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Scythe Kama 18-in-1 USB Internal & External Card Reader |
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Written by Mikhail Ivanenkov
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Wednesday, 25 July 2007 |
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Page 2 of 2
Here it is powered on. The blue LED is extremely bright (hurts if you stare at it directly) - much brighter than the accompanying red LED. When you first plug it in, Windows XP recognizes each of the four ports individually as generic removable disks.
And this is how it shows up in explorer. You can of course rename each drive to make more sense to you (such as CF/SD/etc). For testing I used the only available removable storage card currently in my possession - a high speed 2GB Compact Flash from Kingston. First, I timed a small multiple file copy - 1.03GB (984 files in 14 folders). I then timed a large single file copy - a 1.03GB zip file. Then I ran HD Tach's 8MB zones test (writing enabled) along with SiSoftware's Sandra XI Pro Business (SP4) removable storage test. 1GB is treated as 1024MB, so 1.03GB is about 1055MB. The results are as follows.
Multiple small file copy (1.03GB, 984 files in 14 folders) - 4:44 (3.7MB/s)
Single large file copy (1.03GB) - 2:25 (7.3MB/s)
Decent transfer rates. Unfortunately this is the only card reader I have at the moment so I can't compare it to anything else, but worry not - future card reader reviews will have performance comparisons to all previous ones (where applicable). Sandra's Removable Storage benchmark gave the following overall scores:
Combined Index - 1643 operations/minutes
Endurance Factor - 16.1
The Combined Index is an averaged total of various sized file writes, from small files (32k) to one several MBs large. The Endurance Factor is an averaged total of performance on re-writes, random writes, and things of that nature. Alone these numbers mean little, but keep them in mind for future reviews.
HD Tach means a bit more. Random access time was 0.6ms, on par with the fastest USB drives out there. CPU utilization remained at a low 3% (+/- 2%). Burst speed was recorded at 10.1MB/s, average read at 10.1MB/s, and average write at 8.5MB/s. All in all Scythe's Kama 18-in-1 card reader is a good product. It's nothing fancy or special, but it gets the job done. Those looking for a no-frills, all-business reader should definitely consider this.
Pros
- Simple, good design
- Easy installation
- Looks nice
- Good performance
Cons
- External USB connector could be more rugged
Scythe's Kama reader is a solid option for those looking for an inexpensive, dual purpose (internal/external) card reader that accepts all common formats without any unnecessary features. If interested, you can find a list of resellers here. Feel free to comment on this review here. Thanks for reading and enjoy the site!
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 25 July 2007 )
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