Lexar Expresscard CF reader test

For all for whom this is all old topic...my appologies.

When the wife and I were on a recent trip we were downloading 4 16GB CF cards each evening. I had a USB 2.0 CF reader...but not one optimized for UDMA cards. I know, my bad.

So I purchased a USB 2 UDMA reader and tested downloads from my UDMA CF to the laptop harddisk. I was getting around 20-22MB download speeds.

Today I got a Lexar Expresscard PCIe reader. Using the same card and test files, the download speed with in the 48-52MB range. So slightly more than twice the speed.

So if you only have a few files to move onto a laptop, a USB 2 (UDMA or not) reader may be OK. But if you need to move serious quantites of data, you might want to consider a UDMA expresscard reader that uses the PCIe bus in the laptop.

May all your downloads be fast and smooth!!!!

Now swap your hard drive for an SSD. With my 60 MB/s card and the Expresscard reader I get 75 MB/s when copying to the SSD, only 50 MB/s copying to the HDD.

I would need a 500GB SSD !$!$!$!$!$!$!$!$!$!$!$​!$ ha ha

I have not checked the total speed using my external Seagate 1TB USB drives as destination. I imagine the total speed will be around the same as using the internal drive.

Still, it beats the heck outta 20mb speed!

MCAsan wrote in post #10412337
I would need a 500GB SSD !$!$!$!$!$!$!$!$!$!$!$​!$ ha ha

Nope. You don't store everything on the SSD. You use it to store Windows, Apps, Lightroom catalog and cache and the images you're currently working on. That should easily fit on an 80 GB drive with room to spare.

All the rest of the stuff - already processed images, documents, music, videos, etc. all live on a big second HDD - where it doesn't really matter how long it takes to access the data.

There's a thread started by The Hoff about his experiences here. Well worth a read for anybody who might be interested in getting an SSD.