# New FW 800 CF Reader Available



## EvilTed (Mar 17, 2012)

I thought I'd share this seeing as I spent hours trawling the net trying to find a fast CF reader for my MBP.
I had a FW 800 Sandisk reader but sold it when I moved from a Nikon D300 to a D7000.

Now I'm switching to a 5D MK3, I need a fast FW 800 reader.
It seems the Sandisk and Lexar are no longer available and sell for ridiculous amounts.

Never fear, I found a new alternative 

http://fstoppers.com/gear-fw800-cardreader

Update: Got my card reader today. Used it with a Lexar Professional x1000 32GB UDMA 7 with RAW images from my 5D MK3.
On OS-X Lion 10.7.3 it mounted as a regular drive and it took 10seconds to copy 1.5GB to my desktop.
Seems like they fixed the firmware as I suspected
Enjoy 

ET


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## neuroanatomist (Mar 17, 2012)

Great find, thanks! 

FWIW, I currently use an ExpressCard CF reader with my MB Pro, and I'm still hoping someone comes out with a Thunderbolt CF reader which would work with my MB Air.


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## airforceones25 (Mar 17, 2012)

Lol. I actually just ordered one of these bad boys a couple days ago. Came to $59 after shipping. I wasn't willing to shell out a couple hundred dollars for a discontinued SanDisk or Lexar.


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Mar 17, 2012)

I have both a Lexar and a Sandisk firewire 800 reader. I don't bother to use them any more. I didn't know they were worth anything.


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## scruffysaint (Mar 17, 2012)

I've been using the Delock firewire reader for nearly a year now and it has served me extremely well. The only issues have been that it wasn't recognised by OSX Lion so I had to change back the OS and one of my Photofast CF cards isn't always recognised the first time it's inserted into the reader. Other than that...it's perfect!


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## dolina (Mar 17, 2012)

I see Apple deprecating FW in favor for USB3.0 and Thunderbolt in the 2012 Macs.


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## Axilrod (Mar 17, 2012)

I got one of the Lexar firewire CF card readers from my neighbor when he was selling some random gear, I got it for $40 and didn't realize how good of a deal that was until I started looking for a 2nd and 3rd a few months later. People were asking anywhere from $150-$250. I immediately wished I had bought the 2nd one my neighbor had!


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## EvilTed (Mar 19, 2012)

scruffysaint

If you read the blog article in the link I posted, they mention a firmware update that fixes the OS-X Lion issue.
All the new shipping devices should have the updated firmware.

ET


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## Bosman (Apr 17, 2012)

Great Find! My Sandisk FW reader stopped working on snow leopard, or just stopped working...I contacted Sandisk and they sent me a new and updated one. Looks the same. Works great! Its nice to know if i need more readers i can still get them. They were smart to make this, cuz i wouldn't buy any other type myself, they transport images faster than anything I can get for my mac w/o installing HW on my mac pro.


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Apr 17, 2012)

Thanks for the tip, I dug out my Lexar and my Sandisk firewire readers and sold them on ebay for more than I paid new. I'll be using a USB 3 reader in the future.


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## neuroanatomist (Apr 17, 2012)

No USB3 on Macs, no ThunderBolt readers :-[ I picked up a used SanDisk FW800 CF reader from Craigslist for $25 to supplement my ExpressCard/34 reader.


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## prestonpalmer (Apr 17, 2012)

neuroanatomist said:


> Great find, thanks!
> 
> FWIW, I currently use an ExpressCard CF reader with my MB Pro, and I'm still hoping someone comes out with a Thunderbolt CF reader which would work with my MB Air.



What express card reader are you using for your MB pro? I have the Sandisk Extreme Pro Express Card reader and that stupid thing crashes my macbook like crazy! I called sandisk on it, they replaced it once, I had the same problem. I talked to a senior hardware developer over at Sandisk and he said the product is no longer supported by anything over OS 10.4.? I looked at Lexar's version, but it seems to be EXACTLY the same! Im gonna order the FW800 you just posted.


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## RunAndGun (Apr 17, 2012)

I've been wondering what happened to all the FW800 readers... I have, I think, two Lexar FW800 CF readers and they work well, but I switched to the Lexar Express Card CF reader when it became available a few years ago and that's all I use for my CF cards on my MBP. I don't know if it's just the cards I used to use (300x) or if it is something else, but I was expecting a lot more speed from the express card slot than the FW800. I timed DL's and they were essentially the same speed, to within probably a few seconds.


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## prestonpalmer (Apr 17, 2012)

RunAndGun said:


> I've been wondering what happened to all the FW800 readers... I have, I think, two Lexar FW800 CF readers and they work well, but I switched to the Lexar Express Card CF reader when it became available a few years ago and that's all I use for my CF cards on my MBP. I don't know if it's just the cards I used to use (300x) or if it is something else, but I was expecting a lot more speed from the express card slot than the FW800. I timed DL's and they were essentially the same speed, to within probably a few seconds.



You are using the Lexar Express Card CF? With MacbookPro 10.7+? How much ram in the MacBook? Has your system ever kernel panicked (locked up) from using the card?


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## neuroanatomist (Apr 18, 2012)

prestonpalmer said:


> What express card reader are you using for your MB pro? I have the Sandisk Extreme Pro Express Card reader and that stupid thing crashes my macbook like crazy!



I use one from Siig. It does cause an occasional kernel panic (the Siig ExpressCard SD reader doesn't); the Sandisk FW800 reader I picked up seems just as fast, and is quite stable.


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## RunAndGun (Apr 18, 2012)

prestonpalmer said:


> You are using the Lexar Express Card CF? With MacbookPro 10.7+? How much ram in the MacBook? Has your system ever kernel panicked (locked up) from using the card?



10.6(Snow Leopard), 8 GB RAM. I don't believe I've ever had a kernel panic because of the card reader. I do get an inordinate amount of kp's just picking up then sitting back down my MBP while it's on/running. Even VERY gently on something like a bed(not that I'm setting down hard anywhere else). Apple has checked it out and can't find anything "wrong". I told them about it when they replaced my battery in the fall and they ran a diagnostic and even had them reseat the RAM, but it still does it.


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## EvilTed (Apr 21, 2012)

I had the Sandisk reader previously.
This new one is cheaper and a tad faster and I haven't had a single KP in Lion 10.3.

ET


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## Fandongo (Apr 21, 2012)

Speaking of unexplained FW disappearances...
Has anyone seen FW800 seagate goflex DESK adapters?

No way will I pay $60-95 when i got one for $20 last year.
Might as well just pay 10 times more for Thunderbolt (13x w/ cable).

The world is stupid right now.


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## CanonFanNum1 (Apr 21, 2012)

I have also recently purchased this. Very very fast.

One useful FYI: *the speed of your compact flash cards will be the new bottleneck*. If you're using something like 30MB/s or slower cards, its no faster than USB2 (did side-by-side... around 30MB/s compact flash cards are barely saturating the USB2 interface, so you see about the same transfer speed using FW800 because the card is the limiter, not the USB2). My 90MB/s cards screamed though... very much worth the upgrade.


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