What do you guys and gals think of multicard readers. I hate to base my opinion of them based on forums like this, because the #1 (and many times the only) reason to post about them is because they don't work. So how does the public feel? Are they worth buying?

If interested im interested in purchasing a fan controller for a custom PC im building, and I was wondering if it would be worth it to have it include a multicard reader.

My issue I see with mulitslot card readers is based mostly on Redhat/Fedora distros. The issue is most of the readers I have used require probe multilun support in the kernel. As of Fedora Core 3 and down it is not a default in the default kernel install or most updated kernels using apps like synaptic/apt or yum. Rebuilding the kernels is easy to do but to me it is a simple check the box item that should always be checked. So if you go with Redhat/FC distro and have one of these readers you will more than likely need to recompile the kernel yourself to be able to use all the slots. If there is no multilun support then ususally only one slot will work. Again not all readers need multilun support. Some work with the need of it. I do not remember which ones they are.

Other than that, they work very well

Hope this helps.
Brian1

I've got one built in to my laptop and, although I thought I'd never use it at first, I don't know what I'd do without it now.

Actually, I do. I'd spend the better part of a day digging out all the USB cables I've now lost track of, and then forever curse having to cart them all around!

So yes, if you've got cameras and such that use CF/SD/etc they're well worth it.

* Depending, ofcourse, on how much extra $$$ will it be for the CF reader.

Until I saw this thread, I hadn't realized people had issues with the multi-card readers. I own/use several digital cameras and also use compact flash for embedded hardware situations, so it's well worth it to me. And I guess I just always realized Multi-LUN support was a good thing(tm).