Hoodman USB 3.0 Raw Steel UDMA Card Reader for CompactFlash and SD Cards

Hoodman USB 3.0 Raw Steel UDMA Card Reader

Hoodman

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Memory Card Readers & Writers

Hoodman Memory Card Readers & Writers

Hoodman USB 3.0 Raw Steel UDMA Card Read...

Top Rated Gear: Hoodman USB 3.0 Raw Steel UDMA Card Reader for CompactFlash and SD Cards Compatibility: Secure Digital (SD)

I needed a replacement for my eSATA card reader and decided to try USB 3.0 on my MacPro. This Hoodman Raw Steel unit works like a charm - very fast and stable. Highly recommend

Fast, stable downloads

This card reader is MUCH faster than the 2.0 one I was using.  It is rugged and functional.

Terrific card reader

Small, compact and efficient.

And a great price.  Wonderful product for small and big video companies

Great!

Hoodman Card Reader

For quickly downloading large numbers of Raw images, this robust flash card reader does the job using USB 3.0 technology for both compact flash and SD memory cards. With no moving parts except to the internal dust flap in the compact flash entry pathway, this camera memory card reader should hold up to years of downloading.

Solid performer with fast image download

I was looking to get a faster CF Card Reader and the Hoodman USB 3.0 RAW Steel UDMA Reader was the one.

The RAW files produced by the Nikon D800 need a card reader of this caliber, unless you like waiting around for your files to be transferred to your computer.

By no means is this a scientific test, but the transfer rate is almost double(1.68x)than my USB 2.0 CF Card Reader.

Here is how I tested.
Two RAW files taken with my D800
Total file size: 149 MB
CF Card was an SanDisk Ultra 30MB/s 8GB
Transfer Utility: ViewNX 2 v2.7.1 64-bit
Transfer Time with Hoodman USB 3.0: 4.1 Seconds
Transfer Time with SanDisk Extreme USB 2.0: 6.9 Seconds.

A great feature is the built in Pin Guard, it takes a little getting used to but it's nice that the pins are not exposed.

This reader is rugged, it's all metal case is stout!

Another feature that sold me on this was the ability to upgrade the device firmware. Hoodman released firmware about 6 months ago to add UDMA 7 support. So you don't have to go out and get a new card reader to support the faster cards, just update the firmware!