After a new round of research and testing, we found that the Unitek USB-C Card Reader is the best USB-C SD card reader for most people. Our previous pick, the Iogear USB-C 3-Slot Card Reader, is now our…
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Justin Krajeski
After researching nearly 50 card readers and testing 15 over the past year, we found that the Unitek USB-C Card Reader is the best option for anyone who needs an SD card reader for a new laptop with USB-C ports. The Unitek delivered fast, consistent speeds in a compact, easy-to-use package, and it supports SD, microSD, and CF cards.
Our pick
Unitek USB-C Card Reader
The Unitek works consistently and has fast speeds and the best overall design, all for about the same price as its competition.
Buying Options
*At the time of publishing, the price was $17.
The Unitek was fast and stable when we tested its SD, microSD, and CF speeds—many other readers gave us inconsistent results or didn’t work at all. The Unitek can also read two cards simultaneously—although you lose some speed when transferring data from both cards at once. It doesn’t support UHS-II speeds, but there aren’t any USB-C readers that support both CF and UHS-II SD cards yet. The Unitek is small and light, with a long attached cable and a useful indicator light so you can see when your card is connected or transferring data. It comes with a two-year warranty, about the same as its competitors.
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Runner-up
Iogear USB-C 3-Slot Card Reader
The Iogear is as fast and consistent as our top pick, but it lacks an indicator light, it isn’t as intuitive to use, and it costs a bit more.
Buying Options
If our pick is sold out or unavailable, the Iogear USB-C 3-Slot Card Reader is a good second choice. Like our top pick, the Iogear delivers fast speeds with SD, microSD, and CF cards, although it can read only one card at a time. The Iogear is a little longer than the Unitek, but it’s thinner and lighter, with a shorter connecting cable. It lacks an indicator light, though, and its slots weren’t as easy to use as the Unitek’s. Using the Iogear’s CF card slot, in particular, isn’t intuitive. We spent 30 seconds trying to fit the CF card into its slot—risking damage to the card and the slot—before realizing that it had to be inserted upside down relative to the logo and the other slots. The Unitek’s slots, on the other hand, recognized every card right-side up. The Iogear comes with a three-year warranty, longer than that of any of its competition.
Budget pick
Cable Matters USB 3.1 Type-C Dual Slot Card Reader
Small, light, and fast, the Cable Matters card reader is a good option if you use only SD and microSD cards.
Buying Options
*At the time of publishing, the price was $11.
The Cable Matters USB 3.1 Type-C Dual Slot Card Reader is the best option if you don’t need a CF card reader—it performed just as well as our top picks, and it’s cheaper, too. Though it doesn’t support CF cards, it has slots for both SD and microSD cards, and it can read two cards at once. (Though the Cable Matters loses much more speed than the Unitek when transferring data from both cards concurrently). It’s smaller and lighter than both of our top picks, and like the Unitek, the Cable Matters has an indicator light so you know when it’s in use. It comes with a one-year warranty.
Also great
Verbatim USB-C Pocket Card Reader
It lacks a CF reader, but the Verbatim is the card reader to get if you want UHS-II speeds.
Buying Options
*At the time of publishing, the price was $16.
If you use a camera or cards that support faster UHS-II speeds, the Verbatim USB-C Pocket Card Reader is the reader you should buy. The Verbatim’s SD and microSD slots performed reliably and speedily—around 2.5 times faster than our top pick in our SD card read and write tests—and it has a slimmer design than most of the competition. Because of its very short cord, there’s no way to lay the device completely flat during data transfer, although you can neatly store the cord underneath the bottom of the reader when it’s not in use. It also lacks a CF slot and the handy indicator light that most of our other picks have. It comes with a one-year warranty.
Also great
Kingston USB 3.0 High-Speed Media Reader
The Kingston USB card reader works with SD, microSD, and CF cards, and delivers UHS-II speeds for SD cards.
Buying Options
*At the time of publishing, the price was $18.
If you still use an older computer and need a USB-A card reader, or you’re a photographer who wants both CF compatibility and UHS-II SD speeds, we recommend the Kingston USB 3.0 High-Speed Media Reader. It has slots for SD (UHS-II), CF, and microSD cards, as well as Sony’s proprietary Memory Stick, and it had speedy, consistent performance in our tests. It’s by far the bulkiest and heaviest of all of our picks, but it comes with a 43-inch removable cable and includes a two-year warranty. We tested the Kingston with a USB-C–to–A adapter and it worked perfectly, so if you have a USB-C–equipped computer and need all of the ports this reader offers, just budget for an adapter.
Everything we recommend
Our pick
Unitek USB-C Card Reader
The Unitek works consistently and has fast speeds and the best overall design, all for about the same price as its competition.
Buying Options
*At the time of publishing, the price was $17.
Runner-up
Iogear USB-C 3-Slot Card Reader
The Iogear is as fast and consistent as our top pick, but it lacks an indicator light, it isn’t as intuitive to use, and it costs a bit more.
Buying Options
Budget pick
Cable Matters USB 3.1 Type-C Dual Slot Card Reader
Small, light, and fast, the Cable Matters card reader is a good option if you use only SD and microSD cards.
Buying Options
*At the time of publishing, the price was $11.
Also great
Verbatim USB-C Pocket Card Reader
It lacks a CF reader, but the Verbatim is the card reader to get if you want UHS-II speeds.
Buying Options
*At the time of publishing, the price was $16.
Also great
Kingston USB 3.0 High-Speed Media Reader
The Kingston USB card reader works with SD, microSD, and CF cards, and delivers UHS-II speeds for SD cards.
Buying Options
*At the time of publishing, the price was $18.
Who this is for
If your camera uses SD cards but your laptop lacks a card reader (or it has one, and you’re unimpressed by its speed), you’ll need a separate card reader that hooks up to your laptop via USB-C or USB-A to transfer your photos and videos.
If you just bought a brand-new laptop and suddenly find yourself lacking a built-in SD reader, you may need a USB-C model. All of the latest MacBooks (including the 2016 and 2017 MacBook Pro models) have only USB-C ports, and no SD card readers. Some new Windows laptops exclusively use USB-C ports, too, and others have a mix of USB types and no built-in SD card slot.
If you already own a card reader with a USB-A connection, you can get a USB-C–to–A adapter to use it with a new computer.
How we picked and tested
The most important features for an SD card reader are speed, physical size, and ease of use. This is what you should look for in a USB card reader:
- Connector: Because most new laptops have at least one USB-C port (and some now have only USB-C ports), we focused on USB-C card readers for this review. USB-C is the latest USB standard with a small, reversible connector that has begun to replace the larger, rectangular USB-A standard that you’ve seen on computers for the past 20 years. USB-C indicates the shape of the physical connector, but not necessarily the data transfer speed or power delivery speed—it can support USB 2.0, USB 3.0, USB 3.1 Gen 2, or Thunderbolt 3 speeds. Although it seems redundant, a USB-C card reader needs to have a USB-C physical connector; some card readers listed on Amazon that claim to be USB-C readers are actually USB-A readers with a small USB-C adapter. We also have a USB-A pick if your computer has traditional USB ports.
- USB 3.0 speeds: We considered only USB 3.0 (or faster) card readers in this review, because outdated USB 2.0 card readers aren’t fast enough. Theoretically, USB 2.0 readers can deliver speeds up to 60 MB/s, but they regularly max out at 20 MB/s. With a USB 3.0 card reader, you should be able to enjoy the full speed of a UHS-I SD card. We made our picks based on their ability to deliver fast speeds for each card.
- Compatibility with SD and CF cards: There are a wide variety of memory card formats, but the most prominent are Secure Digital (SD), microSD, and CompactFlash (CF). We looked for readers that support SD and CF cards to ensure compatibility with as many cameras as possible; although most people don’t need CF support nowadays, we considered them for professionals and people with older cameras. We also tried to find readers that support faster UHS-II speeds for SD cards, but couldn’t find any USB-C readers with both UHS-II support and a CF card slot.
- Physical size: We didn’t rule out any card readers based on size, but smaller readers are more convenient to transport, use, and store.
- Design: We also noted if a reader’s design obstructs other plugs and ports, or it has a useful indicator light.
- Reliability and warranty: It’s vital that a card reader works the way it’s meant to. We tested a surprising number of units in this category that were defective or performed inconsistently. For this reason, we favor readers from trustworthy manufacturers with solid warranties—most USB-C card readers that we found had one-year warranties, but two- and three-year warranties are even better.
After researching nearly 50 USB-C SD readers, we tested 12 models that met our requirements in December 2016 and three new models in July 2017. We also looked for models with promising user reviews, although the category is so new that many of the ones we tested don’t have any yet. Then we plugged them into a MacBook Pro (13-inch, late 2016, Two Thunderbolt 3 Ports) and a 2016 Dell XPS 13 (we used a 2017 Dell XPS 15 for our most recent tests) and used AJA System Test and CrystalDiskMark to test their speeds with a SanDisk Extreme Pro UHS-II SD card, a SanDisk Extreme Pro UHS-II microSD card, and a SanDisk Extreme Pro CompactFlash Card. The test results presented here are from our tests on a Windows laptop; our Mac tests were identical, except where noted.
Our pick: Unitek USB-C Card Reader
Our pick
Unitek USB-C Card Reader
The Unitek works consistently and has fast speeds and the best overall design, all for about the same price as its competition.
Buying Options
*At the time of publishing, the price was $17.
The Unitek USB-C Card Reader is the best SD card reader for most people because it produced reliably fast speeds during our SD, microSD, and CF tests, and it has a pocketable design (with a useful indicator light) that’s easy to use. It’s also affordable at around $20, and comes with a two-year warranty.
In our SD card test, the Unitek had read and write speeds of 92 MB/s and 85 MB/s respectively, which is about what we expect for our test SD card on a UHS-I connection. When reading and writing to the microSD card, it had speeds of 92 MB/s and 70 MB/s, and in our CF card test, the Unitek had read and write speeds of 154 MB/s and 144 MB/s, respectively. (These speeds also matched our expectations.) It can also read two cards simultaneously, although we noticed a significant drop in performance: Running an SD and a microSD card at the same time gave us read and write speeds of 59 MB/s and 49 MB/s, respectively. But otherwise the Unitek worked as it should, which isn’t something we can say about many of the card readers we tested.
At 2.2 inches wide, the Unitek is a little broader than all of our other picks (even the bulky Kingston USB 3.0 High-Speed Media Reader), but it’s only 2.4 inches long, around a half inch shorter than most of the competition. It also comes with a white, 12-inch connecting cable attached to its back. It’s easily pocketable and very light at 2.2 ounces, and its glossy silver finish makes it better-looking than some of the other card readers we’ve tested.
The Unitek is more intuitive to use than the other card readers we tested. It has an indicator light, so you can see when your card is connected or a transfer is underway with a glance. Plus, you don’t have to flip any of your memory cards upside down for the Unitek to identify them—like you do with the Iogear and Cable Matters—and all of the Unitek’s card slots feel sturdy and well-aligned. The company is also active in its Amazon reviews, so we’re optimistic that it will honor its two-year warranty and offer prompt customer support if you run into any issues.
| Model | USB-C | SD | CF | Other Cards | SD Speeds |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unitek | Yes | UHS-I | Yes | microSD | 92 MB/s read, 85 MB/s write |
| Iogear | Yes | UHS-I | Yes | microSD | 93 MB/s read, 87 MB/s write |
| Cable Matters | Yes | UHS-I | No | microSD | 92 MB/s read, 86 MB/s write |
| Verbatim | Yes | UHS-II | No | microSD | 227 MB/s read, 219 MB/s write |
| Kingston | No | UHS-II | Yes | microSD, Memory Stick | 186 MB/s read, 172 MB/s write |
Runner-up: Iogear USB-C 3-Slot Card Reader
Runner-up
Iogear USB-C 3-Slot Card Reader
The Iogear is as fast and consistent as our top pick, but it lacks an indicator light, it isn’t as intuitive to use, and it costs a bit more.
Buying Options
If our pick is out of stock or unavailable, we recommend the Iogear USB-C 3-Slot Card Reader. It was fast and reliable in all of our tests, it supports SD, microSD, and CF cards, and it’s slim and light. But it lacks an indicator light, it’s less intuitive to use, and it’s usually a little more expensive than our top pick, the Unitek. Iogear includes a three-year warranty, longer than that of any of its competitors.
Like the Unitek, the Iogear was fast and gave us the speeds we expected from each card. It had read and write speeds of 93 MB/s and 87 MB/s, respectively, during our SD card test, and read and write speeds of 93 MB/s and 73 MB/s during our microSD card test. In our CF card test, it had read and write speeds of 155 MB/s and 139 MB/s. It cannot read multiple cards at once, though.
The Iogear is about an inch skinnier and a half inch longer than the Unitek, measuring in at 3 by 1.6 by 0.5 inches. Although it’s technically shorter and lighter than the Unitek, its rounded top makes it appear bulkier. It also has a shiny black body that attracts fingerprints, and a short, 4.3-inch connecting cable attached to its back.
The Iogear lacks an indicator light—a useful feature offered on other card readers, including our top pick, that reassured us the device was working during our tests. Unlike the Unitek, which had sturdy slots that worked the way they should, we found that the Iogear’s SD card slot was a bit too shallow, and the microSD card slot on the unit we tested was slightly misaligned. At one point during testing, we were concerned about breaking the microSD card by jamming it into the janky slot. (Removing it is just as difficult.) We also tried inserting our CF card right-side up, but it wouldn’t fit into the Iogear’s CF slot. After around 30 seconds wasting time and risking damage to the slot and card we realized we had to insert our CF card upside down (in relation to the logo and the SD and microSD slots) for the Iogear to recognize it. The Unitek’s slots work intuitively and identify every card right-side up.
A budget option: Cable Matters USB 3.1 Type-C Dual Slot Card Reader
Budget pick
Cable Matters USB 3.1 Type-C Dual Slot Card Reader
Small, light, and fast, the Cable Matters card reader is a good option if you use only SD and microSD cards.
Buying Options
*At the time of publishing, the price was $11.
If you use only SD and microSD cards, you should get the Cable Matters USB 3.1 Type-C Dual Slot Card Reader. It’s smaller, lighter, and cheaper than our other top picks, and it has good speeds and an indicator light. But it lacks a CF card slot, and it comes with only a one-year warranty.
The Cable Matters reader has similar speeds to the Unitek and Iogear readers. During our SD card tests, the Cable Matters reader had a read speed of 92 MB/s and a write speed of 86 MB/s. When we tested the unit with a microSD card, it had a read and write speed of 92 MB/s and 71 MB/s, respectively. The Cable Matters can also read two cards simultaneously, like our top pick, though its speeds drop sharply. Running an SD and a microSD card at the same time gave us abysmal read and write speeds of 19.5 MB/s and 17.2 MB/s from both cards, respectively. The Unitek gave us decent read and write speeds of 59 MB/s and 49 MB/s when transferring data from two cards at once.
It’s the most compact card reader we tested, measuring 2.4 by 1 by 0.4 inches and weighing just 0.3 ounces. The Cable Matters also has an attached, 6-inch cable and a pleasant blue indicator light on top so you know when it’s in use. In testing we found—after wasting time trying to insert them right-side up—that the slots are oriented so you have to insert both SD cards and microSD cards upside down for the card reader to identify them. Once you’ve loaded your microSD and SD cards, you have to flip the card reader back around to see its indicator light.
For faster SD Cards: Verbatim USB-C Pocket Card Reader
Also great
Verbatim USB-C Pocket Card Reader
It lacks a CF reader, but the Verbatim is the card reader to get if you want UHS-II speeds.
Buying Options
*At the time of publishing, the price was $16.
If you use a camera or cards that support UHS-II speeds, we recommend the Verbatim USB-C Pocket Card Reader. The Verbatim had read and write speeds of 227 MB/s and 219 MB/s, respectively—around 2.5 times the speed of our top pick—but it cannot read multiple cards at once. It also lacks a CF card slot (so high-end DSLR owners may want to look at our pick for traditional USB ports, along with an adapter if they need USB-C compatibility) and an indicator light, but it costs around the same price as our top pick and comes with a one-year warranty.
The Verbatim has a slimmer and lighter design than most of our other picks, at 3 by 1.3 by 0.6 inches and 0.2 ounces respectively. In exchange for its smaller size, you have to deal with a short, 2.8-inch connecting cable that makes it impossible to lay the device flat while you’re using it. When you’re not transferring data, though, you can store the connecting cable neatly in a space on the underside of the device. None of our other picks have built-in cable management.
For traditional USB ports: Kingston USB 3.0 High-Speed Media Reader
Also great
Kingston USB 3.0 High-Speed Media Reader
The Kingston USB card reader works with SD, microSD, and CF cards, and delivers UHS-II speeds for SD cards.
Buying Options
*At the time of publishing, the price was $18.
If you still need a USB-A card reader for your older computer, or you’re a photographer who wants a reader that can take both CF cards and high-speed UHS-II SD cards, the Kingston USB 3.0 High-Speed Media Reader is your best bet. The Kingston supports SD, microSD, CF, and Memory Stick cards, and it reliably transferred data at UHS-II speeds in our SD card tests. It also has a big red indicator light, and comes with a two-year warranty.
The Kingston had read and write speeds of 186 MB/s and 172 MB/s, respectively, during our SD card test—it’s slower than Verbatim’s USB-C reader, but it had the most consistent performance of the USB-A readers we tested. In our microSD card test, the Kingston had expected read and write speeds of 90 MB/s and 68 MB/s. It was a little slower than our other picks when reading and writing to a CF card, with speeds of 144 MB/s and 136 MB/s, respectively.
It takes up the most space of all our picks, measuring 3.5 by 2 by 0.6 inches, and it weighs 4 ounces. The Kingston card reader isn’t terrible to look at, despite the loud red-and-white design on its top (including a large, red “Kingston” logo that doubles as an indicator light), but it isn’t as attractive as other readers we tested. It comes bundled with a removable, 43-inch connecting cable. None of the other readers we tested had a cable that was this long, or removable.
Because there are currently no USB-C card readers that offer both CF card compatibility and UHS-II SD speeds, if you need both, we recommend the Kingston paired with a USB-C–to–A adapter.
The competition
The Transcend USB 3.1 Type-C Multi-Card Reader is our previous runner-up pick. It performed similarly to the Unitek and the Iogear, with SD card read and write speeds of 84 MB/s and 79 MB/s, respectively. It also works with microSD and CF cards, though its CF write speeds were about 15 MB/s lower than our top pick’s. Its microSD port had an issue with write speeds, too—when we tested two Transcend readers on a Mac, one performed at an abysmal 8 MB/s and the other at a decent, but slow 44 MB/s. In the same setup, most other readers gave us write speeds of about 60 MB/s. It has a legacy Memory Stick slot on its back (if that matters to you) and comes with a two-year warranty.
The SanDisk Extreme Pro UHS-II Card USB-C Reader was our previous recommendation for UHS-II speeds, but it costs nearly three times as much as the Verbatim, and it doesn’t have a microSD slot. Its SD card read and write speeds were about 39 MB/s and 31 MB/s faster than the Verbatim’s, though, and it has a useful indicator light and a simple design.
Like the SanDisk, StarTech’s USB-C Dual UHS-II Card Reader supports UHS-II performance and does not have a microSD card slot. It’s much wider and longer than the competition, and it costs almost 2.5 times the price of the Verbatim for similar performance. It can read two SD cards simultaneously, although you lose some speed in the process.
Mypay
Although Tripp Lite’s USB 3.1 USB-C Multi-Drive Flash Memory Media Reader has similar speeds to the Unitek, its microSD port suffers from the same misalignment as the one on our runner-up pick, it’s missing an indicator light, and it costs nearly twice as much as the Unitek.
Iogear Smart Card Reader Drivers For Mac
Neither the Kanex USB-C Card Reader nor the Plugable USB Type-C Flash Memory Card Reader supports CF cards. Both of them are larger and more expensive than the Cable Matters model we recommend, lack indicator lights, and have an extra Memory Stick slot that most people don’t need.
The first Satechi Type-C SD and microSD Card Reader unit we tested did not recognize SD or microSD cards on three different Windows laptops. The second unit we tested read SD cards only with the “Satechi” logo facing down, and it read microSD cards only with the logo facing up. When it did work, it had slow SD and microSD speeds between 30 MB/s and 40 MB/s when they should have been about twice that.
The Hyperdrive 3-in-1 Connection Kit gave us SD read and write speeds of 20 MB/s, though we should have been getting at least 80 MB/s on a UHS-I connection. And its design obstructs other plugs—most notably blocking the power plug on a Dell XPS 13, and the only other port on the MacBook Pro (13-inch, late 2016, Two Thunderbolt 3 Ports).
The Lexar Professional USB 3.0 Dual-Slot Reader was our former pick for USB-A ports, but Micron has since shuttered the Lexar brand. It was a little speedier than the Kingston when it worked—its read and write speeds were 27 MB/s and 12 MB/s faster than the Kingston, respectively—but the first two Lexar units we tested gave us only UHS-I speeds instead of faster UHS-II speeds on both Mac and Windows.
We also dismissed a few card readers without testing for various reasons:
The WEme card reader offers SD and CF support, but it’s actually a USB-A reader that ships with a USB-C-to-A adapter. We think you’re better off using our best USB-A reader with our best USB-C–to–A adapter.
Although less expensive than our top picks, Masvoker and RicoRich SD card readers lack support for CF cards, and we found that most of their Amazon reviews were fake.
The Trusda, Rocketek, Wesimi, Avotch, EC Technology and BasAcc card readers come from unknown brands and most have very few, if any, reviews.
Footnotes
UHS-II uses an additional row of pins to transfer data faster than UHS-I. Because of that extra row of physical pins, you can use a UHS-II card with a UHS-I camera, and a UHS-I card with a UHS-II camera, but you won’t get UHS-II speeds unless both camera and card support it. Likewise, to get those transfer speeds from your SD card to your computer, both the card and card reader must support it. Only high-end cameras can take advantage of UHS-II SD cards right now, but we expect this to change. In February 2017, the SD Association also introduced UHS-III (PDF) to provide further support for 360-degree, 3D, 4K, and 8K media content, but we expect it will take a year or two before we see memory cards and devices that support the new interface.
Jump back.
Sources
Andrew Cunningham, The complete guide to living a newfangled USB-C (and Thunderbolt 3) lifestyle, Ars Technica, November 8, 2016
DeeJay Scharton, USB 3.0 card reader speeds and why it matters, DSLR Film Noob, February 1, 2014