How to get images off the CF Card Fast?

Hi tech gurus,

I'm afraid you guys lost me somewhere after floppy discs, I am trying to figure out the fastest way to get my images off the CF card into my Sony Vaio laptop. I'm all set up for the Bonaire trip in June but I don't want to spend all evening watching the computer when I could be diving. I am lost in the alphabet soup. I have read a lot of posts and researched the web and still don't know what to do. I think I have figured out:

USB 2.0 will work but it's slow.

Firewire is great but the Sony has a 4 pin implementation that doesn't provide power to the reader.

The Sony has a express card 3/4 port and I found a CF reader but don't know if it's really faster. There is the spec and then there is what it really can do.

Any or all of the above could be wrong. Here are the ports from the Sony spec...... ExpressCardâ„¢/34 Slot, Memory Stick Duoâ„¢ media with MagicGateâ„¢, USB2.0, FireWire/iLink, Ethernet Jack

Can somebody help me? This seems like the weak link in the system,

Your thoughts appreciated.

Steve

The express card readers at the moment are not any faster. At least, I haven't been able to get them to work faster. I suspect they have USB 2.0 controllers in them. Anyone know for sure?

Best way I've found is to use SanDisk Extreme IV CF cards and a Firewire800 reader that supports UDMA (like SanDisk or Lexar). I'm told that FW400 isn't much slower (with the same reader). I get real-world 40MB/s transfers speeds. I copy to two destinations at once ( internal drive and external drive ), and it's still fast.

But as you say, the 4-wire FW solution Sony has is a deal-breaker.

I'm sure UDMA-capable readers will come out for other interfaces at some point. For now, I'm not aware of any other method... except, perhaps, sharing a gigabit or FW400 network connection with a MacBook/MBP and using its FW800/FW400 port and compatible reader.

Hey Steve

I use a Sony VAIO too. I either use the USB2.0 or a CF card adaptor into the PCMCIA slot. The later is faster than USB - although downloading Nikon RAWs at roughly 11MB a piece is pretty fast via USB.

Besides Bonaire (one of my favourite dive destinations) is definitely a place to kick back and relax. No hurrys, man.

Hi tech gurus,

 

I'm afraid you guys lost me somewhere after floppy discs, I am trying to figure out the fastest way to get my images off the CF card into my Sony Vaio laptop. I'm all set up for the Bonaire trip in June but I don't want to spend all evening watching the computer when I could be diving. I am lost in the alphabet soup. I have read a lot of posts and researched the web and still don't know what to do. I think I have figured out:

 

USB 2.0 will work but it's slow.

 

Firewire is great but the Sony has a 4 pin implementation that doesn't provide power to the reader.

 

The Sony has a express card 3/4 port and I found a CF reader but don't know if it's really faster. There is the spec and then there is what it really can do.

 

Any or all of the above could be wrong. Here are the ports from the Sony spec...... ExpressCardâ„¢/34 Slot, Memory Stick Duoâ„¢ media with MagicGateâ„¢, USB2.0, FireWire/iLink, Ethernet Jack

 

Can somebody help me? This seems like the weak link in the system,

 

Your thoughts appreciated.

 

Steve

When I had issues with my old MacBook I had to get a PMCIA FW800/400 adapter by Lacie. Hooked up a power to the adapter then hooked the SanDisk Reader in and it worked well. You may be able to do the same with the ExpressCard Adapters. I can see if my ExpressCard FW 800 works that way on my MacBook Pro if you like. The SanDisk reader is fast.

Also I bought the Hypervue as mentioned in this thread

http://wetpixel.com/forums/index.php?showt...=9356&st=60

It is a little big, but was easy to set up and is also very fast. You can then copy the files off from there to your laptop if you want.

I don't think William has a PCMCIA card slot,only the expresscard.

Cheers

James

I don't think William has a PCMCIA card slot,only the expresscard.

 

Cheers

James

Ah yes, guess I was not clear. On my MacBook Pro I use the ExpressCard FW 800

Buy a Hyperdrive: http://www.hyperdrive.com/

Very fast backup of memory cards. Download from the hyperdrive to to the laptop when you are in the bar or sleeping.

You will also have a ekstra backup of your pictures.

This is how im doing it and it works perfect.

Lasse

Thanks guys, somehow it's comforting that I'm not alone in my confusion. So, the best way available to me now is to use a USB reader? I'm looking forward to sitting at the resort with a rum drink in my hand watching the drive download images. Guess there are a lot worse ways to spend some time. B)

Steve

I'm looking forward to sitting at the resort with a rum drink in my hand watching the drive download images. Guess there are a lot worse ways to spend some time. B)

 

Steve

LOL. That is why I like you, you are the voice of reason. Man I wish I could get to Bonaire this time

Hi William,

I don't want to spend all evening watching the computer when I could be diving

This is what used to happen with me with my old Sony Vaio laptop which only had the version 1.1 implementation of USB. I could start downloading the images to the laptop then go and get showered, go out for diner, have a nightcap or two, and still see it downloading when I came back to my room.

I have since upgraded to a Core 2 Duo Sony Vaio laptop with latest version of the USB standard. I use the expresscard slot to download images and am very pleased with the speed increases. It only takes a few minutes now and I can't even get my equipment put away properly before it has finished downloading my files from the compactflash card.

Initially, I too, was interested in the fastest download speed I could get. I posted a topic on this several months ago and if memory serves me correctly, I think my download speed was about 1.5 seconds a Nikon D2x NEF file. While I was pleased with this speed some others posting to the thread thought it might be a little slow.

That thread can be found here.

One mitigating factor that I didn't consider in the download speed tests was, that I was using Sandisk Extreme III cards which Sandisk says downloads at 20 mb/second while the Extreme IV card is said to download at 40 mb/second. The upshot of all this is that it may be your memory cards that are also a limiting factor.

Just one more thing to think about I'm afraid.

Hope that helps.

The Extreme IV cards use UDMA, and your reader has to support it in order to get the 40MB/sec read speed. So while transfer speed is dependent on your card speed, you will be limited by the reader as well.

Also, for those of you who are interested in buying PC card readers, be sure to get one that says "CardBus" on it (the $40 one, not the $10 one); otherwise, you will get 1MB/sec read speeds and 100% CPU usage.

Ive used a PCMCIA card reader in my Vaio. Works fine. Not the fastest but you're really not talking LOTS of time here. Unless you're shooting thousands of photos a day, it should be fast enough.

Cor

Best way I've found is to use SanDisk Extreme IV CF cards and a Firewire800 reader that supports UDMA (like SanDisk or Lexar). I'm told that FW400 isn't much slower (with the same reader). I get real-world 40MB/s transfers speeds. I copy to two destinations at once ( internal drive and external drive ), and it's still fast.

I'm certainly not a "tech guru" (owing to my seemingly constant obfuscation with trying to work out this tech stuff.... ) - but I can add that I use almost the same setup as Eric but I use the SanDisk Extreme card reader and the SD Extreme IV 8GB card - download it through FW 400 though instead of the 800 and it is really, really fast!!!! I use the card reader in FW 400 because at the same time I'm downloading to my internal HD or to an external HD and to another backup HD through my FW 800 on my MBP.

That SanDisk Extreme IV reader/card combo is really, really fast in FW 800 or 400!

Best, Carol

Hey Steve,

I say we just plug in straight from the camera to the USB port with the stock firewire and go get a beer!

I have an express 34 card for my Mac. Faster than the FW 400 and USB 2.0 card readers I have by a significant amount.

Man I wish I could get to Bonaire this time

Thanks for all the input. I like the Hyperdrive concept, but I still have to get the images into the computer and ACR to have any fun for the shootout, so I'm limited by the USB download from the drive, (I think). I don't have a PCMCIA port on this machine so that option is out. The firewire won't work unless I figure out a way to power it because unlike the Mac the Sony has only 4 wires instead of 6. (Brilliant engineers run amok). So I think I'm back to the USB or the express card 3/4 port. I really liked Eric's veiled offer to download my images for me on a real computer. Have to think about that, I wonder how much rum that would cost me?

Hey Dave which Express 3/4 card do you have that you like?

Steve

Hello Sir,

I have this... http://www.sandisk.com/Products/Catalog(12...me_Readers.aspx

It downloads very fast.

I have the eFilm ExpressCard 34 compactflash adapter. As mentioned above it is the fast way I have ever emptied a CF card.

OK, ran some tests and in my Vaio and the ExpressCard wins hands down. I ran the test on my laptop, Intel 2 Duo CPU 2.0 GHz processor, running Vista (what a pain in the a$$!) I uploaded a Sandisk Extreme III 4 GB cf card with 1.5 GB of images. Used a mixture of about 90 raw and the rest JPEG.

Using a new GE USB 2.0 CF adapter Load time was 9 min 30 sec. ($18.00 at Circuit City)

Using a new Verbatim Expresscard 34 CF adapter Load time was 2 min. 15 sec. ($35.00 on Amazon)

I used a current updated version of CS3 Bridge.

Hardly enough time to have a rum punch Loading it up was another story. The driver that ships with the expresscard didn't see raw files until I uploaded the new driver off the Verbatim website. I also tried it with my new version of Lightroom but Lightroom 1.4 wouldn't recognize Raw files from the Canon either. Newest update 1.4.1 fixed the problem.

Have fun, thanks for the help!

Steve

Hardly enough time to have a rum punch

 

Steve

Glad it all worked out. Now you just have to drink faster