When updating my desktop computer, I found myself in the odd situation that most readers for digital media (i.e. Compact Flash) are external despite ample space in my case. On the search for an internal solution, I came across an interesting hybrid that acts as a normal floppy drive and sports additional slots for digital media such as Compact Flash or Secure Digital. The YD8V07 is an updated version of the YD8V04 (USB1.1, 6in1, no floppy), and provides an USB 2.0 interface as well as an additional floppy.


A FLOPPY?

Granted, the floppy disk with 1.44 MByte storage seems outdated these days, but every once in a while one will be faced with the need for one. So in general, it's a good idea to keep a floppy in your desktop even if you don't use it for a year.

However, most users will need a reader for digital media and with a desktop computer it makes little sense to have an external solution since it costs extra and and is pretty much another box on your desk. Nevertheless, one will be hard-pressed to find an internal solution these days if not relying on complete off-the-shelf systems from eMachines etc..

The YD8V07 is practically a low profile floppy drive (i.e. for laptops) strapped onto a digital media reader (YD-8V09). Yet, it all fits into the same space as a traditional floppy drive, and even for a very reasonable $37 without the clutter of an external drive.

Floppy and media reader are independent from each other and only share the power plug. The floppy connects via traditional cable and the media reader via USB 2.0 cable.


Y-E DATA or ADAPTEC?

If Y-E Data doesn't ring a bell, you still might have seen this one as an Adaptec Media Reader 7500. Both are identical and the Adaptec is just a rebranding of the Y-E Data device. (At BestBuy, that new name will cost you about $30 more.) Both devices are identical and the Adaptec unit doesn't even go that far to change the name on the drive itself, and still bears the Y-E Data logo. So if you're buying it for the brand, you better keep the box to prove it. ;-)

While I cannot judge the content of the Adaptec box, but the Y-E Data version contains a well illustrated and comprehensive installation guide (English and French) and the driver on CD. I am not sure if anything else is needed.


INSTALLATION

Even if you never installed a floppy drive in your computer, you should have no problem to get the YD8V07 in its place and working in no time.

Caution: The computer should be turned off for this procedure and make sure you're grounded to the computer case.

1. Remove old floppy drive (if applicable)
2. Mount YD8V07 in 3.5" rack of your case
3. Connect floppy cable and power to YD8V07
4. Connect USB connector (5 pins) to motherboard
5. Power up computer
6. Startup Windows* and let it install the driver
7. Download latest driver from www.yedata.com
8. reboot & done

*... I run Windows XP SP2 and Win XP 64bit Beta

Note: The driver's only purpose is to replace and name the icons for each of the 4 mounted devices, that XP otherwise names "Removable Drive". The driver on CD includes lo-res icons that look outdated, but make it somewhat easy to identify each type. Online you can find a version that does the renaming only (i.e. Memory Stick Drive) but not the icon. However, be aware that once you replaced the standard icons, it's hard to get them back even after removing the driver.

So I guess the only thing to check before buying this drive is whether your motherboard has one 5-pin USB port (preferably USB2.0) available. Without it, the whole card reader portion becomes unusable and it's an expensive but plain floppy drive. Alternatively, one can also choose to not connect the floppy drive (via conventional cable) and use the card reader only. (In that case you might be better off with the YD8V09.)


TROUBLE?

So that's easy enough for any novice. However, I played with the driver a little bit and alternated installation between Windows icons and custom icons (which is 2 different driver versions). I already mentioned that reverting WinXP from using the custom icons back to the more refined Windows icons is tricky. (One has to manually assign the old icon or else gets an empty icon.)

Only a few days after the described successful installation, the system stopped recognizing the card reader at all. (Non of the four mounted devices showed up anymore and Windows hardware wizard would not even find the reader.) Should this be another of those early hardware failures as I already encountered with my spanking new graphics board?

Rebooting the computer solved this issue, and so far it remained the only occurrence.


USAGE

With the device installed I had instant access to pretty much all currently used digital media via dedicated slots and respective icons.

- Floppy diskettes (720k / 1.44M)
- Compact Flash (Type I and II)
- SmartMedia (up to 128 MB)
- Memory Stick (incl. PRO)
- SD Memory Card

The MultiMediaCard (MMC) can be read too, but the needed adapter is not included. Not very many devices use this format anymore and the impact may be minimal.

The front plate sports 2 LEDs of which one is a general read/write signal, to prevent data loss by accidentally removing the media while writing data. However, there is no fail-safe mechanism to prevent removal of any media during that critical phase. The other LED seems to indicates whether the inserted Memory Stick is recognized as Pro or not. However, when inserting a MSPro media, the OS sure recognized it but no light went on.

With the dedicated icons it's relatively easy to find the proper media despite all 4 icons permanently being visible (mounted). Those icons are sure not the most attractive I can imagine, but they convey the message. Apparently WinXP SP1 is required to use them.

The usage of any of the slots is very transparent and quite similar to any card reader I worked with so far (including the built-in reader in my Epson Stylus Photo 825).


PERFORMANCE

The weakest link in a USB2.0 card reader (theoretical transfer speed = 480 Mbps) should be the memory and not the reader itself. I ran a few tests with the media I had available and used Sandra2005's benchmark for removable media. All this to find out how fast I will be able download pictures from the media in my Digital Rebel.

Sandra2005: maximum Read / Write [MBps]
- Lexar 1GB CF Prof. (80x): 8.7 / 6.5
- SanDisk 512MB CF Ultra II (66x): 8.7 / 6.5
- Lexar 256MB CF Prof. (40x): 5.5 / 4.3
- SanDisk 256MB SD Ultra II (66x): 6.5 / 5.4
- SanDisk 256MB MS Pro: 8.7 / 3.3

Interpretation: As expected, the data flow exceeds the capabilities of a USB1.1 reader by 'far' (6x). However, it appears that the YD8V07 tops out at 8.7 MBps or 6.5 MBps respectively (best case). This is disappointing since it stifles existing high-speed media to a standard 60x and sure does not benefit from faster media like the 20 MBps SanDisk Extreme III. Hence, the drive should be rated at roughly 60x (maximum) for Read and 45x for Write. Unfortunately, I have no comparison to other USB2.0 readers.

Real Life Data: Let's see how this translates into a typical application. I took the 1GB Lexar 80x card and copied 625 MByte of data (half and half 5 MB and 10 kB files) to my SATA hard disk. That took 95 seconds, which equals roughly 6.5 MBps or 43x (150 kByte/sec = 1x). The low(er) performance is mostly due to typical inefficiencies associated with small files (10 kB) but well in line with the Sandra2005 test and the drawn conclusions.


SUMMARY

Given the difficult time to find any internal reader for digital media, the YD8V07 is a perfect fit for my desktop since it doesn't take any additional spot and reads all the media I currently use (Memory Stick Pro, CF, SD). The USB 2.0 interface helps to transfer data from and to the cards, but is nowhere close to the rated speed of 80x media.

It may not look the cleanest since the front resembles somewhat the texture of Swiss cheese, but in my case it doesn't matter all that much behind the door of my Thermaltake Tsunami.

Greatest disappointment is the mediocre performance of the reader despite USB2.0 interface. It's still about 6x faster than USB1.1 readers ever could do, but cuts performance of a 80x media almost in half. I guess that's eventually what you get if you're thrifty. Then again, there obviously a reason why readers are not rated and usually quote the interface dream number of 480 Mbps (60MBps) instead of the actual performance. I suspect results wouldn't be too pretty.

Y-E Data actually gives a pseudo comparitive speed rating to USB1.1 on the packaging. Upon close examination, this appears to be bogus since 500 vs 3000 'HByte' means practically nothing to the normal user. (HByte is simply the high Byte of the USB SetChannel command and does not directly relate to data transfer.) It could also be a typo, but if it's meant to read 'MByte' then the numbers are off (see test results). Either way, the chart is useless. ;-)


ONLINE RESOURCES

http://www.yedata.com/support/internal_7in1_2_dl.shtml

Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 37
Operating System: Windows