Now I'm a Believer! - DPChallenge Forums

Nikon AF-S Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8G ED VR II

07/27/2007 03:47:57 PM · #1

Okay, I'm a believer! :-)

I finally broke down and purchased a Fireware CF Reader. Up until this very moment, I had been happy with my USB 2.0 "Hi Speed" CF Reader. But I gotta tell ya, now that I've tried the Firewire reader ... I'm never going back!

I used a Ridata 4Gb 150x card with 165 images, equalling 1.62Gb, as my test. The results were as follows:

GE brand USB 2.0 "hi speed" reader: 591 seconds (avg 365 seconds per Gb)
Sandisk brand Firewire reader: 146 seconds (avg 90 seconds per Gb)

Just over 300% faster! (or 4 times "as fast" for those that perfer to think of it that way).

I also happened to purchase a couple of shiny new Sandisk Extreme IV 4.0Gb cards. So I thought I'd copy the same set of 165 images onto one of them, disconnect it (to ensure it's not being cached), reconnect and then copy:

Time to write 1.62Gb: 84 seconds
Time to read 1.62Gb: 53 seconds

Performance improvement on the read time (as compared to the Ridata 150x card): 175 percent faster! (or 2.75 times "as fast").

So much for the Ridata card being 150x ... whatever it is 150 "times", it's still a slouch compared to the Sandisk Extreme IV.

Now I need to find a fast SD card reader! The Canon 1D Mark III takes both kinds of cards and can automatically spill over from the CF card to the SD card if the CF card fills up. So I've been keeping a spare SD card in the camera just in case. :-)

MattO

Nikon D4

07/27/2007 03:55:10 PM · #2

I've done the same test with my 1DMKII it has a firewire and a USB interface. I'll never touch the USB cord again. Huge difference when your dumping a ton of files and need them in a hurry. I still dont understand why they didnt continue the firewire interface on the 1DMKIII.

MattO

Mattel Barbie Photo Designer Digital Camera

07/27/2007 03:59:45 PM · #3

USB = Maximum Thruput is 60 MegaBytes per sec. (Advertised as 480Mbits)
The most any transfer device will do is around 30 with an average of 20 or less.

20 to 30 Megs a sec is fine for something like SD, CF cars need something faster firewire is good.

USB was not built to be fast it was built to be convenient. I do wish I had gotten the Firewire or eSATA version of my backupdrive!

Message edited by author 2007-07-27 20:00:12.

digitalknight

07/27/2007 04:00:38 PM · #4

I did it in reverse. I started with firewire, and went down (for 45 minutes) to USB and then took the miserable thing back.

My hard drives are the same way. Still stuck with one USB.

The Extreme IV sounds great - I'll remember that when I get a camera that can use that speed.

Mattel Barbie Photo Designer Digital Camera

07/27/2007 04:09:16 PM · #5

Okay, the other "obvious test" that needed to be done, now that I have some "fast" cards, is to see how "fast" they are in the Mark III.

Note that this was NOT a test of the Mark III's ability to shoot a large number of files. So I didn't shoot jpeg. And I didn't tweak my settings in any way, other than to switch to ISO 100. Here are my results from holding the shutter button down for 10 seconds:

Ridata 150x CF card: 41 raw images captured, and 55 seconds to finish dumping the buffer.

Sandisk Extreme IV card: 44 raw images captured, and 46 seconds to finish dumping the buffer.

It's not nearly as big of a difference as I had hoped. But the Extreme did manage to capture a couple more images because it was dumping the buffer quicker. And, in the end, it finished dumping the buffer in less time. So I'm happy.

Message edited by author 2007-07-27 20:10:04.

digitalknight

07/27/2007 04:21:00 PM · #6

that's a lot of bridal shots in 10 seconds - should cover it! :-)

Shoot 44 - process 6 - entire bridal shoot in 10 seconds. You'll be rich!

scalvert

Canon EOS-5D Mark III

Canon EF 24-105mm f/4.0L IS

07/27/2007 04:22:00 PM · #7

While I agree with the Firewire Reader vs. USB (I have two of them), something doesn't sound quite right with your Ridata card. It should only be marginally slower than the SanDisk Extreme IV. It could be a bad card, or it could be computer-related. From Rob Galbraith's tests:

"While we've seen impressively-consistent FireWire performance across a range of Macs produced in the last several years, the same can't be said of PCs, both laptops with built-in FireWire 400 ports as well as PC desktops with an add-in FireWire 400 PCI card. To give you an idea of the range of variability, a FireWire reader/CompactFlash card combo capable of over 14MB/second when connected to a built-in FireWire 400 port on newer Apple hardware produces anywhere between 3MB/sec and just under 13MB/sec on all non-Apple desktop setups we've tried. The built-in FireWire on the small handful of PC laptops we've tested has been equally variable and even more unimpressive; one model topped out at a painfully slow 1.2MB/second in fact.

Our experience with FireWire 800 and Windows has been better: the OWC Mercury FireWire 800 PCI card is a decent counterpart to the only FireWire 800 reader we've seen, the SanDisk Extreme FireWire Reader. Connect any FireWire 400 reader to this add-in card, however, and transfer rates are only a fraction of what the reader is capable of. Not surprisingly, for the CF/SD Performance Database we've opted to test FireWire readers on the Mac only for now."

FWIW, I would expect newer 266x-300x CF cards from Transcend, Lexar or Kingston and to be comparable to, or even faster than, SanDisk Extreme IV... and probably cheaper, too.

07/27/2007 04:26:16 PM · #8

Originally posted by digitalknight:

that's a lot of bridal shots in 10 seconds - should cover it! :-)

Shoot 44 - process 6 - entire bridal shoot in 10 seconds. You'll be rich!

LOL! If only it were that easy! :-)

I actually keep the camera in low speed mode (3 fps) when shooting bridals. It just doesn't make sense to burn through that many images. But I've shot a few "series" of engagements pics (like piggyback rides) at 10fps. It's almost like watching a movie. :-)

Olympus 12-100mm f/4.0 M.Zuiko ED IS PRO

07/27/2007 04:40:52 PM · #9

Originally posted by scalvert:

something doesn't sound quite right with your Ridata card. It should only be marginally slower than the SanDisk Extreme IV.

I have two of them. I just stuck the 2nd one into the Firewire reader and copied the 165 images out to it and back:

Time to write: 341 seconds
Time to read: 124 seconds (22 seconds faster than the first card)

Okay, so this one was faster (by 22 seconds) than the first Ridata card, but still much slower than the 53 seconds posted by the Extreme.

What I find interesting is that the "Camera Write Time" isn't too different from the Ridata to the Extreme. But the PC Write Time is hugely different! (341 seconds as compared to 84 seconds)

The thing I've always wondered about is this practice of rating a card by saying it is ### "times" something without ever really saying what that means. What if one card claims to be 150x of a slow card, and another card claims to be 100x of a faster card. Which one is faster?

I'd rather they just publish raw throughput figures!

Message edited by author 2007-07-27 20:41:29.

LevT

Olympus OM-1

07/27/2007 05:29:35 PM · #10

Originally posted by dwterry:

I found that not all USB2.0 readers are born equal. I went through a couple which were quite slow, but now I am using the one which while not as fast as your Firewire reader, but still reasonable, at least it appears to be at least twice as fast as your USB reader. My numbers are 186s for 1.26 GB, or 147s/GB. Bear in mind that I am using a 50x Kingston Elite CF card, so that also may slow down my transfer a bit compared to your newer 150x and Elite IV cards.

fotomann_forever

07/27/2007 05:32:03 PM · #11

I got a bad Firewire card or something, every time I try to plug something into it other than my digital camcorder, I get corrupted files and the BSOD.

An SOB of a BSOD at that.

Message edited by author 2007-07-27 21:44:39.

07/27/2007 05:32:11 PM · #12

LevT, your still not gonna peak more then 30 MB/s or on USB 2.0 Spec theoretically ever get over 60 MB/s. SO Firewire is still the way to go if your cards gonna get you over say 20 mb/s.

Your 186s for 1.26 GB is less then 7 MegaBytes per second. Of course either system has bottlenecks that will limit/determine the max speed you get anyways.

Message edited by author 2007-07-27 21:32:36.

violinist123

Canon EOS-6D

Nikon AF Zoom-Nikkor 18-135mm f/3.5- 5.6G ED DX

07/27/2007 05:38:18 PM · #13

Originally posted by dwterry:

The thing I've always wondered about is this practice of rating a card by saying it is ### "times" something without ever really saying what that means. What if one card claims to be 150x of a slow card, and another card claims to be 100x of a faster card. Which one is faster?

I'd rather they just publish raw throughput figures!

It's a multiple of 150KB/sec, same as for cd-rom and dvd drives. Also those 133x or whatever ratings are for writing to the card, not transfering data off the card. Transfer off the card is a function of the cards controller, the interface to your pc (usb 1/2/firewire/ide/etc) and things like what version of dma your pc's controller is using, etc, etc.

edit: latest CF specification is for a max transfer rate of 66MB/s off the card, assuming no bottleneck between the card and your hard drive.

Message edited by author 2007-07-27 21:40:59.

JeffryZ

Nikon D80

07/27/2007 05:41:02 PM · #14

I got faster downloads by changing which USB connection I was using. I had always used the one on the front of my computer (easier access) but when I tried one in the back it was tremendously faster. Not sure why though. It used to take many minutes to download say two or three humdred images- now it just a couple it seems (haven't actually timed it- I used to go away and come back and it would still be loading- don't have to do that now).
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07/27/2007 05:42:43 PM · #15

Originally posted by LevT:

I found that not all USB2.0 readers are born equal. I went through a couple which were quite slow,

Yeah, me too. The first couple of USB CF card readers I had would all take over 20 minutes to copy a full 1Gb memory card. I was suffering.

Then I found out that, just because it says USB 2.0, doesn't mean it fully utilizes USB 2.0. I found that if the reader said in little letters "hi speed" on it, that it took less than 5 minutes to copy a 1Gb card. I was in heaven! (well, I was, until I tried this Firewire thing and discovered how slow 5 minutes per Gb really was!)

smurfguy

Canon EOS-5D Mark II

Canon EF 24-105mm f/4.0L IS

07/27/2007 05:49:27 PM · #16

Thanks for posting this. I have a SanDisk Ultra II, which is supposed to get 16-17 MB/sec. Over the USB 2.0 interface I get roughly 2.5 MB/sec. This mean it's taking 400 seconds (6.6 minutes) per GB.

Oddly, I have a PCMCIA cardreader that's also just as slow. >=I

I'm definitely gonna look into FireWire!

kirbic

Canon EOS R5

Canon RF 24-70 f2.8 L IS

07/27/2007 06:09:35 PM · #17

Originally posted by smurfguy:

The Ultra II cards probably will top out at about 9MB/s. I have several, and they are all in that range. Still, it will be a *lot* faster than USB 2.0.
Extreme III cards will do about 13MB/s, possibly a bit more with the right reader. Extreme IV cards, which I don't own, will supposedly do 40MB/s, but you need to have a Firewire 800 reader, very fast hard disk, and yoiu OS needs to support the 800 speed (you'd be surprised how many XP boxes won't.. Microsoft at it's best again).
FWIW, PCMIA (Cardbus) *can* be very fast, but you need a 32-bit Cardbus adapter to get the faster speeds. With 16-bit adapters, it is really slow. Been there, done that!

zeuszen

Canon EOS-1Ds Mark II

10/31/2007 07:22:16 AM · #18

I use FW 400, which is significantly faster than any Hi Speed USB 2.0. The difference in download time is critical, when dealing with big files as those generated by the 1Ds Mk II.

violinist123

Canon EOS-6D

10/31/2007 07:56:26 AM · #19

Originally posted by zeuszen:

I use FW 400, which is significantly faster than any Hi Speed USB 2.0. The difference in download time is critical, when dealing with big files as those generated by the 1Ds Mk II.

Find that hard to believe since both are faster than the transfer speeds of CF.

10/31/2007 08:08:28 AM · #20

Routerguy whats the fastest CF card around?

USB is rated for 480Mbits/s which is 60 MegaBytes/s of which the fastest usb devices currently dont reach over 30 MB/s. So if there is a card that can be aread over 30 Megabytes a sec then the firewire reader can make a difference. SD cards suck balls and transfer slow on my system but my back up drive gets 15 Mbps a sec average and higher on peak.

EDIT: Quoting wikipedia against my 60 MB/s says "53.125 MB/s" is the peak theoritcal speed for usb 2.0 HS. From what ive seen firewire is closer to its theortical peak then usb gets.

Message edited by author 2007-10-31 12:13:18.

Kaveran

Canon EOS-50D

10/31/2007 09:09:48 AM · #21

Being a computer geek myself I never wasted my time with USB and went straight to firewire.