Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Works well (Within reason, of course...), March 22, 2006
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.
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8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Works just as expected..., September 24, 2005
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.
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20 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
A product looking for an application, August 12, 2005
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.
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