Best Card Reader For Mac Pro

The lack of an SD card slot on the 2016 and 2017 MacBook Pro is an inconvenience for photographers of all stripes who shoot with cameras other than the iPhone. The answer—as with everything else that needs to connect to the USB-C–only MacBook Pro—is an external USB-C SD card reader.

But which one? As you would expect, third parties have rushed to create adapters for everything, including memory card readers. And to no one’s surprise, the quality, specifications, and prices are all over the map.

CLICK FOR WIKI Please Note: Our choices for this wiki may have changed since we published this review video. The SD card reader which can access any media directly to the MacBook Pro and three USB 3.0 ports, through which you can connect external drives or keyboard or mouse or pen drives to work conveniently on MacBook Pro. Find great deals on eBay for sd card reader for macbook. Shop with confidence.

We tested six adapters that stood out among the field based on online reviews, word of mouth, and design. All of the adapters read and write to SD cards, and we tested one model—the IOGEAR USB-C 3-Slot Card Reader/Writer—that also accepts larger CompactFlash (CF) cards still used by some high-end cameras. Choosing which reader is best for you depends a lot on what you need and how much you’re willing to spend. For most people, that could turn out to be one of the least expensive of the bunch.

I am wondering if you know why the card reader manufacturers stopped making the FireWire 800 transfer card reader? Currently I'm using a USB 2.0 reader, plugged into a MacBook Pro. While it's fast, I see the difference, in that our older 800 FireWire readers did transfer the data faster. In fact, I've chosen to use a good USB2 card reader for the SD cards in my 1Ds Mark II at work, but I rarely actually use them because the fast CF card reader is so much better - especially with a Mac Pro. Then we plugged them into a 2016 MacBook Pro and a 2016 Dell XPS 13 and used AJA System Test and CrystalDiskMark to. The IOGear USB-C 3-Slot Card Reader is the best SD card reader for most. Best Buy currently has a limited-time sale hitting the 15-inch MacBook Pro from mid 2015, with a 2.2 GHz Intel Core i7 processor, 16GB RAM, and 256GB flash storage.

Before you view the picks, you may want to consult our SD Card explainer to understand the stew of acronyms and jargon the industry uses to describe memory card storage and speed.

Best card reader for speed

The SanDisk Extreme Pro UHS-II USB-C Reader is pricey ($49 on Amazon, and unlike the other adapters we tested, it has just a single SD card slot—no microSD, CF, or USB-A ports to extend its versatility.

But it’s fast.

On one hand, the speed is due to its UHS-II compatibility, transferring up to a theoretical 312 MBps from UHS-II memory cards that include a second row of contacts from which to read data. In our real-world tests, we recorded an average throughput of 195.45 MBps for photos and 267.67 MBps for video; the latter’s increase is due to the reduced amount of overhead needed to copy nine files versus 684 files.

That said, even when copying from more common UHS-I cards, which top out at a theoretical speed of 104 MBps, the SanDisk Extreme Pro UHS-II USB-C Reader bested the other adapters we tested. It copied our suite of photos at a rate of 86.68 MBps and video at 101 MBps.

Best Card Reader For Iphone

We also liked the fairly compact design, with its bendy neck and minimal footprint, although the angle of the case where you insert the SD card makes extracting a card less elegant than needed.

But if you’re shooting with a camera that works with UHS-II cards and you need the fastest copy turnaround, the cost is worth it.

Best value for UHS-II cards

If you’re willing to give up a few seconds and don’t want to pay a premium for speed, the Verbatim USB-C Pocket Card Reader is nearly as fast as the SanDisk Extreme Pro when copying from UHS-II cards and costs just $17 on Amazon.

In our testing, we found an average throughput of 179.36 MBps for photos and 221.89 MBps when transferring video files. The Verbatim reader is a little more bulky, and sports a short cable for the USB-C plug, but it also features slots for SD and Micro SD cards.

Best combination of price and performance

What if, like most current photographers, you’re not yet capturing to UHS-II cards? For an adapter that has a great combination of price and performance, we like the Cable Matters USB 3.1 Type-C Dual Slot Card Reader ($12 on Amazon).

We expected to run into tradeoffs at this price, but the Cable Matters adapter was almost as fast as the SanDisk adapter. Our photos transferred at 82.17 MBps, while videos zipped along at 95.6 MBps.

The adapter has dedicated SD and microSD card slots that can be used simultaneously, and a discrete LED to indicate the adapter is getting power. With dimensions of just 2.8 x 5.4 x 0.5 inches and a 6-inch cable, it doesn’t add bulk to any bag.

If you don’t need UHS-II compatibility, the Cable Matters USB 3.1 Type-C Dual Slot Card Reader is the one to get.

How we tested

We copied two sets of photos and videos from a SanDisk Extreme Pro SDXC card rated at 95 megabytes per second (MBps). For photos, we timed three transfers of 12.9GB of JPEG and raw images (684 files) and averaged the results. For video transfer, we copied 31GB (9 files) from the same card.

We also copied the same files using a SanDisk Extreme Pro SDHC UHS-II card rated at 280 MBps to test the difference that UHS II compatibility affords. And for the CF reader, we used a SanDisk Extreme CF card rated at 120 MBps (UDMA 7) to copy 7.7GB of JPEGS (402 files), since that card’s capacity maxed out at 16GB.

All of the testing was done on a 2016 MacBook Pro with TouchBar equipped with a 2.7GHz Intel Core i7 processor, 16GB of RAM, and a 1TB SSD. We used the Image Capture utility to facilitate the transfer of photos, and copied the video files using the Finder.

Bottom line

If you really need the top speeds afforded by UHS-II cards and devices that read them, we recommend the SanDisk Extreme Pro UHS-II USB-C Reader. For everyone else, however, our favorite USB-C memory card reader is the Cable Matters USB 3.1 Type-C Dual Slot Card Reader. It’s fast, small, and inexpensive—the attributes you want so you can spend your time and money on capturing photos.

To read the full reviews of each product we tested, click the product name in the list below, and then click the “Read the full review” link that appears.

By now there are countless flash cards designed to sit perfectly inside the MacBook Air’s SD card slot and boost the laptop’s storage as an extra onboard drive. But the TarDisk Pear is the first to actually merge with a MacBook’s SSD, creating a single hybrid drive for easier file management.

Business Card Reader For Mac

Macbook Pro Card Reader

Made with a brushed aluminum housing so that it blends into the rest of your MacBook Pro or MacBook Air when inserted, the TarDisk Pear includes a built-in automatic installer that essentially turns the flash card and your laptop’s native SSD into a single Fusion Drive, using Apple’s own terminology for the clever hardware trick.

With the TarDisk Pear installed instead you don’t have to manage a pair of drives on your laptop and decide how to distrubute your videos, photos, music, or important work files amongst them. Instead, your MacBook just thinks its SSD suddenly has way more capacity at its disposal.

To ensure there’s minimal loss in performance, the software ensures the MacBook’s SSD is always the preferred place to store files, assuming there’s still space left. But when the extra capacity of the TarDisk Pear is required, the software will try to only keep less frequently used files on the flash card. The system’s read/write buffer is also maintained on the SSD, again, to help maximize the performance of the hybrid drive.

According to TarDisk’s own benchmark tests, MacBooks actually show the same, or slight improvements to disk performance with the TarDisk Pear installed. So while the actual hardware in the flash card might not perform as well as the SSD drives Apple uses do, the extra storage your laptop is gaining still ends up being an overall boost to your system.

There are a few important caveats to note, though. For starters, when using an SD card as an extra storage drive for your MacBook that’s just full of random files, you’re free to remove it whenever you want. But when that SD card is permanently tied to your MacBook’s SSD, and might hold crucial system files, you’re not going to want to pop it out. Once installed, you should probably consider your MacBook’s SD card slot off limits, and get yourself an external USB card reader as an alternative.

It’s also not a cheap upgrade. The 128GB version of the TarDisk Pear will sell for $149 when available next Tuesday, while the larger 256GB model comes in just shy of $400. Consider that bumping a new 13-inch MacBook Air from a 256GB to a 512GB SSD on Apple’s website when ordering is just a $300 upgrade. So if you’re spec’ing a new machine, spend the extra money up front to boost its SSD capacity. But if you’re trying to prolong the life of an existing MacBook, this is almost certainly cheaper and easier than upgrading the guts.

[TarDisk]