Customer Reviews

SanDisk SDDR-86-07 6 in 1 USB 2.0 Hi-speed Reader

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(18)

 

 

With all the digicams I have, I've collected a lot of memory formats and quite a few card readers along the way. None were perfect and none were all that versatile. For example, my Viking combination SmartMedia & CompactFlash required being unplugged and then plugged in again before each use. It was also, as a USB 1.1 device, a tad slow. Recently I got the SanDisk 6-in-1 vertical reader and I have been 100% satisfied. I took it out of the pkg., plugged it directly into the USB 2.0 port, and it self-installed (on WinXP). No power plug is required. Then I opened my junk drawer and found 4 "mystery" cards: a SM32, a CF8, a MS8 & a MMC16 (I think these were all original equipment cards that were quickly replaced by larger ones). Only the CompactFlash 8 was blank. The others all yielded some fun, forgotten about pics that came up on the screen with no prompting whatsoever. Read speed was awesome. This SanDisk unit is a winner at a great price.

I recently bought the 6-in-1 to use with my Sony Memory Stick and SanDisk SD cards. The Memory Sticks worked fine but the SD wouldn't work at all. In fact, as soon as I plugged in an SD card, the Memory Stick would also stop working. I filled in a problem report on the SanDisk website, and by 7:30 am the next morning I had a response. I must admit that I was skeptical of the suggested fix, which was to disable NAV scanning of the boot sector of removable media. However, when I did as suggested, all cards worked fine. Apparently, when NAV scans the SD card, the reader and/or NAV doesn't know how to handle this and disables the card.

I see several comments in this section about similar problems; this may be the cause.

My observations are therefore that it is a good product, quite fast, SanDisk provides excellent support, and the only negative is that they have to develop an upgraded flash for the reader that doesn't have the NAV conflict. Also, since they already knew about this conflict, they should have posted the information in their knowledgebase on the website.

I had high hopes for this reader. The specs are great, and the look, feel, and quality are high. This is a nice package. Unfortunately, for the first time in the last 3 or 4 years that I've been using CF cards and all sorts of readers, THIS reader would only recognize 2 out of 6 of my CF cards. It did recognize my one Memory Stick I had.(I'm running XP, by the way.) Going to the Sandisk site and using their instructions for uninstalling/reinstalling the drivers (which involves editing your Registry!) didn't change a thing. I was extremely disappointed, and have returned the unit for a refund. I'm looking now for another brand's USB 2.0 reader to replace it.

USB 2.0 sounds good, until you realize that, usually, the bottleneck is not the USB connection. As I understand it, CompactFlash cards are the fastest out there (others have simpler chips and slow serial buses, to save space); and most CF cards are about 4x (same "x" as for CD drives), which means they run at 600KB/sec, or about 4.8Mb/sec. USB 1.1 runs at 12Mb/sec; its overhead is about 20%, so it should be able to do 9.6Mb/sec, so it should be able to keep up with an 8x CF card. Unless you have one of the new, faster CF cards (10x or 12x), you will not see any speed improvement from running this reader on USB 2.0; even with a 12x card, USB 2.0 will give you only about a 50% increase, not the fortyfold increase that it theoretically could give you.

The other case where you could get better performance is if you're copying from one card to another; where a USB 1.1 device could be maxed out simply by reading from a card, the USB 2.0 device should have enough bandwidth to read and write at the same time.

Now, that's not to say this isn't a good product. It's USB Mass Storage Compliant (means it doesn't need a driver on current operating systems), which means better reliability; you don't have to worry about the driver getting out of date and being incompatible when you upgrade the OS. (It also means it should work with Linux.) Unlike some other multicard readers, all the slots are usable at the same time. The USB 2.0 will become more of an advantage as CF cards get faster. And, well, it's a 6-way USB 2.0 reader, Mass Storage Compliant, for the same price as a lot of 6-way USB 1.1 readers which aren't Mass Storage Compliant.

The SanDisk reader did not read a 128Mb Viking Compact Flash card. I checked the card and it works ok in my camera, and was also readable in another reader which I have at work.
Sandisk Technical Support acknowledged that there are issues reading "other brand" high capacity media and are "researching" it. Unfortunately, that doesnt help me at the current time. I'm going to have to return this now.

Just bought this, was impressed by its heft...the unit appears to be solidly constructed. Installation in Windows XP was a snap- plug in the device and wait 15 seconds for XP to install the drivers. In Windows Explorer for My Computer, you'll see four "removable disks"- the first is for the Compact Flash slot, the second for the Secure Digital/MultiMedia Card slot, the third is for SmartMedia, and the fourth is for Memory Stick. What this also means is that all four slots are active at all times and you can transfer data across the different media types. I'm glad the reader supports USB 2.0 - my Dell PC has USB 2.0 native, so data transfers are really fast! The documentation is a little skimpy, but Sandisk includes a toll-free number. I'm happy with the purchase and I can recommend the Sandisk Reader without hesitation.

I got one of these from a supplier other than Amazon. It does not work. It sometimes freezes my Windows 98 SE computer (admittedly a USB 1.1 that this is supposed to be backward compatible for). It does not read the cards properly. I thank the person who suggested disabling NAV, but that didn't work either. ...
Recommend against

I bought this after reading a few reviews and decided to take a chance. This product was a definite waste of my time. The look and quality of this reader is substantial for the price. The only problem I had was that it only worked occasionally. I have a 256mb lexar 12x compact flash for my digital camera and it seemed to work w/out any problems on my Windows XP. I have a 128mb Sandisk memory stickwhich I use for my clie nx70v and my system froze each time. I used a lexar memory stick and it worked half the time w/out crashing. I emailed Sandisk support and they were very responsive, but unfortunately had no helpful conclusions. I finally had to return this reader and purchased a Dazzle 6 in 1 reader and every card I had worked fine w/out any problems-even though it isn't a usb 2.0 reader.

I own 6 flash cards of varying types and sizes (3 Compact Flash, 1 SD and 2 Sony memory sticks). 2 of them (1 CF card and 1 memory stick) won't work on this unit, and one (a CF card) causes the whole thing to freeze up and malfuntion.

This device is very buggy and although Sandisk knows about the problems, they will not offer refunds or any type of useful support. They have 2 responses: (1)"You can try to return it to the retailer you bought it from" or (2)"We are trying to determine the cause of the problems and develop a firmware fix, but we don't know when that will be available".

I have spent too many aggravating hours on the phone with a customer service manager. Finally I got fed up and called Amazon.com to let them know that Sandisk is trying to leave retailers holding the bag with their defective products, since they are encouraging customers to ask their retailers for refunds.

Amazon was great, and agreed to accept the product for refund even though I had to maul the packaging to get the unit out when I first received it. They even gave me pre-paid shipping, since the unit is defective.

I would have saved myself a lot of hassle by simply buying a different product in the first place.

I tried 3 type of cards with it, Memstick and Smartmedia works fine. With CF - different story. I have Lexar 16MB and Viking 128MB. This thing can not read both. Moreover, after i insert CF everything else stops working, remove - works again. Tried under W2K and Win98SE.
Today went to Staples and picked up another thingy(can not call it "reader").
Exact same result.

IMPORTANT:
1. sandisk does not respond to customer email requests.
2. rebate is still due after 4 month

Think twice.
would not recommend.