Customer Reviews

Lexar CompactFlash FireWire 800 Card Reader RW034-001

5 star:		(30)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(14)

 

 

I bought this at Amazon to mate up with my new Lexar Pro UDMA 8GB CF card. The reviews here were mixed, so I had a wee bit of trepidation about spending over $60 for a simple reader. I am happy to say that my misgivings were unjustified. This is a great product.

The unit itself IS a little cheap looking, but it works as advertised, and is the fastest reader I've ever seen! My first test, downloading 2.9GB of RAW and JPEG pictures just taken with my new Canon 50D, wouldn't even allow me to go get a cup of coffee before finishing! My old USB method would have allowed me not only to get a cup, but to finish it before that amount of data completed its download.

Impressive that Lexar INCLUDES not one, but two Firewire 800 cables with the unit. One is bout 36 inches; the other is a six-inch shorty.

Others who commented about the card release button feeling "sticky" are somewhat correct. It DOES feel a little tight, but I suspect that those who have had a problem with it are probably being a bit aggressive.

I am always very careful with CF cards due to their pin structure, and I don't think that this unit will have a problem if you handle it with care while only pushing the eject button slowly, and only as much as needed to get the card out far enough to retrieve.

A final note that I was lucky to have purchased the Lexar 8GB UDMA PRO card at B&H while it still had a $80 rebate offer. It's now expired, but I suspect that UDMA card prices will fall soon, and that makes this reader an absolute MUST if you're loading up with pics or video.

VERY happy with this purchase! Five stars.

UPDATE: Unlike other reviews here, I have daisy-chained this reader with my Firewire800 G-Drive Hard Disk without issue. I have also put it in a mix with Firewire400 peripherals and also without issue. On my Mac with OSX 10.6 (Snow Leopard) the icon for the reader pops up no matter where I attach the reader, either directly to a FW800 port, OR in a chain. No issues at all!

Why did I wait so long to get a FW800 card reader? This reader is fast, on the order of 10x faster than a USB 2.0 reader. This reader is also the best built one I've used.

The reader is indeed fast. But...

One of the features that I was interested in was the pass thru FireWire 800 port for daisy chaining of devices. Unfortunately if the reader is in a chain with other FireWire 800 devices it will not operate. It may also prevent other devices in the chain from operating properly. This is unfortunate as many machines only have one 800 port, and FireWire 800 hubs are expensive. Below is the reply that I received from Lexar about the issue.


-- Lexar Technical Support --
Thank you for contacting us. The FireWire 800 reader is designed to daisy chain with other of the FireWire 800 readers. You can daisy chain up to 4 of the readers together. They are not designed to work daisy chained with other devices like external hard drives. Best suggestion I can give for a case like yours is you would want to purchase a powered FireWire 800 hub to connect the 2 different devices to your system.

What a time saver!!! I used to dread taking so many shots for fear of 2+ hours of uploading my shots to the computer. Once I got this, I fear no full 4gig or 8gig CF card. If you shoot 1k's shots or more per outing or shoot in RAW, this reader is for you.

Bye-Bye USB waterpipes, open the Hoover Dam and watch the data fly off the the CF cards like you have never seen before. I have a 21 MegaPixel Canon DSLR and those raw files take a LONG time to transfer on the best USB readers available. Maybe my example is a little over the top, but its about 4-5 times faster with this reader. I have both Lexar and Kingston CF cards that operate at about 42.5 MB/sec, nice compared to 8-11 MB/sec I get from my USB readers. Beware though, with a firewire 400 (1394a) connection the maximum transfer rate is about 27 MB/sec, a good firewire 800 (1394b) card is needed for the faster transfer rates. Good cables come with this reader, if purchased separately they would be about half the cost of this entire unit.

I used to have the competing SanDisk reader, it had the exact same performance but it costed $20 more and died after a few months of operation. SanDisk tech service was poor at helping me resolve problems with their reader and top-of-the-line CF cards which were performing slowly, actually they didn't resolve it at all. I am now sticking with Lexar, always great products that work correct.

Superfast uploading with new real fast compact flash cards. Only problem is card has to be recessed to far into the front slot. Unlike in the picture where 1/2in of card is sticking out. Makes it difficult to seat properly, and harder to remove. A simple 1/16 to 1/8th of an inch left outside of the slot would have made it work much easier.

This card reader is pretty darn fast. It is important to use cards that are also fast in order to benifit from the fast download speeds. The button is a litte "cheap" feeling but it does work well without any problems.

We take between 1000 and 3000 images per shoot, so a fast, reliable card reader is an absolute must. In the past, we've used Lexar products that have all been USB-based; when we saw this product, we sprang on it banking on the speed increase moving from USB to firewire. The unit is small and very light - it almost feels like it was "thrown together" instead of compact. When it works, it's VERY quick (as you'd expect); however, it's difficult to get the thing to operate. The front of the unit has a large metal flap to cover the slot for the memory card. The slot is very large - almost twice as large as what would be required for a single card. There seems to be some sort of magnetic guide for inserting the memory card into the unit, but it's strangely difficult to get the card into the reader. Not only do you have to "hunt" for the right slot, but you have to force the card into the reader to get the unit to engage (and start drawing power over the firewire connection). I understand that you need to seat a card firmly, but wouldn't it be easier to do that if you could SEE where the card was going instead of worrying about what might happen if you accidentally bend the pins inside the card? Great speed, but poor engineering has forced us to toss this gear out.

I got this gadget to use with my FireWire 800 enabled iMac. The device works wonders for quick transfers of my pictures from the CF cards to the computer. It comes with an additional FireWire socket that you might use for cascading devices or to interconnect another FireWire device (e.g. an external storage) if there is only one FireWire socket on your computer. The reader is delivered with two FireWire cables, a longer one and a very short one, for interconnects. Moreover, the case is provided with lateral indentations that allow stacking similar devices, one over another.

What I don't like: Quite cheap-like appearance and build (low quality plastic). The device is very light and the FireWire cable quite rigid, thus I always have problems convincing the card reader to lay flat on the table. Moreover, cards are problematic to insert and remove. You have to press hard on the card and wait a bit for the blue lamp to lit. This is the signal that card was well inserted.

When removing, pressing the eject button does not push the CF card too much outside the case so you need strong nails (or thin fingers) to pick it and drag it out of the device.

I highly recommended it for its transfer speed, but you might also want to look for a similar Sandisk product like the SanDisk 4 GB Extreme IV CF Card with FireWire Reader Bundle which makes a good offer for the combo.

Have a great day.

12/28/2008

I purchased this for speed, and it delivers. It's quick in transferring with ease.

BUT, the composition and materials of this make it seem as if it's made by Playskool. Here are the drawbacks.

1. When inserting the card, it doesn't glide in with ease. It's difficult to tell how far one is to insert the card because there is nothing noting that it's in such as a click. It always feels forced. If you shoot professionally, the last thing you want to do is damage a card with valuable work on it.
2. It comes with two cables, both of which are way too stiff. With the cable being too stiff, the card reader itself doesn't stay in place flat on your work surface. Rather, the card reader will move around because the cable pulls/pushes it in whichever direction.
3. When ejecting the card, again, it doesn't eject smoothly. The eject button is difficult to push in and you literally have to pull the card out with a slight degree of force.

Overall, I gave it 3 stars though it's probably closer to 2-1/2. Spend a little extra for a card reader without the drawbacks.