Introduction

I would like to thank Addonics for supplying the review sample.

Addonics may be unknown to some of you, but the company has been around for quite some time and the diversity of products offered is nothing to scoff at. The following is an excerpt from the Addonics "about us" page:

Incorporated in 1998, Addonics is a privately held company located in the Silicon Valley, California. Its mission is to provide professionals and business users a complete family of innovative storage solutions with the highest quality and best compatibility in mind. Our business focus is to deliver a family of data storage building blocks that can be easily put together to form a variety of data storage solutions. These building blocks consist of sub systems, IO converters, storage enclosures, racks, controllers, interface boards, mounting brackets, interface cables, power cables, adapters and connectors. In as much as possible, the building blocks are designed as independent modules that can be used as stand alone or combined in many possibilities, similar to the LEGO blocks, to form powerful and flexible storage solutions.

We have the pleasure of taking a look at their latest card reader, the Pocket eSATA/USB DigiDrive. While there are many card readers out there, check out the feature set below as it does hold a few surprises.

Features from the product website:

• High Speed eSATA and USB 2.0 connection
• 4 slots for direct access of Compact Flash (CF), Secure Digital (SD) and SDHC (SD 2.0), Multi Media Card (MMC), Memory Stick (MS)
• Choice of Read/Write or READ only models
• Maximum data transfer rate (depending on the speed of the flash media): eSATA - up to 1500 Mbits/sec, USB 2.0 - up to 480 Mbits/sec
• Read and write to 15 different popular digital media (some media may require additional adapter) - Micro SD, Sony M2, Secure Digital (SD) and SDHC (SD 2.0), mini SD, Multi Media Card (MMC & MMC Plus 4.2), Reduced Size MMC (RS-MMC)(adapter needed), Memory Stick (MS)(Magic Gate), Memory Stick Pro (MS Pro 4bit), Memory Stick Duo (MS Duo), Memory Stick Pro Duo (MS Pro Duo), Compact Flash Type I (CF I), Compact Flash Type II (CF II), MicroDrive, Smart Media, xD
• Single drive icon to access one media at a time
• Upgradeable firmware to ensure future compatibility
• Green LED to indicate media access
• Backward compatible to USB 1.1
• Powered from USB port
• Complete Plug and Play

Packaging & Contents

The DigiDrive ships in a plain white cardboard box, with a label denoting the contents. Addonics offers a wide variety of card readers, all of which look rather similar. A picture and the actual card reader variant inside are clearly visible on the glued on label. There is no real packaging system in place. The cables have simply been placed on top of the actual unit, which in turn is protected by a bubble wrap bag.


Addonics includes all required cables. You receive USB 2.0 and eSATA cables in addition to a "power USB" one. The latter is needed to supply the juice to the DigiDrive when using the eSATA interface. On top of that you receive a simple but needed manual, as this card reader has two different operating modes M1 and M2, but we will get to that later.