Real-World Read Performance

In addition to the recording tests I also ran some transfer tests. These tests involve taking a set of Superfine JPEGs taken by the 20D (484 MB) and first transferring it to each of the CF cards. Once all of the CF cards have exactly the same images on them, I will transfer the files to my computer. The card readers I am testing include a SanDisk External USB CF Card Reader, SimpleTech Flashlink External 23-in-1 USB Card Reader, Mitsumi Internal 5-in-1 Card Reader, and Sandisk's PCMCIA (Notebook) CF Card Reader. The notebook used for transferring via PCMCIA is a Hewlett Packard Pavillion zv5000 which uses a Texas Instruments PCI-1620 CardBus Controller with UltraMedia. I will also be transferring the pictures directly from the camera to the computer to see what sort of benefit can be had by using a card reader. Again, I used a stopwatch to record times and took an average across 3 results. Time started when I dragged the files onto the desktop and let go of the mouse button and stopped when the file transfer was completed.

Read Tests (USB)
(Show All Graphs) (Collapse Graphs)

SanDisk External

SimpleTech

Mitsumi

SanDisk Ultra II 1GB

Lexar Professional 80x 1GB

ATP High Speed 60x 1GB

Kingston Elite Pro 50x 1GB

SimpleTech 1GB

PNY 512MB

Lexar Professional 40x 2GB

Crucial 1GB

42.7

49.1

55.8

61.4

62.5

69.7

74.3

100.2

0

seconds (lower is better)

120

 

 

SanDisk External

SimpleTech

Mitsumi

SanDisk Ultra II 1GB

Lexar Professional 80x 1GB

ATP High Speed 60x 1GB

Kingston Elite Pro 50x 1GB

SimpleTech 1GB

PNY 512MB

Lexar Professional 40x 2GB

Crucial 1GB

44.9

45.1

53.6

60.9

62.4

69.7

72.6

99.3

0

seconds (lower is better)

120

 

 

SanDisk External

SimpleTech

Mitsumi

SanDisk Ultra II 1GB

ATP High Speed 60x 1GB

Lexar Professional 80x 1GB

Kingston Elite Pro 50x 1GB

SimpleTech 1GB

Lexar Professional 40x 2GB

PNY 512MB

Crucial 1GB

51.7

54.8

55.4

60.3

61.6

67.4

68.9

90.0

0

seconds (lower is better)

120

 

 

In the USB-based transfer tests we see a clear order in terms of performance numbers. With the Mitsumi internal reader, a couple of the cards flip-flop positions, but they do so with similarly performing cards. Based on the speed ratings of each of the cards, there are no real surprises here.

In this set of graphs the playing field becomes a bit more even. While the greatest difference between top and bottom-performers is 30 seconds, that's just 30 seconds more than 14 minutes and 12 seconds - after that long you've probably already fallen asleep anyways. What I find particularly interesting in these numbers is that transferring directly from the 20D to the notebook (via USB 2.0) actually took less time than transferring via the PCMCIA adapter, about two minutes less. The A95, however, took more than 8 minutes longer to transfer files than the PCMCIA adapter, due to the camera's slow USB 1.1 interface.