CompactFlash Card Reader

This review is on a very simple but necessary device. If you have a digital camera you NEED this device. I bought a Nikon D70 and almost immediately ordered this Card Reader from B&H.

I cannot imagine using the included cable to plug my camera into my computer to download images. It just seems more plausible to unplug the card from the camera and plug it into the computer. Enter the SanDisk sddr92a15, which gives you that ability.

There are other possibilities, most notably a multiple device card reader, which allows you to connect up to 12 different types of cards into one reader. That's the reason though that I picked this device. If your card reader will read 7, or 9, or 12 different devices it will also assign that many device addresses. I don't want to have to deal with all that clutter in my computer. You only get 26 device addresses in Windows. I don't want to give up two to floppies and 12 to a simple card reader. I only have one type of card so when I'm looking at Windows Explorer the "Removable Disk" is my Card Reader. This Card Reader only reads CompactFlash cards (type I or II), thus only assigns one address.

I figured that it would be awhile till I needed another type of card reader other than for my CompactFlash card. Nikon however has recently announced two new cameras. The Nikon D50 uses an SD card but then later the even newer D200 went back to a Compact Flash card. I'm still happy with my purchase though as I'm probably going to develop more of a yearning for the 10.2 megapixel D200 than the D50.

I leave my SanDisk sddr92a15 reader plugged into my computer all the time. If I want to remove it or exchange it for another card I hot-swap the flash card. Windows and Linux don’t seem to mind doing this although you might want to check the manufacturers recommendations on my hot-swapping idea.

When I first purchased this card reader I had problems with the download speed with both Windows 2000 Pro and Windows 2000 Advanced Server. I found that Linux (Mepis live) downloaded the 1GB cards so much faster that it was faster to boot Linux, download the data and then reboot Windows to get back to what I was doing. That problem went away, I'm not sure where. My assumption is that when I installed service pack 4 on both Windows OS's that fixed the slow downloads. I've heard that some Windows XP users have long download times with this reader. If so I'd check for the latest service pack, although I have minimal personal experience with XP.

I guess I've been around computers too long. When I think card reader I think of the old punch card readers. Picture 1000 cards per minute flying through a machine so that all you saw was a blur of cards. It was visually almost a continuous sheet of card stock. They read data even slower than a 56k Modem!

The SanDisk sddr92a15 is a USB 2 device, but will operate on USB1.1 at it's slower (1.5 MBPS) transfer rate. USB 2 runs 40 times faster at 60 megabytes per second. Assuming you have a USB plug on your computer you'll be able to use this device. You won't need to install any software unless you have Windows 98. With Windows 98 you'll have to install a driver, unless you already have. On my old Windows 98 2nd machine I had a USB ZipDrive so didn't need the driver.

I've tried both Lexar and SanDisk 1 GB cards with this reader. I found that it's possible to boot from a flash card in this reader although it certainly wasn't appropriate on that large organizations PC. I haven't pursued that idea further. I also used this flash card/reader combination instead of a thumb drive. Both the oerating system and the camera have no problem with other files and folders on the card.

The SanDisk sddr92a15 is a silvery gray with black trim. It comes with a 5-foot (approx) USB cable. The cable is long enough that I can hang it from the top front of my computer case making the dual purpose LED visible. The green LED is off when I plug the card in. When I read or write the LED blinks. When done the blinking slows to about once per second then stays on solid.

I found another reason to purchase this device. If you buy a printer it may not come with a cable. My Epson R200 didn't. I paid more for a cable than this card reader costs. The included cable has a plug on either end. The device end of the cable also plugs into my printer. It works fine and I tested it as I write this.

Price I paid: $19.95

If you enjoyed this review you might also read my controversial computer memory review.