memory cards and readers.......

hi all, just a quick couple questions for everyone...1st--- memory cards-- what are good ones and why (compact flash)....2nd--- card readers-- i just bought a lexar firewire800 reader and the circut board for the comp but i have not noticed and diff in the speed.i down loaded 1100 picts from a air show and it took close to a hour.ive also been doing about 150-200 picts at a time since i got the new setup and still not seeing and diff in speed.anyone have any ides or what you use that worrks good for speed.....thanks rod

CF cards can write/read data alot faster, which are normly more expensive, by alot more expensive. google around about cf speeds, not for sure where to get info or learn more about them. Most cases, like on sandisk it tells you how many mb/s the card is. As for upload the card to the pc, there are a ton of factors to say really its the card or something else. Its no joke, from the card, the card reader speed, the type of cable, the type of port(usb 2.0, 3.0 ect), the speed of the board of the pc has, the ram of the pc, the OS of the pc, and then what are you sending it to. Pc hard drive, external, if external, then repeat the list backwards again. Thats pretty much a summory of it. What type of CF are you using btw? check out B&H CF card selection to see some with higher speeds. So pretty much, a high speed card is pointless if you have a slow cable setup, or outputing it to a slow device. In your case sence your using a firewire, with a new board, it sounds like a Card issue. Check to see about getting a CF card that's 30mb/s or 45mb/s. Hope it helps, sorry i jumble around some stuff alot. Also, for the 1100 images you had, where you shooting jpeg/raw and how big was your card, and what kind was it? As well, SD cards write/read speed are pretty slow comparded to CF cards, and the same for others, thats why they are still used by high end DSLs, but even some are going to SD cards, they are getting better about the speed of them

steven thanks for the reply, i use a lexar pro 8gb 300xudma which is what they made the 800 card reader for or so i thought.also i have a transcend 16gb 600x udma both are cf cards. i also shot all picts in raw mode with a canon 50d. thanks again rod

That doesnt sound to off, about 5mins for me for 100 images. I also use the 50d with raw and that's going usb 2.0 to a firewire hard drive on a mac running on server mode. My CF cards are like 17mb/s cards, 8gb. I also have a 45mb/s 2gb and its alot faster than my 8gbs. No idea what server my school uses.

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Originally Posted by banman1

what are good ones and why (compact flash)

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I think it's just speed, capacity, and reliability. I would guess that the name brands are more reliable, but I don't know for sure if that's true. Lexar is my personal favorite, but I know others swear by Sandisk. Lots of shooters are happy with no-names, I've got a few and they've worked great. Capacity is an easy one to figure out, but speed is pretty nebulous. Thankfully, Rob Galbraith has an excellent site with lots of speed test data:



http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=6007


Unfortunately he hasn't tested the 7D. I would guess that the CF performance is at least as good as the 5D2.

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Originally Posted by banman1

-- i just bought a lexar firewire800 reader

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Same one I have. I think it's great. What I love about them is that you can daisy-chain and stack them so that you're reading four cards at the same time! [:D]

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Originally Posted by banman1

.i down loaded 1100 picts from a air show and it took close to a hour

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That seems a little on the slow side. I use the exact same Lexar 8GB 300X cards (you have good taste! [:D]), and I get at least 20 MB/s reads off them (I think closure to 30). If your pictures are 20 MB each, that should be less than 15 minutes.



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Originally Posted by banman1

anyone have any ides or what you use that worrks good for speed..

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One possibility may be the destination hard drive is too slow to keep up. Another way to check would be to plug into another computer and see if you get better speeds there.


Good luck figuring it out.

I have the Lexar 300x (45MB/s) 8gb card also. It has worked flawlessly for 2 years but I recently decided that I needed a larger card and Best BUy had the Sandisk UDMA 60MB/s 16gb card on sale. The first one I bought rattled, the casing was not sealed properly. So I returned it and got a new one. No rattle on that one but I was doing a shoot and couple hundred pics in, my 5DII froze up with an error message. I had to remove the battery shot a few more shots and error. Turns out it was the card. I was able to retrieve the images and then I returned it. I gave the Sandisk one more try and the 3rd one was a charm. It has been working flawlessly for about 4-5 months now. If I buy anymore cards I'm pretty sure I'll go with Lexar.


With the Lexar FW800 UDMA card reader, I'm pretty sure I've transferred 8 gig (250 RAWs) in about 3 minutes. I could be wrong but I think that is what I got with Lexar 45MB/s 8 gig card. I can't test it, I don't have a full card around. I have a Mac and the FW800 is on the MoBo and doesn't go through a PCI bus. I don't know the specs on PCI buses these days but I think that may play into it too. Could be driver issues too. Make sure you have the latest drivers for the FW Card.

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Originally Posted by Keith B

I have a Mac and the FW800 is on the MoBo and doesn't go through a PCI bus. I don't know the specs on PCI buses these days but I think that may play into it too. Could be driver issues too. Make sure you have the latest drivers for the FW Card.

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I get very fast transfers from my Sandisk 60 MB/s CF cards and now from my Sandisk 30 MB/s SDHC card for my new S95. Transfer speeds are about 7 MB/s slower than the rated speed of the card in both cases (53 and 23 MB/s, respectively). I also have a Mac, and since it has an ExpressCard slot I use ExpressCard/34 card readers (SIIG for the CF cards, Sonnet for SD/xD cards).

thanks again for the replies guys.first off both of my 2 main cards, the lexar 8gb and transend 16gb work great in my cam with the 600x being a little faster when i shoot in rapid fire like 50-60 picts in one shot,its just gettin them into my pc...i have a custom built pc that a good friend built for me from the ground up with lot of memory and speed...the only down fall so far is my pict down load speed, thats why he told me to try the firewire 800 deal with no speed gain lol...so i just dont know what to try next.... rod

they r just in my pc hard drive,i to have been thinking about a external drive to because of same malware problems to.

Do you convert to DNG?

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Originally Posted by banman1

they r just in my pc hard drive,i to have been thinking about a external drive to because of same malware problems to.

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How important are your pictures to you? If the answer is anything other than, "I don't give a cr*p if I lose them forever," then you'd better get a backup. Or two. Or three. Or more.


In addition to hanging out here on TDP, I also participate in Apple Discussions (a great forum for Mac and iPhone/iPod/iPad users). Every day there are posts along the lines of 'my hard drive crashed but I have my pics backed up to my iPhone, how do I get them back?' At least those folks have a second copy of their favorite pics. The sad part is their only remaining copy of what started out as a nice, high-resolution image is a 0.6 megapixel version that's not even suitable for a 4x6" print.


Personally, my RAW images go from the CF card to my notebook's hard drive, immediately get backed up to an external drive, and remain on the CF card while I'm processing them, too. Once the RAW images are processed and converted to jpg, the jpgs stay on my computer, and the final RAW file set is backed up to two separate external drives - one at home and one at work. Then I format the CF card. Finally, every two months I burn the RAW files to a DVD and that goes in a safe deposit box, in a bank that's in a town different than the town where I live and the city where I work.


So, the only time I've got only one copy of my images is while they are in the CF card in the camera after I've shot them. Once I transfer them, I've got at least three copies stored on three different hard drives in two different locations.


Note that having an offsite backup is key - obviously, no one wants to think about what would happen if your house were to catch on fire. But then why do you have insurance? If the unthinkable happens, your 'stuff' can be replaced - things like furniture, appliances, whatever. But in the material loss department, one of the worst is the loss of your family memories and records. So if you back up your photos and movies to an external drive, and both your main and your backup drives are in the same place, you're still at risk.


One other option to consider is an online backup service like Mozy or Carbonite.

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Originally Posted by neuroanatomist

Personally, my RAW images go from the CF card to my notebook's hard drive, immediately get backed up to an external drive, and remain on the CF card while I'm processing them, too. Once the RAW images are processed and converted to jpg, the jpgs stay on my computer, and the final RAW file set is backed up to two separate external drives - one at home and one at work. Then I format the CF card. Finally, every two months I burn the RAW files to a DVD and that goes in a safe deposit box, in a bank that's in a town different than the town where I live and the city where I work.


So, the only time I've got only one copy of my images is while they are in the CF card in the camera after I've shot them. Once I transfer them, I've got at least three copies stored on three different hard drives in two different locations.


Note that having an offsite backup is key - obviously, no one wants to think about what would happen if your house were to catch on fire. But then why do you have insurance? If the unthinkable happens, your 'stuff' can be replaced - things like furniture, appliances, whatever. But in the material loss department, one of the worst is the loss of your family memories and records. So if you back up your photos and movies to an external drive, and both your main and your backup drives are in the same place, you're still at risk.

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Wow neuro, I am glad to know that I am not the only one with such redundancy! [;)]


I have all my RAW files backed up on four Seagate FreeAgent GO drives and I have started to burn them to DVD. I have a two small personal fire safes which are water proof. I keep one at home in my basement and one in my office at work. The safes are for protection from fire and the elements more than from theft. I rotate drives form home to work and back as I back them up so only my most recent images are in the same place at any one time. I know, pretty anal, but it works well.


Seagate appears to be replacing the FreeAgent GO drives so the price is dropping as they clear out the old drives. I am buying a couple extra since I have the docks and am happy with them. A 500GB can had around me for $75.00 today. That is less than one of my 8GB CF cards, and way less than my newer ones. In other words, it is very inexpensive to avoid a disaster.


I am sure other brands can be had for similar pricing. The important thing is to find a system that works for you and to do it. It does not have to be a major disaster to take your images, it could be as simple as the harddrive on the only computer you have backed up your files on dying. I am surprised how many people have no backup for any of their important work.I backup everything, I have other drives I use for my other work. I keep my images separate. That is just the way that works best for me. The important thing is to backup, however works best for you.


Chris

I back mine up crazy amounts as well, while at school, i use 2x external hardrives, one main and one back up. After going threw keepers and tosers, edit what i want for the day. Then i back up to 2x 1tb hard drives. the finished images get backed up, while i keep them on the external hard drives until finished. Some times i back up to DVD/CD and give to my dad to keep at his place. Normly its images i sell or a wedding.