What is the Best Card Reader?

[alton krenslok]

I don't know how much difference there actually is between brands & models. I'm looking at SanDisk's SDDR-99. The reader does not need to be portable or lightweight and will be used with a desktop PC. Cards used are SanDisk Standard & Lexar Platinum II SD (both 512 MB). Is the SDDR-99 a pretty good reader or are there better models? Another card type that I may use in the future is xD Type M (for a phone). I don't want to spend more than $30.

[TCav]

SanDisk and Lexar both make good card readers, along with (surprisingly enough) D-Link.

[TCav]

Again, http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/mul...?cid=6007-8462has emphirical tests for card readers. Check it out.

[alton krenslok]

TCav wrote:

Again, http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/mul...?cid=6007-8462has emphirical tests for card readers. Check it out.

I'll have to remember that the Rob Galbraith website is a tremendous repository of information. Thank you, again, for the link and for reminding me. For my immediateSD card needs the SanDisk ImageMate 5-in-1 Card Reader/Writer should more than suffice.

[JimC]

Make sure any reader you buy is SDHC compatible, too. Some won't work with newer SD cards. Ditto for newer Type H xD Picturecards (some readers don't support them). I don't know if that particular Sandisk supports these newer card types or not.

[steve]

Kingston's 15-in-1 USB 2.0 Hi-Speed Reader (p/n FCR-HS215/1) is a tiny and very fast card reader/writer that handles: CompactFlash Type I and Type II including Microdrives, SD, SDHC, MMC, MMC Plus, SmartMedia, Memory Stick, Memory Stick Pro, Memory Stick Pro Duo, RS-MMC, MMCmicro, MMC mobile and microSD cards. About the only thing it won't work with is xD-Picture cards used by Fuji and Olympus cameras.
It DOES handle the new SDHC (SD High Capacity) type cards and costs about $20.

[alton krenslok]

Thanks for the advice. Turns out that the SanDisk SDDR-99 does not handle SDHC cards, which brings up a new question: What size card constitutes High Capacity? 512 MB (I have 1 SanDisk Standard& 1 Lexar Platinum II in this size) or 1 GB and higher? I'll probably go with the Kingston b/c it looks like SanDisk does not have a reader that supports SDHC - at least, I'm not finding one........

[JimC]

The SDHC specification was intended to allow cards larger than 2GB in size (the original Secure Digital Spec didn't allow for larger sizes).

With some card types, the interface mechanism remains compatible with larger cards (CompactFlash is one example). But, the File System type changes to FAT32 with >2GB sizes, so the camera still needs to support a different file system type to use them.

But, with Secure Digital, the way the cards interface changed as well, and newer SDHC compliant cards may not be compatible with many older devices, including card readers. Sandisk is actually shipping a tiny SDHC reader with many of their newer SDHC cards now.

For example, look at the paragraph immediately after the photo of the card in this listing:

Sandisk 4GB SDHC Ultra II at sandisk.com

SanDisk is proud to announce our newest format and capacity to the Ultra[sup]®[/sup] IISD card family: SD High Capacity (SDHC) 4GB card. Included is our new MicroMate™SD/SDHC compatible, high-speed USB 2.0 Reader! This will help and ensure your transition from the SD format, to the SDHC format – for our cards and for compatible host devices.

So, if all you've got to worry about is a couple of older cards, it shouldn't make any difference. But, if I were going to buy a newer reader, I'd probably get one that handles all newer (at least commonly used current) card types, too. As fast as memory prices are dropping, your next mobile phone may be using one of them to store video, or you may buy a different camera model (or other device) that uses one of them.

[alton krenslok]

Thanks for the interesting read. My next mobile phone will pobably be the Nokia N75 (if Cingular/AT&T ever get around to releasing it) and that takes microSD. Looks like Kingston is the winner.

[JohnF]

This is a problem for me too. I have a SanDisk Imagemate 12-in-1 ( brand new but It has a problem recognizing cards in the SD slaot--was just replaced by SanDisk because another was doing the same thing. Reads compact flash and smart media without a problem. Decided to give up on Sandisk and started checking out reviews of other readers and found similar problems reported with other readers. Now what? Very frustrating.

John