Sony MRW-S1 High Speed UHS-II SD Card Reader Review

Introduction

The Sony S1 UHS-II SD Card Reader (MRW-S1/T1) is a compact SD card reader for standard SD, SDHC, SDXC cards that supports UHS-I and UHS-II. It was announced in early 2017 alongside the Sony G Series UHS-II SD cards.

The S1 reader consists of a grey plastic case that measures about 2 1/4 by 1 1/4 by 7/16 inches. A removable snap-on plastic cap covers the USB port. On the opposite end is a single SD card slot. About 7/8 inch of the card inserts into the slot, leaving about 3/8 inch of card outside the reader. Cards insert easily and smoothly into the reader.

There is no card access light. The standard USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-A connector fits USB 3.0 prts. The reader is backwards compatible with USB 2.0, although its speed will be limited.

The reader tested is marked "Made in Taiwan." The Sony MRW-S1 has a 1 year warranty. Supported operating systems include Windows 7 (SP1), Windows 8.1 and Windows 10, as well as Mac OS X 10.9 or later. The UPC code is 027242906235.

Performance

The Sony S1 reached the speed using Sony SF-G Series UHS-II cards. The highest benchmark reached 301.6 MB/s sequential read speed. Sequential write speed topped out at 273.1 MB/s also with G Series cards. Benchmarks of UHS-I cards provided read speeds up to 99.3MB/s, and write speeds up to 92.6 MB/s.

The S1 reader has no microSD slot, so microSD cards were tested in an adapter. UHS-II microSD cards were tested using a UHS-II microSD to SD adapter.

Reader: Sony S1 High Speed UHS-II Reader/Writer
Benchmark: CrystalDiskMark 3.0.3 x64
Program settings: 1000 MB, 5 passes, random test data
Operating system: Windows 10 Pro
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD3H
Processor: Intel Core i7-3770K @ 4.40GHz
RAM: 32GB DDR3 1600

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