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pcasciola
26th of October 2004 (Tue), 21:21
I am trying to figure out why my PCMCIA CF adapter is so slow for offloading pictures from my card, so I ran some timing tests. The card is a 1Gb Sandisk Ultra II (60x advertised), and the PCMCIA adapter is also Sandisk.

USB 2.0 reader - 8MBytes/sec (2.5 minutes for entire 1Gb)
USB direct to 20D - 2.5MBytes/sec (7 minutes for entire card)
PCMCIA adapter in notebook - ~1.5MBytes/sec (12 minutes for entire card)
USB 1.0 reader - ~1MByte/sec (18 minutes for entire card)

I expected the PCMCIA adapter to be much faster than everything, yet it was almost the slowest. My PCMCIA 100Mbit ethernet adapter can exceed 8MB/sec, so why not the CF adapter? Do I just have a defective or crappy adapter?
Adam Hicks
26th of October 2004 (Tue), 21:41
Are you using the Sandisk adapter? I have it in one of my laptops and it really bites. I'm amazed at just how slow it is vs. the desktop USB adaptor.

It's odd though because I don't think the CF PCMCIA adapter has any real electronics internally.

I'll be interested to see what others come up with.
pcasciola
26th of October 2004 (Tue), 21:56
Yes, it is the Sandisk adapter. It's a couple of years old but that shouldn't make a difference. I agree, there are probably no electronics in there as far as I know since they are so cheap, and it's most likely just moving pins around, so I'm not sure why it's so slow.
Adam Hicks
26th of October 2004 (Tue), 22:03
Well if it makes you feel any better I have the same piece of crap, and it's now on a brand spankin' new Dell, and it still sucks.

For what it's worth I can't find anything better out there. Guess I'll have to pick up a USB 2.0 connected reader instead.

Adam
pcasciola
26th of October 2004 (Tue), 22:08
Well, at least you can rest easy because you got a Dell and therefore have among the fastest USB 2.0 ports available. I get 20MBytes/sec transfer with a USB 2.0 hard drive on my Dell at work, but at home with 3 different USB 2.0 adapters I can only get about 10MBytes/sec. I read up on it and there are no plug in USB 2.0 cards that can match the speed of the chipset that is integrated into the Dell's (forget the Intel chipset off-hand, but I'm sure you have it).
CyberDyneSystems
26th of October 2004 (Tue), 22:42
The fast PCMCIA adapters are "Cardbus" 32 bit...

The difference is like the difference between ISA and PCI.. rather dramatic..

To take advantage of 32bit CardBus, you need both a laptop with Cardbus posrts (as opposed to standard PCMCIA) and an adapter that is CardBus as well...

The "normal" adapters can be had for about $8.00... where as a Cardbus adapter is more like $35.00-$45.00
pcasciola
26th of October 2004 (Tue), 23:07
Oh, I see now. Thanks. I didn't even realize there were legacy PCMCIA->ISA cards. I thought it was all PCI now. It looks like legacy PCMCIA cards run at 8MHz bus speed, while CardBus cards run at 33MHz AND are 32-bit. According to my Device Manager, I have a Texas Instruments PCI-1420 CardBus Controller, so I guess I'll go for the $35-45 for a Cardbus CF adapter.
Adam Hicks
27th of October 2004 (Wed), 06:11
Well then I'll just wait for the PCI Express card slot.

:)
dtrayers
27th of October 2004 (Wed), 06:31
I did some speed tests when I got the Delkin Cardbus32. You can read the post here:

http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=20331

These are the results:

http://home.comcast.net/~dtrayers/photos/CFSpeeds.jpg

A lot depends on your card speed. The fastest cards I have is a 1Gb and 512Mb Sandisk Ultra II. They both download in the neighborhood of 5 - 6 Mb/sec.
sjprg
27th of October 2004 (Wed), 07:06
Lexar also now makes a 32 bit cardbus PCMCIA adapter. I have one in my notebook. Haven't measured the speed using Sandisk Ultra ll 2 gb but it is much faster than the old PCMCIA card I was using.
pcasciola
27th of October 2004 (Wed), 09:44
Thanks everyone. I'll check out the Lexar and Delkin Cardbus adapters. You have no idea how many people I know were just shrugging their shoulders and saying, oh well, PCMCIA adapters are just slow.
CyberDyneSystems
27th of October 2004 (Wed), 11:04
PCMCIA allways SHOULD have been very fast.. it is tied into the PCI bus.. but for some reason they hobbled it at the beginning.. the interface had this sizeable bottleneck between PCMCIA and the PCI bus that effectivly destroyed it's potential speed.

It wasn't untill "CardBus" came along that "the cork was unplugged" and it's full potential met.