Reddit reviews Kingston Digital USB 3.0 Super Speed Multi-Card Reader for SD/SDHC/SDXC/microSD/MS/Compact Flash CF Cards (FCR-HS4), White, Brushed Nickel

You'll want a pretty sizeable SSD for offloading pictures quickly as well as their in-use storage while editing.

You'll probably also want to set them up with a pretty sizeable hard drive because professional grade photos eat up space quick. I'd also highly recommend setting up a RAID1 for them to protect them in case of hardware failure and minimize downtime for them. Along with that, make sure they have serious backup plan in place, and if they don't make arrangements for them whether that be an external drive, or something like CrashPlan if they have fast internet.

Processor requirements typically aren't too crazy for doing standard photo adjustments (color balancing, etc), they'd likely be fine with and i5 or R5 and higher, but if they are trying to batch convert a bunch of photos between file formats often (like they shoot in raw, but deliver finals in JPG), a faster processor will help with that significantly.

RAM requirements are typically more dependent on the user's workflow. A single picture open to edit doesn't take much. But I've seen some photographers that open one picture, edit it, then move to the next, and I've seen others that have 100s of pictures open at once and are constantly flipping back and forth. That second user needs a lot more ram then the first.

Biggest consideration will be the monitor, you'll want something with decent color, probably an IPS panel, and if you can afford something professional grade that come factory calibrated, or you can add a colorimeter to the build, that'd be a solid choice.

Also consider including a high quality USB 3 card reader like this one: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00VAGX6MW It significantly helps speed up the offload of their data from their camera to the computer.

This is the updated version of the black kingston reader linked by /u/windupbird. I have both they both work great but the white version seats SD cards deeper in the reader protecting them better.

The Black Version is more expensive simply because it's no longer in production. Get the white one.

The only potential difficulty is if your Windows computer doesn't have a card reader. In that case, just buy a cheap card reader (e.g. https://www.amazon.com/Kingston-Digital-Hi-Speed-Reader-FCR-HS4/dp/B00VAGX6MW) or leech off a friend who does.

Etcher (from http://etcher.io) is the best image flashing app on Windows. Super simple to use.

http://www.amazon.com/Kingston-Digital-Hi-Speed-Reader-FCR-HS4/dp/B00VAGX6MW

I've had an good experience with this.

Heya!

I'm not really a beginner when it comes to computers but I've just stumbled upon something that I cannot explain and I'd love it if someone could provide some info.

The TL;DR is that I have an SD card reader (a cheap kingston one) with USB 3.0 that has pretty poor transfer rate in the read direction. But today I installed a new USB 3.0 hub (a cheap anker one), I've plugged the hub in the same USB 3.0 port on my computer and I plugged the SD card reader on the hub, and now transfer rate are soaring, almost 3 times what I used to have.

I've done a couple of tests, transferring a bunch of files to and from the same SD card and same SSD, with the only variable changing is the presence of the hub between the SD card and the usb port. The results are clear. With no usb hub, I have a 75MB/s write rate and a 25-30MB/s read rate. With the usb hub I still have 75MB/s write speed and I now have a 75MB/s read speed.

I'm puzzled by this. I expected to get lower speed when using a hub, not higher speed. Anyone knows what could be the cause?

1. Get a USB card reader. I use this one from Kingston.
   
   
2. I think the closest thing I've seen to nailing the Apple aesthetic for a PC case is the NCase M1. It's small and a little on the expensive side, but it's super clean. All the panels are aluminum as well.

If you badly want an internal card reader go for it.

But in my option, an external USB 3.0 card reader is a far more convenient, flexible, and cheaper option: https://www.amazon.com/Kingston-Digital-Multi-Card-microSD-FCR-HS4/dp/B00VAGX6MW/

You can quickly swap it to any machine you want. You don't need to buy additional internal bays or cards. You can use it with future laptops or desktop machines. It's a far more versatile purchase.

> plus one more 3.5" or 5.25" bay add-on with more USB3 ports

Once again, something like an external USB 3.0 hub can be much cheaper and versatile. The only area in which a USB 3 hub falls behind is when you need the full speed of all your USB 3 device at the same exact time. The frequency of that happening tends to be pretty low though.

Had this problem and it was the SD card adapter. Only workaround I can think of is using a USB3 Micro SD Card Reader. Personally I use this one.

Kingston FCR-HS4 USB 3.0 Hi-Speed Media Reader, Grey/White
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00VAGX6MW/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_5XjuDbBK85DDV

I use these all the time where I work and they’ve never let me down

I can't get Nintendont (vWii) to read my USB.

I am using a SanDisk 32GB Extreme SDHC card (https://amzn.to/2k82Nrr) formatted using FAT32 with a 32KB cluster size using Primary MBR. I have formatted the SD card using EaseUS Partition Master and plugging it into a Kingston USB 3.0 Memory Card Reader (https://amzn.to/2wVjVdn) plugged into the top back USB with 1 USB lead, I have also tried a Y cable and plugging it into the back next to the port I mentioned earlier.

No matter what, I am constantly getting the error message "USB FAT could not be opened".

How do I fix this error?

There was a post on this subreddit recently where people discussed a USB Micro SD Card Reader which had a unique GUID....That is pretty rare and useful for Unraid.

If you get corruption, you can swap out the micro SD card and not have to change licenses with Unraid :)

Update: this was it.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00VAGX6MW

Further discussion:
https://www.reddit.com/r/unRAID/comments/dqdxep/can_i_run_unraid_off_an_sd_card/

I went looking for decent SD card readers recently as I wanted to speed up Raspberry Pi card flashing...

If all he wants is SD cards, I'd take a look at something like a Kingston MobileLite G4. Yes, this is not an internal card reader - but most internal card readers that exist are of rather low quality. For example, they aren't UHS-I/-II compatible to read faster cards. It's around $10.

If your father wants CF cards or MicroSD without hunting for an adapter, take a look at this Kingston Reader. It's around $18.

I haven't used these readers; I'm planning on snagging one in the near future, but hopefully someone else can pop in with experience with them. The Wirecutter really likes the all-in-one; meanwhile, Legit Reviews liked the MobileLite G4.

I'm suggesting these two because reviews seem to hold that they're fast, cheap, and at least a recognizable brand. I have no idea how fragile or reliable they are. That said, they're the way I would go.

Also, to echo some of the other comments on here: Get your Dad an SSD at least for the OS and some programs. It doesn't have to be big - 128GB is absolutely safe, 60 can be really crowded. You can snag a bunch of 120GB SATA SSDs for around $55-$60. Another option is an NVMe SSD, since your MSI motherboard supports it - see port 10 in the diagram. I've been happy with a MyDigitalSSD BP NVMe SSD - and 128GB of REALLY fast SSD for $70 is a steal. (As a guideline, SATA top out around 540Mb/s ideal, while NVMe are often 1500Mb/s or higher.)

The vast majority of people use a card reader. It's faster than directly connecting the camera and also doesn't eat batteries.

I recommend the Kingston USB 3.0 reader.