Firewire card readers with adapters vs USB

[Sossity]

does anybody use firewire card readers? & can they suggest a good one?

through some internet research, it seems they are for downloading alot of images quickly.

Also, is firewire 400 much or any faster than USB 2.0 or 3.0? can anybody tell me their experience with either? as I am debating whether to get myself a firewire card reader. I like firewire 800 as this seems the fastest but is a bit more expensive.

since I have SD cards & Sony memory sticks I would get compact flash adapters for these & use them in the firewire card reader. Would this be a good strategy? or am I better off just staying with USB?

[lordsmurf]

I have a Lexar Firewire CompactFlash card reader, and never use it. The USB2 readers tend to be much better. The sustained speeds of Firewire doesn't matter much here. I've not yet seen a Firewire 800 reader; that would be faster than USB2. My favorite card readers are the internal SATA ones -- now those are quick.

The bigger question is this -- can your card read/write faster than the USB or Firewire connection? My CompactFlash cards certainly are not. I'm using somewhat older cards (bought from 2007-2009), and copying a card is a good 10-20 minute affair.

I would absolutely NOT put SD cards or Memory Sticks in CompactFlash adapters. Use a USB stick adapter.

Suggested camera card reader adapters...

-- SD /SDHC / SDXC to USB for $5 shipped: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...SIN=B006GDY57O
-- Memory Stick Pro / Pro Duo to USB for $5 shipped: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...SIN=B004I1IG0S
-- CompactFlash** to USB for $10-15: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...SIN=B00109Y2DQ

For $20-25 total, including free shipping, you can have all the adapters and slots you need.

** Yes, the CF to USB has slots for SD and others, but the non-CF slots are lousy. Pretend they're not there. Only use the CF slot.
Don't ignore this advice: I've seen non-CF cards wiped by the non-CF slots. Again, it's a CF reader only!

Unless you're a working journalist on tight deadlines, super-fast card readers are not a necessity. They're a costly luxury.

[NJRoadfan]

CF is based on the ATA interface (same as used by hard drives) so those CF-to-SD adapters are seen by a computer as an IDE hard drive and not a flash card. File system layouts can slightly differ as I don't think SD cards normally have a partition table with a boot sector. For USB readers I generally stick to Sandisk, never had a problem with them erasing cards.

[Sossity]

so am I better off getting dedicated usb readers? such as a seperate sd to usb reader, & another memory stick to usb reader?

are they better somehow than getting the multislot all in one card readers?

I had bid on a sandisk exterme firewire 800 compact flash reader on ebay, but I have been outbid on it, perhaps I would be best to just let it go?

[lordsmurf]

I would just use the low-cost (not really "cheap") USB readers made for just a single card.

Even Sandisk and Lexar multi-card readers tend to work best with the CompactFlash only, and can be clumsy to insert/remove non-CF cards. That's really my issue with the multi-card readers -- it's far too easy to insert the card improperly. Not just upside down, but slightly wrong angles, or with poor pin connection.

That's just my opinion.

I've been using card readers since the 1990s, as I've long been a digital camera shooter. And I get easily irritated by card readers that don't work perfectly. Dedicated readers have always offered the path of least resistance. The dedicated readers usually lock a card in place, as opposed to hanging out of a silly little USB dongle box. Only CompactFlash is large enough to really need to hang out that way. CompactFlash cards lock onto the pin connectors, while other cards slide against connectors.