Real world memory card & card reader performance for references.

[Albert Yap]

I was doing some google-ing and came across this interesting small utility which provide a graphical result of typical read/write speed for flash based memory including memory cards & usb-drives. I also notice it is quite hard to find comparison for various cards and reader or any combination off the net.  If we can help each other by running test on your available cards + readers.  It should give others a rough idea on what should provide what kind of performance and purchase accordingly to their needs. 

To help, very simple, download the software from, http://www.usbperformance.com/  it is a very small application, the demo mode run fine and you do not have to pay for it to activate.

I run a test on my cards & readers and got some interesting found-outs, 

I have 3 card readers for CF technically,

• Built in reader from my Dell 27" LCD
• My Nikon D300
• Apacer MegaSteno 1st Generation

From the test, I discovered that the Apacer reader is under-utilizing the cards, the tested writing/reading speed is slow enough to pissed me off on all the 'fast' card I tested.
All the test are done on a same PC, the cards are:-

Transcend 266x 4Gb (g3k's unit)
Transcend 133x 8Gb
Pendrive 133x 4Gb

Below are the test results for both D300 & Dell reader, the apacer was excluded as the speed was way slower than it suppose to be.


266x 4G on D300


133x 8G on D300


133x 4G on D300

Notice the two 133x behave differently on D300?  This might be due to the 8G is actually an MLC card while the 4G pendrive is an SLC.  However, take a look on the following test results.


266x 4G on Dell


133x 8G on Dell


133x 4G on Dell

notice the extremely slow results from Pendrive 133x 4G?  I have no idea what caused this, but I guess should be compatibility problem.  From the test results, the D300 as a card reader out perform my other reader.

Now who want to help testing the cards & reader combination?

If you would like to look and compare at one glance, please click this file, which is huge in resolution.
http://www.fotokrazy.com/gallery2/d/144637-3/speed.jpg

[TDR]

wow, now not only we have to be sure of our CF cards but also the reader now. Thanks for the info

[Kuen Hoong]

I am kind of lazy to link each of the screen shots here with different codes. Here is the summary I have on my test.

    * USB 2.0 Card readers -
          o Old Apacer Mega Sterno MG820 ( Non SDHC )
          o SanDisk MicroMate
          o DMC-LX3 used as Card reader

    * Memory Cards
          o Belkin eFilm, DDSDFLS1-2GB
          o Transcend Class 6 SDHC 8GB
          o SanDisk Extreme III SDHC 8GB
          o SanDisk For Wii, Class 2 SD, 2GB ( just for fun, since i am having it )

Test Procedures :

    * Using the File Benchmark tool on the Flash Memory Toolkit ( Evaluation copy ), I ran the tests 2 x per combination.
    * Apacer Mega Sterno is only tested with Non-SDHC cards.
    * Testing with Transcend Class 6 and SanDisk Extreme III have been ran 3 x on the 2 readers.
    * On testing the Shots to Shots on the DMC-LX3, I set the camera to capture Raw + Jpg and Unlimted multiple shots.
    * All test are on a DIY PC system running on Vista Ultimate with 4GB Ram with E6600 Processor

Note : the Read / Write speeds are in kB/s

With Apacer Card Reader



With MicroMate Card Reader



With DMC-LX3

Visit my blog post for the complete test images and write up.

[nikonK]

Bought Apacer AM400 this afternoon, initial tests show is quite fast.

Cost is MYR 35 in Prangin Mall.

[kevteoh]

Tested Kingston CF 4GB (45x ElitePro) on D300 and Colorful-MiniV2 card reader (also RM35 some months back) on my desktop (AMD690 chipset, WinVista). Also tested on an Acer laptop (GM965-Express chipset) with similar results.

Very surprising card.
USB2.0 read speed pretty much capped around 16-17+mb/s for my system on same card reader (I believe for all USB2.0 readers as well) and some other faster cards. Write speed differs. Native Vista write to card speed was around 2 MB/s, read was 15-16MB/s.