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11/16/2007 03:42:04 PM · #1 |
Hi all,
I've been quite disgruntled about the speed of my compact flash (CF) card reader. I have a Transcend 120x 4GB card and a SanDisk Ultra II 2GB card. The cards are supposed to have read speeds in the 10-15 MB/sec range, but I get no more than 2.5 MB/sec with my generic USB card reader and my PCMCIA CF reader.
Very frustrating.
 dwterry talks in this thread about how Firewire made all the difference for him. Unfortunately for me, my home-built computer doesn't have Firewire - I don't have any devices which use it. So a good Firewire 800 card would cost me $50+, and then another $60 for the SanDisk Firewire card reader. And $110+shipping is a little more than I'm willing to spend.
DPReview tested a Delkin cardbus (laptop) reader, and found it to be faster than their Firewire 400 readers (circa 2003), delivering around 4-5.5MB/sec. Be aware that standard PCMCIA CF readers are even slower than USB, so you have to pay attention to get the special cardbus version like the one linked. However, I prefer to use my desktop for images, so this laptop solution, for me, is out.
However, upon scouring the Internet for other options, I found this CF-to-SATA adaptor card. It claims to be one of the fastest card readers available, limited only by the card itself. At only $34.50, and using SATA (the super-fast hard drive bus already available in my computer), I ordered one in a hurry.
I can't wait for it to get here as I expect to get 10-12 MB/sec from my cards. Maybe someone could loan me a faster card (I see 266X, 40MB/sec cards on Newegg, maybe a Sandisk Extreme IV) to test it as well. I suspect that with a fast enough CF card, the CF-to-SATA adapter will even beat the Firewire 800 reader.
I'll report out here once it arrives!
Cheers,
-Jeff
Message edited by author 2007-11-16 15:43:04. |
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11/16/2007 04:20:31 PM · #2 |
Very interesting. I look forward to hearing your results.
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11/25/2007 11:40:32 PM · #3 |
Well, here's the one sentence synopsis on this thing: Steer clear - it's probably not a good solution for most folks!
Read on for the details.
The Good:
As a high-speed CF reader, it's fantastic! It read my SanDisk Ultra II 2gb card at a lovely 12 MB/sec - that's 5x faster than my generic USB reader, reaching the limit of the card itself. I'm confident that it'd post some blazing numbers with the latest high-speed CF cards.
So in that regard it's a stunning success. However, that's where the good news ends.
The Bad:
The most serious flaw with this reader is that it depends on your motherboard (and OS) supporting hot-swappable SATA. Most consumer motherboards (including mine) don't (or at least, don't under Windows), so I have to reboot my machine to get the CF recognized, negating the time saved due to faster transfer rates.
The Ugly:
Even with rebooting, the card never properly came up under Windows. It only showed a blank disk with no volumes. I had to boot into Linux to be able to read it. (Linux might even support the hot-swapping capability, but I haven't tested this throughly. It doesn't matter to me, since I don't normally run Linux on my home desktop.)
Even under Linux, it only worked with my SanDisk 2gb Ultra II. My off-brand (PQI) 4gb card doesn't read properly in the reader. I'm not sure if this was some manifestation of the old 2gb size limit, or the reader not playing nice, or what.
Conclusion:
While using the SATA interface to read CF cards seems like a great idea at first, there are too many technical issues currently, because it is not a typical hardware use case.
So I'm pondering what to do at this point. For another $20, I could try a PCI SATA card, which would support SATA hot swapping and hopefully resolve my Windows & rebooting problems. It'd still be cheaper and faster than the Firewire solution at this point, but there're no guarantees it'll work. Hmm...
-Jeff |
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12/01/2007 10:38:05 PM · #4 |
An update on this:
I bought a PCI SATA card (Rosewill RC-210), which supports hot plug. At the same time, I hosed up my Windows Vista installation, so I'm using the Rosewill card with this reader in Linux, and it's working great for the most part.
I get 10-12 MB/sec on all my 2GB Ultra II cards, but it doesn't correctly read my off-brand 4gb card. But since I bought 2 more Ultra II's on Thanksgiving sale, they'll be all I use now. |
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12/01/2007 10:57:35 PM · #5 |
I bought a NEXTODI, the technology that the Koreans have packed into this affordable tool is unreal, the speed of reading and cleaning cards the best that I came across.
//www.nextodi.com/en/ |
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