CF Card & Reader - Test Results!

Hello all,

Let me give you a tiny bit of background on the situation without boring you too much. I had 2 CF cards - a 1GB Sandisk (regular speed) and a 2GB Sandisk Ultra II. Well, these two cards accidentally got thrown in the wash with my pants - oops!

So, after I realized they had been junked, I left them to dry (with a little bit of hope they'd someday work) and ordered 2 2GB Sandisk Extreme IV's from B&H. Along with these, I bought a Sandsik Extreme Card Reader (Firewire - 800 with my MBP).

While they were shipping, I decided to give the two cards that got thrown in the wash a try. Well, luckily enough, they both worked fine!

Oh well - you can never have too many CF cards. Once I got the new ones (and the reader) in, I decided I'd do some tests.

Card 1 = 2GB Sandisk Ultra II
Card 2 = 2GB Sandisk Extreme IV

I took 100 (~316MB) of the same subject, with the same camera, with the same settings, on both cards. I used Photo Mechanic to ingest (import) the photos and started the stop watch when I pressed "Ingest" (enter key) and stopped it once the ingest (import) window dissapeared.

Here are the results:

Card 1 (Sandisk Ultra I)
USB Reader: 1:41.00
Firewire Reader: 0:31.14
Improvement: Firewire Reader was 3.24 times faster than the USB Reader

Card 2 (Sandisk Extreme IV)
USB Reader: 1:41.00 (Funnelled by speed of USB - expected the same results)
Firewire Reader: 0:14.01
Improvement: Firewire Reader was 7.2 times faster than the USB Reader
Improvement: Sandisk Extreme IV was 2.2 times faster than Sandisk Ultra II

WOW! Is all I can say. I love this combo. If this isn't enough motivation to go out and buy this reader/card, then nothing is! I am totally impressed!

I bought a sandisk extreme firewire reader a while back, and I agree it's pretty quick compared to my internal USB2 reader. It shouldn't really matter but it's surprising the difference it makes.

cheers
Bill

Yeah, and if you are lucky enough to have FW 800, you're laughing. As far as I know (correct me if I'm wrong), but USB is just a bit faster than FW 400, but 800 is substantially faster.

My tests proved

One thing some people are not aware of is that USB speed rating is usually Burst mode. Firewire is the same (sustained) speed across the whole transfer. Burst speed is a strong surge of transfer speed initially, then it settles down to a slower speed. This is very noticeable on a large transfer. This appears to be true even for FW 400. Your mileage may vary.

If you'd like, I'd be happy to perform the test on a full 2GB card to prove your point

bcap wrote in post #3086109
Yeah, and if you are lucky enough to have FW 800, you're laughing. As far as I know (correct me if I'm wrong), but USB is just a bit faster than FW 400, but 800 is substantially faster.

My tests proved

USB though faster by the numbers is actually slower when transferring large amounts of data. Firewire uses a peer to peer architecture where USB has a master/slave relationship. The end result is that even though the speed of the link is a bit slower with FW-400, the efficiency gains erase that speed difference and more.

Your findings are subjective; you did this test on your Mac?

Did you know that USB on a Mac is much SLOWER than USB on a PC? Try USB 2.0 on a PC and see what happens.

rammy wrote in post #3091727
Your findings are subjective; you did this test on your Mac?

Did you know that USB on a Mac is much SLOWER than USB on a PC? Try USB 2.0 on a PC and see what happens.

Why would I? I only have a mac

Well, irrespective of what theory says about usb2 and firewire 400 speeds I find that in the real world firewire is noticeably faster when downloading my CF cards to the PC. I wouldn't have a clue what it's like on a MAC though.

i'd agree with those comments.

ignoring the the theory numbers, my experience of firewire is its consistently:

a) more reliable
b) faster

i use it for capturing DV format video. on the same machine i used to have a USB2 video capture device, it always stuttered a few frames at the start and really hogged the machine's resources. I made the switch to firewire and it was instantly better at capturing right from the start without stuttering and maintained the capture for long periods, no dropped frames.


People can argue the numbers on paper all they want, but until they actually use it for large files, i dont think they are seeing the full picture.


USB2 does have its place, for the likes of keyboards and memory keys etc, but its just not up for the large data stuff imho.

Bill Roberts wrote in post #3091882
Well, irrespective of what theory says about usb2 and firewire 400 speeds I find that in the real world firewire is noticeably faster when downloading my CF cards to the PC.

This is true with the high-end Firewire, like 800 but that I was trying to say is that with USB2, you do not get the same performance on a Mac vs. PC.

I'm sure the debate and personal preference on USB vs. Firewire will rage on. My PC for example has USB2 and Firewire (6 ports for USB2 and 3 for Firewire 800). What do I use, well USB2 because I bought my original external HD's and CF reader with USB2 on.

Would I go and combine and use the two standards, well I'm not sure. USB2 just seems to be more widely available and compatible with manufacturers. Personal preference I guess.

Funnily enough I use USB2 for a couple of external hardrives for backup and they seem fine, but of course I haven't compared those with firewire.

Interesting about the speed difference on a Mac though. Perhaps our Mac user friends could comment on that one?

Firewire is faster on my 2 G-4's . [tower and powerbook] I haven't found a firewire reader [400] that reads the different cards out there . The usb readers do up to 23 different cards - but I use the CF from crucial for CF's . I think I'll go do another search .

Does anyone know how fast PCMCIA CompactFlash Card Reader Adapter are ?

r.morales wrote in post #3192536
Does anyone know how fast PCMCIA CompactFlash Card Reader Adapter are ?

Very very slow - at least the one I had in my old laptop (P4) was pretty dang slow.