF cards isn't always recognised the first time it's inserted into the reader. Other than that...it's perfect!

[dolina]

I see Apple deprecating FW in favor for USB3.0 and Thunderbolt in the 2012 Macs.

[Axilrod]

I got one of  the Lexar firewire CF card readers from my neighbor when he was selling some random gear, I got it for $40 and didn't realize how good of a deal that was until I started looking for a 2nd and 3rd a few months later.  People were asking anywhere from $150-$250.  I immediately wished I had bought the 2nd one my neighbor had!

[EvilTed]

scruffysaint

If you read the blog article in the link I posted, they mention a firmware update that fixes the OS-X Lion issue.
All the new shipping devices should have the updated firmware.

ET

[Bosman]

Great Find! My Sandisk FW reader stopped working on snow leopard, or just stopped working...I contacted Sandisk and they sent me a new and updated one. Looks the same. Works great! Its nice to know if i need more readers i can still get them. They were smart to make this, cuz i wouldn't buy any other type myself, they transport images faster than anything I can get for my mac w/o installing HW on my mac pro.

[Mt Spokane Photography]

Thanks for the tip, I dug out my Lexar and my Sandisk firewire readers and sold them on ebay for more than I paid new.  I'll be using a USB 3 reader in the future.

[neuroanatomist]

No USB3 on Macs, no ThunderBolt readers    I picked up a used SanDisk FW800 CF reader from Craigslist for $25 to supplement my ExpressCard/34 reader.

[prestonpalmer]

Great find, thanks! 

FWIW, I currently use an ExpressCard CF reader with my MB Pro, and I'm still hoping someone comes out with a Thunderbolt CF reader which would work with my MB Air.

What express card reader are you using for your MB pro?  I have the Sandisk Extreme Pro Express Card reader and that stupid thing crashes my macbook like crazy!  I called sandisk on it, they replaced it once, I had the same problem.  I talked to a senior hardware developer over at Sandisk and he said the product is no longer supported by anything over OS 10.4.?  I looked at Lexar's version, but it seems to be EXACTLY the same!  Im gonna order the FW800 you just posted.

[RunAndGun]

I've been wondering what happened to all the FW800 readers...  I have, I think, two Lexar FW800 CF readers and they work well, but I switched to the Lexar Express Card CF reader when it became available a few years ago and that's all I use for my CF cards on my MBP.  I don't know if it's just the cards I used to use (300x) or if it is something else, but I was expecting a lot more speed from the express card slot than the FW800.  I timed DL's and they were essentially the same speed, to within probably a few seconds.

[prestonpalmer]

I've been wondering what happened to all the FW800 readers...  I have, I think, two Lexar FW800 CF readers and they work well, but I switched to the Lexar Express Card CF reader when it became available a few years ago and that's all I use for my CF cards on my MBP.  I don't know if it's just the cards I used to use (300x) or if it is something else, but I was expecting a lot more speed from the express card slot than the FW800.  I timed DL's and they were essentially the same speed, to within probably a few seconds.

You are using the Lexar Express Card CF? With MacbookPro 10.7+?  How much ram in the MacBook? Has your system ever kernel panicked (locked up) from using the card?

[neuroanatomist]

What express card reader are you using for your MB pro?  I have the Sandisk Extreme Pro Express Card reader and that stupid thing crashes my macbook like crazy!

I use one from Siig.  It does cause an occasional kernel panic (the Siig ExpressCard SD reader doesn't); the Sandisk FW800 reader I picked up seems just as fast, and is quite stable.