A Tale Of Two Memory Card Readers

Since my last PC build a few years ago I have been using a Rosewill USB 3 internal 3.5″ card reader, The Rosewill has been a good reader, we have used many of them in the past, they are always reliable readers.

In the recent past I have been doing more photography, as well as video for my YouTube channel. Transfer times can be painful. I have been buying better cards as my photos and videos are more important to me now than ever, especially as I move into more paid work.

I noticed that as the rated speed, and quality of the cards I was buying increased it seemed the transfer times from the card to PC seemed to stay about the same.

This got me into researching card readers. I read several reviews and tests of card readers and found that there is a wide range of speeds you can expect from card readers, even those of the USB 3 variety.

The highest rated reader performance wise seemed to be the Lexar Memory Hub, but clocking in at an extremely close second was the Kingston FCR-HS4. So, at under $20 vs $80 for the Lexar unit , I added the Kingston reader to my wish list.

Thanks to Denver, Melissa, and Freya, I received the Kingston Card Reader as a Christmas gift.

Here are my own personal test results, pretty impressive! Rosewill on the left, and Kingston on the right. Read speeds (the most important in my use) have more than DOUBLED, and write speeds have increased by 50%! Both tests on the same PC, with the same Sandisk Pixtor 32gb UHS 3 SD card. The only difference is the reader.

Here is a link to the Rosewill Reader, as of now it gets a big thumbs up from me. http://amzn.to/1R2fPma