For years I've been frustrated by how much time it takes to upload images from a compact flash card to my computer. I've tried various card readers in the past, but did not find a satisfactory solution. Recently I installed an Addonics internal CF reader that hooks up to an SATA port. In order to see how this compares to my generic internal card reader that hooks to a USB port, I did a little uploading test.
I used three different Compact Flash cards rated for different data transfer speeds to see if that would have an effect.
The three cards were all SanDisk 8 GB CF cards. The oldest one, a Sandisk Ultra II, perhaps 2 years old, is rated at 15 MB/sec. The second card is a SanDisk Extreme III rated at 30 MB/sec. The third card is a Sandisk Extreme, which is brand new and bears the UDMA logo. It is rated at a claimed 60 MB/sec. All three cards were formatted in my Canon 5D.
I loaded all three cards with the same batch of 91 Canon RAW files that totaled exactly 1 Gigabyte of data. Then, I proceeded to upload the files from all three cards using each of my two card readers. I used Windows Explorer to copy and paste the files to a folder on a solid state disk to avoid any delays caused by a hard drive. I just used the second hand on my watch to time the process, so accuracy is probably within 2 seconds either way. This experiment yielded six data points.
UPLOADING 1 GB OF PHOTOS WITH WINDOWS EXPLORER
15 MB/sec Sandisk Ultra II
USB reader: 75 seconds
SATA reader: 60 seconds
30 MB/sec Sandisk Extreme III
USB reader: 69 seconds
SATA reader: 21 seconds
60 MB/sec Sandisk Extreme UDMA
USB reader: 64 seconds
SATA reader: 15 seconds!
I then ran almost the same experiment, using the fastest and slowest cards, but this time I allowed my favorite image processing program, ACDSee Pro 3 to import the photos onto the Western Digital 1TB Black hard drive where I keep my image files. ACDSee does some processing during the upload – creating thumbnails, for example, so I wanted to know if there would still be a speed advantage with my new toys. Here are the results for one Gigabyte of RAW files uploaded with ACDSee Pro 3 to my hard drive:
IMPORTING 1 GB OF PHOTOS WITH ACDSEE PRO 3:
15 MB/sec Sandisk Ultra II
USB reader: 67 seconds
SATA reader: 64 seconds
60 MB/sec Sandisk Extreme UDMA
USB reader: 61 seconds
SATA reader: 22 seconds
So, I am very happy with my SATA card reader when combined with a fast Compact Flash card. But there is one word of caution I would like to add.
The Addonics SATA CF reader does not work with most hard disk controller chips, like Intel, for example. From what I was able to glean from internet forums, it only works with Silicon Image hard disk controllers. So if that is not what you happen to have on your motherboard, you will need to buy a PCI card with a Silicon Image disk controller chip and one or more SATA ports on it. Addonics just happens to offer a few different models that will do the job. Unfortunately there is nothing on their website that tells you to buy one. It took me a couple of months to get this sorted out! There may be a better SATA card reader out there, but I have not done any research in that direction.
I hope this experience is helpful to other photographers.
Mike
