Transcend Information USB 3.0 Card Reader (TS-RDF5K)

CUSTOMER REVIEW



I have been using several USB 2.0 card readers in the past, including the Transcend M5 Multi-Card Reader and Sandisk Mobilemate SD Plus Memory Card Reader. With memory cards getting faster over the years, I started to get the feeling that my old card readers are limiting the Read/Write speed of my newer memory cards. That's why I purchased this Transcend Information USB 3.0 Card Reader (TS-RDF5K) just to try it out, even through all my computers only have USB 2.0 ports.



Upon arrival of the RD5F, I benchmarked over one dozen of my SDHC and microSDHC memory cards, with speed rating from class-4 to class-10 and UHS-1. The program I used is called "CrystalDiskMark v3.01 x64". It reports, among other things, sequential READ and WRITE speed of memory cards. To my surprise, several of my fastest cards showed about 50% improvement in Read/Write speed compared to when using the old M5 card reader.



As an example: for the HP CG790A-AZ 32 GB Flash Memory Card Class 10 SDHC I was previously getting 19.6MB/s in Write and 20.1MB/s in Read. But when used with the RDF5, its throughput jumped 50% to 29.7 and 34.8MB/s, respectively. The Transcend 32 GB Class 10 UHS Flash Memory Card TS32GSDHC10U1E also shows nearly identical improvement.



The above proves that using old card reader was the bottleneck for my fastest cards. On the other hand, improvements for my slower cards were less noticeable, typically around 5% or less. That include Kingston class-4 SD10G2/16GB, Transcend Class 6 TS16GSDHC6E, etc. See the summary of benchmark results I uploaded to 'Customer Images' section for details.



The only negative about this RDF5 card reader is that: it does not allow simultaneous usage of both SDHC and microSDHC slots. That is, you can only insert one card at a time, but never both.



Conclusion:

I am very happy with the dramatic improvement I can achieve with this card reader, even when it is connected to an USB 2.0 port. Once I upgrade to a new computer with USB 3.0 ports, I expect the benchmark results to be even better - at least for my fastest cards. In the mean time, I consider this card reader the cheapest computer upgrade I can recommend.



[Update on Dec 26, 2013]

I finally have a computer with USB 3.0 port, so I re-tested ~10 memory cards to see the difference.

- For any card marketed as 'UHS-1', I observed huge improvements in both Read and Write speeds.

- For any card marketed as 'class 10' but not UHS, I may see some increase in Read, but very little difference in Wrire.



Bottom Line: If you have an UHS-1 card, make sure to use the RDF5 card reader in conjunction with USB 3.0 port, in order to get the full benefit.