Customer Reviews

Aleratec 330100 USB Copy Cruiser Plus

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I needed a way to transfer photos from a flash memory card to another storage device while I was travelling out of the country. I did not want to bring my laptop for fear of damage or theft, so I bought this product because I need to back up digital photos from multiple compactflash cards to a 2.5" self powered USB hard drive. It worked very well.

I ran into a couple of problems as previous reviewers have (and for which they gave this device low marks) but I will explain why I still give this device 5 stars.

This device cannot power an external drive. So I bought a self powered external drive and that solved that problem. The other solution is to use a 1 or 2 GB USB flash drive.

I ran into the problem of the device not transferring all photos. I changed the batteries and it performed without a hitch. All photos were transferred.

Despite being advertised as USB 2.0, it runs rather slow. Okay, there's no solution around this one... I simply backed up my compactflash cards at the end of the day when I wasn't pressed for time.

So one might ask "If it cannot power an external drive, and the battery life isn't all that great, and it is slow, what good is this device?" My response is that it is good for the exact purpose I got it for: an inexpensive way to back up camera flash memory when I'm not in a hurry. And by bringing this device on my trip instead of my laptop, I prevented loss or damage to my laptop. Hence, 5 stars.

My advice:

Buy this if you need to BACK UP pictures when you are not pressed for time.

Consider this product if you only have one or two memory cards and you need to offload the pictures to another storage device so you can reformat your memory card to shoot more pictures. You should always carry spare AAA batteries to power the device. Also consider buying more memory cards instead of risking losing your pictures in the transfer.

Do not buy this product if speed or ABSOLUTE dependability is of paramount importance to you, i.e., if your job or someone's life is at risk. You'll be better off buying more memory cards, or spending much, much more on professional level equipment.

Bought this so I could transfer photos and other data from my digital camera to/from my hard disk MP3 player (iRiver H320). Works just as intended and I am happy (even though it is a little expensive). None of the devices I use need AC power to work since they are battery powered, which means the Alera worked just fine. The other reviewer of this item should know that you can't power this USB transfer box AND a full-sized external HDD on the Alera's 3 AAA batteries. This is meant for on-the-go travelers who have devices that run on battery already (i.e. MP3 players, digital cameras, etc.). This transfer box is also rare because is supports USB mass storage specifications AND PTP protocol! This means that some Canon and Sony cameras which normally require drivers to work will function with the Alera! Another cool thing is that you can hook up to 4 devices (2 camera cards, 2 USB devices) and copy/delete between them all! You can select individual files and have them copied to a folder created by the Alera (something screen-less boxes can't do). If hooked up to a PC the Alera will function as an 8-in-1 card reader as well. The unit is a little bit bigger than I expected (not much) and is made of plastic. Again I am satisfied with it.

I bought this product because the description sounded perfect for my application. I carry a camera bag with a lot of lenses, and often use up all the space on my compact flash cards while shooting photos outside. I usually carry a laptop for offloading photos from my camera, but it's really too big to lug around.

The USB Copy Cruiser Plus runs on batteries and allows you to copy the contents of your flash memory card to a USB hard drive so you can keep on shooting photos.

So I bought a USB Copy Cruiser Plus from Amazon. I received it, put in batteries, plugged in the CF card, and it read the card with no problem. Then I plugged in my 2.5" USB drive, and I got the message "no drive". After talking with Aleratec tech support I learned that the unit doesn't supply bus power through the USB connection, so you have to use a USB drive with an external AC power supply.

There aren't any AC outlets in the woods. Wrong product for field applications. I guess you could walk to the nearest convenience store, plug in your drive and wait for it to copy. However, the unit itself won't run on AC power. It's apparently designed for field work, and only works on 3 AAA batteries which don't last very long. And you can't buy an AC adaptor because there's no place to plug it in.

The unit has a USB port to connect to your laptop, and when you do that, it will run on the laptop's USB bus power. However, when you do this it's in slave mode and none of the menus work. The LCD display just says "PC" and you're supposed to do your copying from the PC. So if you buy a USB-type AC adaptor thinking you can power the unit by connecting it to the unit's USB port, surprise: it thinks it's connected to a PC and the screen says "PC." In that mode, you can't do any copying.

So what's the right application for the USB Copy Cruiser? It's a VERY expensive card reader for your PC. You can't use it in the field because your drive must have AC power. But the unit itself won't run on AC power, so you have to replace batteries every couple of hours.

So I returned it to Amazon. Looks like the right product for this application is a media jukebox with a CF reader and fast transfer speed.

This is a very useful gadget for saving pictures in the field. It saves the expense of having a large number of cards for your camera. It works as advertised.

Unlike the competing Belking USB Anywhere it allows you to copy, list, or delete files on a FAT formatted drive. While you can buy an integrated device which will do all of this, the cost is much greater. The display is limited because it is a small lightweigt field device. As with most portable devices the controls take getting used to. The biggest enhancement would be to have the messages show the arrow key as < or > rather than using words like escape and enter. The terminology is a bit geeky.

The main disadvantage is that it can not handle any format except for FAT. Forget using it with either an iPod or Zune, but then neither of these is designed as a storage device, and they are very closed products. If you really need to use a hard drive over 32Gbytes, you may have to get a third party formatter because Win XP will only format a maximum 32Gbyte FAT drive. FAT32 will only handle up to 4Gbyes/file, but this should not be a significant limitation. Alaratec does not recognize multiple drives on the same device. Also like any similar device it does not supply enough power to power a portable drive. For portable drives you would need a separate USB power supply which are available for battery, car, or wall socket. You could also get an inexpensive powered USB hub. Be sure to get one which supplies enough current for the drive you wish to use. It does work with thumb drives, memory cards, and many players such as the RCA Lyra. It would be handy if Alaratec listed compatibility of players. Be sure to check and see if your memory card is compatible or has an inexpensive conversion card. If not, you may have to add an outboard USB memory card reader.

The big advantage of having an outboard rather than integrated device is that it can be used with a variety of drives and players. It is less expensive than an integrated unit especially if you already have a compatible player or drive. Also it can copy any direction unlike standard digital players, or portable picture storage devices such as Wolverine picture storage. Currently standard players and portable picture storage devices can only store (download) and require a computer to transfer (upload) pictures. So a a field device where you can not lug around a computer it is a good deal.

Eventually media players may support both USB and memory cards along with bidirectional transfer. The RCA Lyra is a start in that direction.

I bought one of these and it has worked pretty well for transferring files without using a laptop or PC, it can work with CF cards and a USB device powered from the built-in USB port. Many of the smaller portable drives work, I've used an Ultra Slim USB HDD (Western Digital) and it did fine with no external power (the Copy Cruiser runs off batteries so you have to make sure those are good, but I've had no problems. I use rechargables.) Some of the small WD portables in lower capacities are available very cheap now.

Works fine as a card reader when attached to your PC, too. Pretty much as advertised.

I bought this thing because I have an mp3 player that has 40gb of space. I wanted a device to put a memory card into and hook up to my mp3 player via USB cable to quickly back up images. Both my card and my mp3 player support very fast data-transfer rates, but I would settle for say, 1GB/10mins rate.

First of all this device has a tendency to lock up and to turn it on again you have to take the batteries out and put them back in, *reset* it I guess. But that's ok, I'm not too picky I could live with that.

The reason I returned it was the speed. Approximately 785kb/sec!

The specification on the manufacturer's web site states: "Also works as an external USB 2.0 8-in-1 Card Reader/Writer... when connected to a computer" This isn't false advertisement, I would rather call it deceptive advertisement. Because logic suggests that if it can read a card at USB 2.0 speed and it can write at USB 2.0 then it supports USB 2.0 speeds for other (capable) devices as well. Well apparently that's not the way this device functions. It copied files from my card in its internal card slot to my mp3 player at 785kb/sec. I also tried it's two USB slots and hooked another card reader into one and mp3 player into the other, but I got the same slow speed.

So if you can live with a few bugs and transfer rate of about 1GB/22mins I guess it's alright, but keep in mind the battery life of your storage device.

You might consider purchasing a Portable Storage Device with a built-in Hard Drive instead of this.

I purchased this to be able to transfer my photos from a media card so I could eliminate buying more media cards. The device is the right size, fits in the palm of your hand, but doesn't transfer ALL the photos. I tried transferring photos from the same media card three times to a different media card. I erased the second media card for each attempt so there was a clean receiving media card on each transfer. Every time I transferred photos the device failed to transfer all the photos. Each time it was different photos that didn't transfer. I'm returning this product.

The Copy Cruiser Plus would not recognize my brand new powered Maxtor drive. When I called Aleratec customer support, a tech guy answered on the first ring, but it was downhill from there. He told me my hard drive has to be 'FAT32'-formatted, for which he claimed I need a WINDOWS system (I have a Mac). That's insane: the product box promises Mac compatibility.

I subsequently, through trial and error, found that Apple's Disk Utility enables you to format a drive as an MS-DOS device (remember the eighties horror that was MS-DOS?). After I did that, the drive mounted on my Mac desktop as before, but now the Copy Cruiser finally recognized it too. Imagine the hassle if I'd had 100-plus gigabytes of information on that drive and I'd had to reformat! This cumbersome (if one-time) process alone makes the Copy Cruiser a poor choice for Mac owners. Not that you have to look very long for other flubs and misses.

Before I started experimenting with the Copy Cruiser, I put three fresh brand-name AAA batteries in it. I don't think I had the device switched on for more than 45 minutes total before the indicator on the display showed there was no power left. The thing doesn't even suck juice because of the backlight, because there IS none. The display is dim and almost impossible to read in low light.

The interface, like everything about the Copy Cruiser Plus, is barely adequate. One major shortcoming is that the buttons are silkscreened with redundant arrows, no text. So when the display tells you: "DELETE ALL FILES (Y/N?): ENTER=Y, ESC=N," well, I hope you remember from reading the manual which button means ENTER and which one means ESC! Another interface blunder that would have been simple to avoid is that the Copy Cruiser has jacks to connect two USB devices, but when you do, the icons in the display are useless in making clear which is which. You're supposed to remember that the USB icon with the light lettering on the dark background is 'USB STORAGE 1' and that the almost-identical icon next to it (dark lettering on a light background) is 'USB STORAGE 2.' Good luck with that. And when you copy the contents of one volume to another, the progress bar in the display shows indivdual files being copied, instead of indicating how far along the ENTIRE copy operation is. Ugh.

This thing is useful in theory, and it could easily have been a glorious addition to the toolbox of professional photographers and others who want to be able to copy digital data in the field without lugging a laptop around. But Aleratec seems to have decided that the Copy Cruiser only needed to be 'good enough.' With just a bit more effort, this would have been a four-or five-star product; as it stands, giving it two stars seems almost embarrassingly generous.

I bought this, just like most others, with the idea of copying CF cards to a portable drive when we are on a long vacation trip. Well first thing is that it only works with hard drives formatted to FAT, and who wants to reformat their NTFS drive for this device. When it does work it is slow and unreliable, you will never know if the files were copied or not.

The Memorex device on sale here on Amazon looks like the exact same device but I don't know if it has the same limitations. It is cheaper.

I bought this for an english project where I had to edit a instruction manual. It had a relatively bad manual, so that was good (:p), but the product works as advertised.

I can see the intended user for this, digital photographers who just want to clean off their cards and get back to work, having some trouble, the confusing operating system and manual make it necessary to play with it for a little while, time the above user may not have.

The other problem is the lack of sufficient power for external HDD's, even small ones. USB Flash drives are going up in capacity though and compete with the reading media for speed, and are powered by this device. I've been thinking about seeing if I could tap current directly from the batteries to the USB, but don't want to fry my HDD's trying something like that.

On the other hand, it came with a great shielded USB 2.0 to USB Micro cord, which is used when you want to use it as a card reader. It won't act as a USB hub even when powered from a computer and wont read USB Flash Cards when plugged into a computer. The good thing is it supports SDHC even on un-patched Win XP.

The final thing I found is that it supports Ubuntu (Did not try other distros) 8.04.1 and 8.10.