Compact Flash v. Micro Drive

[Radtech1]

I will be getting a couple of large cards (2+ gig) for my 5d. The price of the Micros are about half that of the CFs. I currently use a 2g Micro and have no problem with the in-camera performance.

The problem lies with transferring the images to my PC.

Seems to take about 30 min for the entire 2g. For those who use large CF cards, what kind of transfer time to you get? Does that change with 16x or 40x or even 80x?

Rad

[jacobsen1]

How are you transfering to the CPU? Through the camera, firewire card reader, or USB2.0 Card reader? I would highly recoments a reader of either the firewire or USB flavor as they transfer a lot faster than the camera in my experience. Plus no drain on the battery.

Ben

[jacobsen1]

Just looked at the 1DmII speeds for CF cards, and the Hitachi Microdrive 4GB writes at 3.802MB/sec and reads at 4.564MB/sec. Compared to my old card:SanDisk "original" Ultra 512MB writes at 2.401MB/sec and reads at 2.623MB/sec this is very fast, but the fastest card tested for a 1DmII is SanDisk Extreme 1GB which writes at 5.778MB/sec
reads at 7.166MB/sec...

So for the price if you don't need to clear buffers super fast they are OK. Middle of the pack in terms of speed.

Ben

[Radtech1]

How are you transfering to the CPU? Through the camera, firewire card reader, or USB2.0 Card reader? Ben

USB card reader. Labeling claims 2.0 and I know the port is 2.0, but speed seems VERY slow. As I said, about 15 min per gig.

Rad

[jjonsalt]

USB card reader. Labeling claims 2.0 and I know the port is 2.0, but speed seems VERY slow. As I said, about 15 min per gig.

Rad

What OS and version are you running on your computer? If it's Windows XP but dosen't have the SP2 installed it will not recognize USB 2.0. How much RAM do you have? Should be at least 512MB. Multi-tasking can slow things down as well.

[jjonsalt]

P.S. My understanding is that anything over 40x or 50x pretty much goes unused with digital cameras. I suggest you get flash memory, it's pretty cheap now-a-days.

[Radtech1]

What OS and version are you running on your computer? If it's Windows XP but dosen't have the SP2 installed it will not recognize USB 2.0. How much RAM do you have? Should be at least 512MB. Multi-tasking can slow things down as well.

WinXP - sp2

2 gig

I know that that hub runs as USB 2.0 because I also use that port for an external HD, and I get read/write responses that rival my internal HD.

I suspect the speed problem has to do with the Micro-drive. I am hoping that a CF instead of a Micro will solve the problem, but I don't know. I posted here because I am hoping someone knows before I spend $300 for a CF.

Rad

[Radtech1]

P.S. My understanding is that anything over 40x or 50x pretty much goes unused with digital cameras. I suggest you get flash memory, it's pretty cheap now-a-days.

I did not know they have flash memory CF cards. Where did you get yours? Who makes them? Doesn't it need to have power all the time or it will loose it's data?

Rad

[DavidW]

An 'ordinary' CompactFlash card is flash memory (note the name - CompactFlash). The alternative to flash memory based cards is hard disk technology - in other words, Microdrive.

In some card formats, there are RAM cards, but they're no use for cameras.



David

[jjonsalt]

The Kingston Elite Pro 2 GB cards are very reasonable. I use one and have read positive comments by many members of this forum. As long as you know that you are for sure going to buy new cards why not get just one of the above and give it a try? There is no downside to 'flash' over 'microdrive' except a few bucks, and a lot of upside.