Transcend USB 3.0 Super Speed Multi-Card Reader for SD/SDHC/SDXC/MS/CF Cards (TS-RDF8K),Black

My old compact flash card reader died, and after a lot of research, I settled on this Transcend brand multi-card reader. It works very well, is easy to insert the cards, and has a nice blue light that is illuminated when a card has been inserted. My only caveat? The cord is very short. Maybe a foot or so long. But for most people who are using laptops anyways, that would be a non-issue. I just have it plugged into my desktop tower, so it sits on top of the tower -- no big deal. PROS: small + compact reads lots of different media blue light illuminates when card is inserted USB 3.0 quick transfer speed lower price than key brands CONS: probably not AS fast as top brand pro level readers short USB cord can limit your placement Overall, I'm really happy with this product. It was worth the savings to go with this reader over a pro level card reader that boasted even faster speeds -- because I'm not transferring thousands of images on a daily basis.

I wanted a USB 3.0 card reader that's capable of taking advantage of the UHS-1 controllers built into the latest memory cards. While my current SIIG and Lexar USB 3.0 readers are pretty good, technology marches on and it's important to keep up, if only to save time during transfers of large files. After getting the reader, I tested it with my Windows 8.1 system that has built-in USB 3.0 ports(a Lenovo laptop). And boy does this card reader deliver the speed. With my Transcend U3 speed capable cards, I got write speeds of 59 to 60 MB/sec, exactly as claimed, through this card reader. Even with older U1 speed cards, it was writing to them at 36-37 MB/sec steadily, sufficient to actually meet the U3 speed specification of 30 MB/sec. Read speeds were ridiculous in triple digits. I could move a 1 gig file so fast off the card that it was too quick to notice--less than 5 seconds. In brief, this card reader works well, delivers the speeds claimed, and is easy to carry with you when you need it. It has slots for microSD, SDXC/SDHC/SD, and compact flash. Other reviews have pointed out that you cannot use the microSD and SD slots simultaneously, so please be aware of that. Otherwise, this is an excellent card reader/writer that delivers exactly as advertised!

I bought this card reader to replace an Anker USB 3.0 card reader. I'm reasonably certain that the Anker card reader actually physically damaged the case of a SanDisk SD card to the point that my camera would not register the card. To be safe I just went ahead and replaced it with this Transcend unit. It works perfectly well. I've only used the full-size SD card and microSD card slots. Transfer speeds seem reasonably fine. Cards are easy to insert and remove. There's a blue LED that lights up inside the case to indicate that it's receiving power and ready to read/write. The unit is small and very lightweight. I actually think it's TOO light, it kinda slides around my desktop sometimes. It might benefit from some grippy stuff on the underside or some extra weight. My only meaningful complaint really comes from the included cable. It's USB 3.0 Type A on one end (that end for the PC) but it's super-uncommon USB 3.0 Micro B on the other end (that connects to the reader). So, if you need or want a longer cable it's not something you are likely to have laying around. I'm not certain why it couldn't be a more ubiquitous USB Type C cable that's far more common. Anyway, I find the cable to be short (18 inches long) and would prefer something longer that I could plug into the back of my PC and route up and around my desk. I might buy a replacement cable some day (they're inexpensive), but it would be nice if I could just use a USB C cable of which I have amassed a small horde.

This device reads it all. We were looking for a compact flash card reader for our photography studio. We have found this one to be fast and reliable. In our search we were looking for a n item that was going USB 3.0, in this price range we didn't find too many options. We have been pleasantly surprised at the speed and quality of this product. We have only used it for transferring images from a compact flash card, so I can't comment on the quality of the other slots. The one downside of this being a USB 3.0 device is that it takes power. It is powered via the USB so you don't need to worry about it when connecting to a computer or laptop. But we were going to use it to connect via an adapter to our iPad and Samsung Tablets for quick in the field viewing of the photos we shot. This device won't work for that, we had to use our older slower card reader that wasn't 3.0. I would imagine this to be the same case for any other USB 3.0 device and a non-powered USB connection (tablets/phones/tvs, etc). So I won't hold it against this device. PROS - Compact, Fast, Reads a variety of Card Types CONS - Won't work unless you are using it with a computer or laptop because it is 3.0.

I bought another USB 3.0 card reader recently expecting that it would be much faster than my USB 2.0 reader. I didn't do much research for the purchase and was a little surprised that the speed wasn't noticeably faster. It worked for me for a long time, but I was so confused as to why it wasn't going faster when I would download several GB of photos from my very fast Compact Flash cards. I started looking at other readers to see whether I could find something faster. I was a bit hesitant to purchase this, as I am not too familiar with the brand. Thank goodness I bought it. This reader is LIGHTNING FAST!!! I'm able to download a full 32GB Compact Flash Card (Lexar 1000X) in mere second. With my last reader, this type of job was taking more than twenty minutes. It's nice and compact and the lack of an attached cable makes it easy to fit in a small space. It's not a beautiful device but it is well-designed and highly functional. This is a HUGE improvement to my last reader

I use this little card reader for just about everything. In fact, this is the 2nd one I bought due to a need to keep one on my desk and the other in my tech bag. I do IT work for local small businesses and my old one finally died several months back. I bought this Transcend model for three reasons - it supports USB 3.0, it supports a wide variety of card types and it was made by Transcend, a brand name I have grown to trust over the past 3 to 4 years. It is small, about the size of a TicTac box. It is self-powered via the USB connection, it does accurately transfer files at proper USB 3 speeds according to my benchmark tests and doesn't get hot like some cheap card readers do. Of course, the transfer speeds are also limited by the card's speed class too. I think the best feature of this is the fact that Transcend is offering firmware updates. This means that if there are compatibility issues in the future, Transcend can correct them via the firmware if necessary. All you have to do is check their website every so often and run their quick and simple update utility and you will have the latest and greatest once again. The only complaint I can honestly see someone having is that it comes with a short 12" cable so be sure to buy a longer one if you need it. But this is a PORTABLE, EXTERNAL device and the short cable keeps in line with that purpose so complaining about that would be like saying your toothbrush isn't long enough to reach your neighbor's mouth. It's not meant to. lol You can easily buy a 3ft or 6ft USB 3.0 cable here at Amazon for around $8 and it never hurts to have a spare one laying around anyway. I have seen a review or two in here about 64GB cards not working. I have used a couple of different brand 64GB cards and they work for me just fine. I am in the IT field. I can tell you from experience that it might not be the device - though your device could be defective - you must also consider the following - #1- Is the card bad/defective? Try the card in another reader and make sure it works very well. Try copying over a few large folders/files (1GB or so) then deleting them. #2- Bad cable? Try swapping cables. #3- USB port? Try another port and try a USB 3.0 port even if it works for your other, smaller cards. #4- The age of the computer operating system and/or motherboard you are connecting to? I know for a fact older OSes and motherboards have issues with these new cards. This could be for various reasons like bad drivers, the need of a BIOS update, the format type you are attempting to use - FAT, FAT32, NTFS, etc. Also, keep in mind that Transcend does offer firmware updates for this device. The latest version as of this writing is TS22. You might have been sent one that was sitting in a warehouse and has outdated firmware. Don't forget to keep this in mind for later down the road, say in 6 months or a year. It is nice to know Transcend is going the extra mile to even bother with firmware releases because many other card reader manufacturers do not. Overall, I highly recommend this card reader and I recommend you consider Transcend products in the future.

I am using this Card Reader for a 16GB SanDisk Extreme SDHC card. I connect to a Desktop with USB 2.0 and WIN 7 Premium (64 bit). I find some connectivity issues when using with this configuration. Recognition of the Reader is not always 100% and at times Windows Explorer freezes. When it does work, it appears to map 3 drives. It takes about 15 seconds after attaching it to the USB 2.0 slot on the desktop before displaying the first of three Windows prompts that has the caption VProTray.exe and displays "There is no disk in the drive. Please insert a disk into drive \Device\Harddisk2\DR2. There are 3 buttons to choose from - Cancel, Try Again, Continue. Pressing the Cancel or Continue button makes the prompts go away but the drives can be accessed without a problem. At this time it is just an annoyance and is probably related to an incompatible Windows 7 driver. Transfer speeds are good. I transfer photos (RAW) that are 18 MB in size and I cannot label this as slow - I have transferred 10 18 MB photos in around 8-10 secs. I believe it is reasonably fast but I believe it will be faster if I had a USB 3.0 slot on my desktop.

Pros : Very fast reader (and as Robert points out below, it writes as well) Multiple LUN Can connect micro SD without adapter Supports UHS-I for SD and UDMA 7 for CF Supports SDXC Detachable USB cable (easier to pack for traveling) Cons : Supplied cable is rather short Cannot access SD and micro SD at the same time No rubber feet to prevent it from sliding SD / micro SD slot not spring loaded, no eject button on CF slot If you're buying a fast SD or CF card, and if your system has USB 3.0 ports, you should get a fast reader. This one worked well for me, and it is significantly cheaper than SanDisk's reader. There are 2 versions of this : TS-RDF8K and TS-RDF8W. I'm not sure what are the differences other than the color (K = black, W = white), I received the TS-RDF8K. There are 2 different firmware files on Transcend's website, one for each version. The reader is fairly thick but very compact. The reader comes with a 3' long USB 3.0 cable. The length is rather short, as my computer is on the floor, and the USB 3.0 ports are at the back of the case. The reader has a USB 3.0 micro B port so you can easily replace this with a longer cable if you need to. I tested this on my desktop, an Intel i7-920 running Windows Vista Ultimate 64 bit, USB 3.0 provided by an add on card (NEC chipset). I do not have a Windows 7 system with USB 3.0 ports to test this on, unfortunately. (Edit 11/12/13 : I've been using this under Windows 7 Pro for over a year now. It works, most of the time. Occasionally the computer would not detect the card reader when I plug it in. This appears to be a problem with my USB 3.0 PCI Express card or driver, and not this card reader - it wouldn't detect another card reader connected to USB 3.0, and it will detect this card reader when I connect it to a USB 2.0 port.) Immediately after connecting the reader, I ran the firmware update utility. All this went uneventfully. After flashing the firmware, I disconnected, and reconnected the reader. The reader is a multi-LUN reader. This means that it appears as 3 different drives - one each for SD, CF, and Memory stick. I did not test with memory stick as I did not have any. There's a slot for micro SD (so you don't need an adapter) but you can't use both SD and micro SD at the same time. You can, however, copy between SD and CF, though I don't think that's a very useful scenario. I used h2testw for my testing. This ensures that I can read and write to memory cards through my card reader. First I tested a Kingston 133x compact flash card. It only showed a small improvement of 1 MB/s over my USB 2.0 reader. I was surprised - I didn't expect any improvement. Next I tested with SanDisk Extreme 32GB 45MB/s SDHC Flash Memory Card SDSDX-032G-X46,Black and SanDisk 32GB Extreme Pro CF memory card - UDMA 90MB/s 600x (SDCFXP-032G-A91, US Retail Package) . The SD card is listed as UHS-I compliant, and the CF card as UDMA 7. The Extreme SD card measured 34.8 MB/s write and 40.7 MB/s read. On my USB 2.0 reader, I could only get slightly under 20 MB/s read. About half the speed. The Extreme Pro CF card measured 63.2 MB/s write and 84.3 MB/s read. My USB 2.0 reader only managed 23 MB/s read. In other words, it is almost 4x faster tham my USB 2.0 reader, and can download an entire 32GB card in around 6 minutes, compared to around 20 minutes with my USB 2.0 reader. I didn't encounter any problems booting up my system with the card reader attached. The reader has functioned flawlessly so far. I'm definitely happy with this purchase, which will save me much time when downloading photos.