Compactflash Expresscards are fast

I just did a download comparison test between a PCMCIA compact flash card adapter and the new ExpressCard compact flash card adapter. I used a test sample of 91 Nikon D2x uncompressed RAW files, with each being 19 to 20 Mbytes in size. I used to use the PCMCIA card slot as the usb ports on my old laptop were only version 1.1, hence the test to find out the actual speed of the new expresscard adapter.

With the PCMCIA adapter, I would usually plug the compact flash card and adapter into the computer and the go for supper. If I was lucky, I could count on the files being downloaded in about a little more than 45 minutes (about 28 seconds per file).

Amazingly, the Expresscard adapter downloaded the files in a little over 2 and a half minutes.( averaging about 1.5 seconds per file). Plenty fast for me and well worth the money.

This may be “old hat†for those of you that are working with newer laptops but for me it is truly amazing to be able to down load those files so quickly.

Test computer was a Sony Viao laptop with T7100 processor and 4 gigs of ram with Widows Vista Business. The Compactflash card was a Sandisk Extreme III 4.0 Gig version.

Were you using a Cardbus PCMCIA adapter, or just a normal one. That sounds kind of slow.

Cheers

James

That Expresscard adapter is likely to be USB internally. There's nothing wrong with that, of course.

There is a new ExpressCard Adapter out that uses PCIe access, this should blow the doors off of any other method of connecting a CF card to a laptop...assuming your laptop supports it. 2.5Gbps, the only other option that would compare would be some SATA-IDE-CF bridge type thing, but this should still be faster.

http://www.synchrotech.com/products-expc/e...flash_pcie.html

James:

The PCMCIA card adapter was originally intended for use with Fuji Microdrives so that probably has a lot to do with the speed issue you were concerned about.

After rechecking the information on the Expresscard adapter I found the card is only able to download at about 20 Mbytes/second. Another contributing factor could be the maximum read\write speed of the compact flash card. Sandisk says the maximum read\write speed of the Extreme III cards are about 20 Mbytes a second. The other half second I would attribute to having the file renamed as part of the download.

The express card I was using is made by Delkin and the top speed is quoted at 20 Mbytes per second.

More info on the card can be found here at this webpage.

http://www.delkin.com/products/adapters/expresscard34/

PriusDrIVER:

I just took a look at the Expresscard you pointed out and it definitely is faster. Makes me wonder what the physical difference is between the two cards.

It has mostly to do with the interface that it uses via the expresscard slot. Many express card devices are actually passed via the USB interface, one example would be my Sprint wireless card...it shows up as a USB device.

I believe the one I linked is the first to take advantage of PCIe for a CF adapter, it was just announced.