These days flash memory is becoming quite the in-thing. It appears that the days of the DVD are slowly coming to an end.

In fact, as soon as flash drives generally are improved so that they can store a terabyte or more and the price comes down considerably, I can see the days of spinning-disk storage coming to an end completely. That’ll mean less moving-parts in a computer, and therefore less to wear out quite so quick. (Although even flash memory has its lifetime limits.) It’ll also mean slightly less noise, other than fan noise.

At the present moment removable flash-drives are generally superseding the DVD-RW drive; which at one point not so long ago replaced the CD-RW drive, which replaced the floppy-drive: All within around 14 years. What of the blue-ray drive? It’s one of the current popular methods of data-storage; but its day will come.

So in the light of the fact that flash-cards are popular, and indeed a number of peripheral and other devices use them; such as digital cameras, mobile phones, mp3 players and the like. Although it’s possible to download from such devices by means of USB and FireWire, it’s also a good idea to have spare flash cards, just in case the one fitted to your digital camera fills up during a holiday for instance.

In such a case, when you arrive back home with several flash-memory cards full of snaps; it’s a good idea to have something other than the camera itself to read them on – Such as a universal card reader fitted to the PC for instance.

A universal card reader is inexpensive. (Although it’s possible to buy an external card-reader for a few groats more and connect it via USB, it’s always easier to have said card-reader installed into the front panel of your PC so that you can just pop the card in, cut and paste its contents to disk, and use it likewise again.) I bought the one fitted to my computer as a stock part about 2 years ago for less than £5.00 UKP.

In the picture above you can see the universal card-reader fitted between the DVD-RW above and the floppy-drive below. (Yes I still use floppies.)

The good news is that they’re rather easy to install as well as being inexpensive. Most modern pre-built computers these days are supplied with a card-reader built in, but not all of them. Older computers, commonly 2 years + old, probably won’t have a card-reader fitted.

Before you fit a card-reader, you’ll need to do some checks. The first of those being: Do you have a spare drive bay with a front opening in your computer’s case. The front-opening may be concealed by a plastic panel which can be popped out from inside the case – So just because you can’t see any more openings doesn’t mean there are none available.

The card-reader unit is commonly the right size to fit a smaller drive bay where hard-drives and floppy-drives are fitted. If you don’t have a smaller 3 1/2-inch drive-bay spare with a front opening then don’t worry: You can buy an adapter which makes it fit into a larger 5 1/4 inch drive-bay where you’d normally fit a DVD-RW drive for instance: basically its two pieces of metal and an extra fascia that screw onto the card-reader unit so that it fits into the larger drive-bay. Once again this is quite inexpensive.

Once you’ve mounted your card-reader unit in a drive-bay, all you need to do is plug it in. On the motherboard there should be at least 1 spare USB connector. (This is NOT a standard USB 2 port: It’s a set of pins onto which fits a plug that leads to a USB device: Either a number of USB ports on the back or front of the case, or otherwise; such as a card-reader as in this case.) If you’re unsure which connector is which I suggest you refer to your motherboard’s manual (RTFM), or if you no longer have it then download it from the manufacturer’s website.

Whilst it is true that most motherboards should have at least a single spare USB connector, there may be cases where this isn’t the case; such as in some computers built from a barebones kit, or on some older motherboards. In such cases it is usually possible to remove the single plug from the only available USB connector; but the front USB ports on the computer’s case may stop working if you do. Therefore this is a good check to do beforehand: Do I have enough USB connectors available on the motherboard, and if not am I prepared to sacrifice the function of my front USB ports in order to connect up this card-reader?

In the picture above the USB connectors on the motherboard are marked with arrows. I’ve connected my universal card-reader to the top one; marked with an asterisk at the tail-end of the arrow.

I suggest before doing anything inside a computer you earth yourself to prevent any static charge being transferred to sensitive components inside the computer. You can purchase a wrist-strap that you connect to electrical earth and wear, or you can connect a piece of metal jewellery or a metal watch that you wear to a metal pipe or the house’s electrical earth.

When you connect the plug to the pins, make sure that the plug is the right way round before you push it home. If it resists DON’T FORCE IT; check that it’s round the right way and try again.

Once connected, power up your computer and install the drivers and/or other software from the accompanying disk if necessary. Your card-reader should now read all the flash-cards that it’s designed to read.

That was a fairly easy install. I would assume that even someone with limited knowledge of computers would be able to do it as described.

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