This Super Fast Card Reader Is Hot!
I’ve been using a Firewire card reader to get my images from my memory card into my laptop for quite a while now, but I forgot to bring it with me to one of my Lightroom Tour stops and wound up borrowing a friend’s Delkin Compact Flash reader that slides directly into your laptop’s Express Card slot (so there’s no Firewire or USB cord necessary). But beside the sheer convenience of not having to carry a reader and a connector cable, in copying the photos off my card—it absolutely hauled butt! (and “butt” isn’t the term I think best describes it). In fact, I’ve never had images copied at anywhere near that speed (up to 20MB per seconds!).
So, as soon as I got back home, I ordered the same one: Delkin’s eFilm Express Card 34 (for Compact Flash cards), and it just rocks. In fact, it so rocks that I’m giving it my “Scott Thinks It’s Hot!” Award because now I can’t live without it. B&H Photo has it for $59.95 (remember, B&H Photo gives NAPP members free shipping), or you can buy it direct from Delkin (at $59.95–it’s worth every penny!).
Now it’s time for the Friday News—-scroll down my friend, scroll down.
Reason you’ve not managed more than 20Mb/sec is because you are using Lexar gear. Try Sandisk extreme readers and cards. You’ll get close to 40Mb/sec with the latest ones on Firewire.
I used to be a Lexar fan but they’ve fallen way behind in performance in last couple years.
Mike
Hi Scott,
Whether its Lexar or Sandisk, try out the firewire400/800 readers. They should give you better performance over any USB reader and probably over the Delkin.
Although, I can’t argue the convenience over not carrying an annoying cable =)
I am having problems with the Express Card 34 and my MacBook Pro. Sometimes it works and most of the time it doesn’t. I’ll get a pop up that says “The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer” or the red light on the card reader will turn off and I have to try it 20 times until it works. I have tried with 3 or 4 of these expressCard34 adapters and 4 of us at my office are having the same problem on our macbook pros. Is anyone else having this problem?
A picture of what it looks like in your laptop would have been helpful – I’m sure that’s something everyone wants to know: how much it sticks out.
This thing works great, Scott ! Thanks for the tip on your blog.
I would love to be able to use this thing but they do not support Vista. Any idea when they might bring out a driver for Vista? I bought it not thinking that a hardware manufacturer would have a product not supporting the latest operating systems.
Doug
Scott,
Thanks, I will order one.
Jack
I have recently purchased a Delkin Expresscard 34 CF reader and tried importing images into Lightroom 2.3. It crashed my Macbook Pro each time I tried it. To make matters worse it corrupted my LR catologue each time it crashed. Anyone else getting the same problem?
It is a great idea but useless for me if it crashes and corrupts the LR catoloque each time I want to import images into LR
Bob
It’s interesting to see just how permeant virtual memory has become in our every day lives. It seems like everytime I turn my head, I see something with a card slot or USB jack, lol. I guess it makes sense though, considering how cheap memory has become as of late…Gahhhh, I shouldn’t be complaining. I can’t make it through a day without my R4 / R4i!(Submitted from Nintendo DS running R4i SDHC cPost scPost)