A USB SD amd Micro SD card reader is used to read SD and Micro SD memory card from your portable devices like digital camera, camcorder, tablet, mp3 player, MP4 video player, Cell phones, smart phones and digital picture frames.  A USB SD and Micro SD Card Reader would let you read SD and Micro SD cards on an older computer without the need to use a USB cable connected to your digital camera to your computer. SD stands for Secure Digital. A USB SD or Micro SD card reader also comes in handy if your current computers SD Card reader is broken, or does not work with your brand, or size of SD card since some older SD card reader found in older laptops and desktops do not work with newer SD cards which are 4GB and larger storage size. Maybe your current memory card reader is broken, so you can’t read SD cards, but for 10 dollars or less you can buy an USB SD card reader, or an USB micro SD Card reader to read SD and micro SD cards on your computer. Buying a USB card reader can be a lot cheaper then buying a new computer with a working card reader, or hiring a computer technician to install a new one on your computer.
If you already have a SD card reader, but need to read a Micro SD card on your computer, you can buy a Micro SD to SD card converter card which is a SD card which converts Micro SD to the SD card size to work on card readers which only accept SD cards.
When holding SD cards, it is best not to touch the metal contacts on the ends of the SD card, or bend the card. You should store your memory cards in your electronics or in your card reader to prevent damage from dirt, water, and more.
A SD memory card is used to record, and store files, and folders from devices and computers. Micro SD is a smaller version of a SD memory card. Micro SD is the size of a SIM card for cellphones, and Micro SD is used mostly in smartphones, tablets, and MP3 players.
SD and Micro SD cards are usually 512MB to 32GB in size.
Using an USB Micro SD and SD card reader is very simple. You first need to take out the SD card from your device, and put the SD card in the slot in your SD card reader, and plug the USB plug into your computer’s USB port. Most USB SD card readers which I used do not require any driver software. Windows, or Linux already have the USB Card reader pre-installed on the operating system. When your operating system recognize your card reader, and SD card. Your card reader will act like an ordinary USB flash drive or hard drive. You can read and write files on the SD card You can also use your USB Card reader as a USB Flash drive. The benefit of using a USB card reader as a USB Flash drive is that if the USB plug on the card reader breaks, you can just take out your SD card or microSD card, and put it in another card reader which works to access your files. This means you won’t lose your data even if your USB card reader breaks since the data on your SD card is still fine.
When you are done using your USB SD card reader, you should safely remove it, or unmount it before you take it out of your computer’s USB port to prevent data loss or corruption.
Agree, just not worth replacing built in card readers as the USB ones are so cheap.
One more advantage of using a SD card for portable storage is that SD cards still have a ‘read only’ switch on the side of the card – like floppies used to, yes I remember floppies 😉
If plugging it into to an unknown/suspect computer, using ‘read only’ means that viruses can’t write to or infect your memory card. It’s incredibly hard to find flash drives with such a switch now and they’re usually very expensive, shame as so many viruses are spread by infecting flash drives…
I agree it would be cool that Flash drive have a read only switch since many people are using Flash drives like CD which is read only since these days it makes more sense to use a USB flash drive then to carry a bunch of CDs around because of cost, and portability.
Thanks for the tip, on SD cards being read only, and using them as portable storage. I remember in the past there were floppies which has an SD card slot to let you read SD cards from the floppy drive.