StarTech Dual Slot USB-C SD Card Reader Review

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Every few months we get the chance to look at a new product from StarTech. In the past, we have looked at docking stations, USB to SATA adapters, and even quad-port gigabit NICs.

StarTech dabbles in a wide range of accessories for both PC and Mac devices. We have one of their latest solutions in house today, a dual-slot SD card reader using the new USB-C standard. As the name suggests, this solution offers read/write access to two SD cards simultaneously while being compatible with both SD 4.0 and UHS-II standards.

The MSRP of the StarTech 2SD4FCRU3C comes in at $58.99 with a two-year warranty, and compatibility of this solution is OS independent.

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Packaging follows what we have seen from StarTech with previous solutions. We have the white box with yellow and black accents. The right side carries an image of the device.

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The back of the box offers even more languages to the left with the scope of delivery listed out at the bottom.

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The scope of delivery includes the manual and reader itself.

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The front of the device houses both included SD card slots.

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The side houses a 5v input if extra power is needed.

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The USB-C cable is attached directly to the device and has its own storage built into the housing of the reader.

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To test the dual slot reader, I used two SanDisk SD cards, both 32GB; one being UHS-I and the other UHS-II.

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The performance of the UHS-I card reached 92 MB/s read and 83 MB/s write.

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The UHS-II card was capable of 222 MB/s read and 193 MB/s write.

In researching for this review, I didn't find many directly comparable SD card readers on the market. StarTech appears to have one of the only dual-slot UHS-II capable solutions available now, and the build quality of this solution is quite good.

I had no issues with either of the slots as far as dimensions or inserting cards, and the internals seem to be ample as well. The built-in USB-C cable could present issues if, at some point, you snagged the cable, but StarTech has done their due diligence creating a place to store that cable when not in use.

The performance was certainly up to par for our UHS-I card bringing in 92 MB/s read and 83 MB/s write. Our UHS-II card (again a 32GB SanDisk) brought in 222 MB/s read in its testing and adding to this was 193 MB/s write.

For those in need of a solution wielding dual ports, the StarTech reader is certainly a viable option. The performance and build quality are up to the task and adding to that is an MSRP at $58.99 and two-year warranty.

Tyler's Test System Specifications

• Motherboard: ASUS Maximus IX Hero (buy from Amazon)
• CPU: Intel Core i7 7700K (buy from Amazon) / (Read our Review)
• Memory: G.SKILL TridentZ DDR4 3200 (buy from Amazon)
• Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 Hybrid (buy from Amazon)
• OS Storage: Intel 730 480GB SSD (buy from Amazon) / (Read our Review)
• Secondary Storage: MyDigitalSSD BP5 512GB SSD (buy from Amazon)
• Case: EVGA DG-86 (buy from Amazon)
• Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA 750 P2 (buy from Amazon)
• Networking: ASUS PCE-AC88 AC3100 (buy from Amazon)
• Power Supply: ASUS ROG 10G Express
• Power Supply: ASUS Thunderbolt EX3 (buy from Amazon)
• OS: Microsoft Windows 10 (buy from Amazon)