Sony MRW620/U1/181 Internal 17 in 1 Memory Card Reader/Writer

Works great, one slightly annoying quirk, February 18, 2010

By 

J. McManus “Fast Computer Geek” (Sierra Foothills, CA) –

  

Ordered this card reader for a clients custom build. Card readers are always a tricky sort of thing, and there seems to be a lot of “YMMV” with just about every CR under the sun! That said, this one seemed pretty solid, and while it doesn’t read every format under the sun it does read all the major ones and the extra USB connection is a nice addition.

Fits in the clients Antec Sonota III 500 case without issue.

Uses an internal motherboard USB port, which IMHO is great. Of course this means you’ll want to make sure you have an open USB header prior to ordering; ESPECIALLY if you have a computer from one of the huge OEM’s (Dell, HP, Gateway, etc)! The ‘two cables into one plug’ approach is a little sloppy – one for the USB port and one for the card reader itself – am sure the engieers could’ve come up with something cleaner, but it does the job.

Copying between cards works just fine. Scrounged up an old CF & SM and transferred data between them without issue. Front USB port works fine too.

So what’s the quirk? When installing a fresh copy of XP I didn’t notice that the card reader had been assigned drive letters C: D: E: & F: until after XP was installed. The optical drive was G: and the HDD was H:. No huge loss, just disconnected the CR, formatted and reinstalled the OS again and connected the CR later, but it’s worth mentioning just in case you’re installing everything from scratch. If you’re adding this to an existing system you shouldn’t have anything to worry about. (It’s possible that a BIOS setting would’ve resolved this issue too.)

**** WANT CUSTOM ICONS IN ‘MY COMPUTER’ UNDER WINDOWS XP? ****

Despite what some folks have said, you *can* download some software from Sony and get the correct custom icons! Discovered this while browsing around the Sony support pages, saw the software listed and decided to give it a go.

Go to […] then click on Firmware/Drivers/Utilities and download the “Drive Letter Recognition Software”. Open the zip and then run the executable file. Once it’s done, open My Computer and you’ll now have the proper custom icons! 🙂 No idea why Sony doesn’t include this software for the MRW620, but at least folks now know that the software mentioned above (for the MRW62E) will do the trick.

A rather long winded review for a simple card reader, but hope it’s of assistance to some of you out there. Good product, does waht it says on the tin. Enjoy!

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 

Was this review helpful to you? 

|

 Comments (6)

A Second Round, November 11, 2009

By 

M. Fernandez (Houston, TX USA) –

  

I am a system builder thats had been looking for an internal memory card reader. At the local Fry’s, there were plenty to choose from but all were from companies I had never heard of. Most said 3.5 Drive Bay but were off in their measurements by a few centimeters. I bought this internal card reader and found that it suit my needs. To top it off, this reader/writer was licensed by Sony- a company that had a physical address that made and licensed other electronic components. This card word in Windows Xp. It still worked nicely in Windows Vista. In Xp and Vista, in the “My Computer Window” all the seperate flash drives were listed. I wished that Windows would assign the appropriate flash card icon to each drive and not that standard gray drive icon. This would allow me to tell each drive apart.

In Windows7, which this card also works flawlessly, in the “Computer” window, none of the flash drives are listed until you insert a card. This makes it easier to tell which drive is what.

If a motherboard and a computer case has only a limited number of USB ports, this card will offer one extra port. That port can become very valuable and can only increase the value of this peripheral.

I am currently building a second system and I have this reader/writer installed. When I make my rounds for a third system, I will order another reader/writer.

Help other customers find the most helpful reviews 

Was this review helpful to you? 

|

 Comments (13)