[lpendy]

Hello,

I'm curious what others are getting for transfer speeds. I'm using a Sandisk Imagemate 5in1 USB 2.0 reader. My transfer speeds are usually around 1.5 to 2.0 MB/s. That seems slow to me but I have no idea what's "normal".

I'm using 40x Lexar Professional CF cards (512MB & 1GB cards).

Thanks,
Lyle

[Gary_Berg]

My Sandisk CF reader, and SDDR-92, typically settles down to 4-5Mb/sec in DL Pro when transferring 8 megapixel images from my Minolta A2. This is on my Lexar 40X high speed cards, 512Mb and 1Gb.

This is a single slot, CF only, reader. About $21 or so at Best Buy. My computer is a Toshiba A75 notebook, and the reader is connected through a USB 2.0 hub (Belkin?) to the notebook.

So you can do better...

Computer speed will make a difference, what speed computer are you using?

[Chris Breeze]

The transfer speed depends upon a number of factors such as the speed of the CF card, the card reader, the computer's USB interface and to a lesser extent the speed of the computer. You will also get a higher transfer speed with larger file sizes as more time is spent downloading and less time preparing to download the next file. Extra operations like auto-rotate, adding color profiles and IPTC data will also affect the overall transfer speed.

I use a SanDisk USB 2.0 (part # 20-90-00115) reader with is 18 months old and get a transfer speed around 7Mb/sec when downloading raw files from my 20D, 350D or 1DMkII. I also have an older SanDisk USB 2.0 card reader (part # 20-90-00091) which looks identical but only transfers at around 4.5Mb/sec.

I use a Delkin Cardbus 32 PCMCIA reader on my laptop and this downloads at approximately 5Mb/sec.

[Chris Breeze]

Sorry, I forgot to say that these timings are with Lexar Professional 80x 512Mb CF cards.

[xyzxyz]

I have the the same model number SanDisk reader as Chris.

I also bought a Lexar USB2 CompactFlash readers at the same time, about 4 months ago. (It has the folding endcap)

The Sandisk CompactFlash reader was much faster.
The Lexar CompactFlash reader was much slower... almost by a factor of 2.

[lpendy]

Thanks for the feedback.

I figured out why transfers were slow. I forgot I had the Directory Maker plugin enabled. I did a quick test with it disabled (only 50 images) and was getting 4-5Mb/s.

Lyle

[GuyScharf]

Intrigued by Chris' message, I just did some tests using a SanDisk 2 GB Ultra II card. I have two SanDisk CF SDDR-91 readers. One is part number 20-90-00115 and the other is 20-90-00091. Download rates for 113 6-MB Nikon NEF files is 6.30 Mb/Sec with the -00115 reader and 1.97 MB/Sec with the -00091 reader! That's with Directory Maker plug-in enabled and all files going to the same directory. I simply switched the readers so they were connected through the same USB port to the same computer.

With the plug-in disabled, transfer rate increases slightly to 6.36 Mb/Sec and 2.17 Mb/Sec respectively.

That's a tremendous speed difference for two readers with the same model number!

Guy

[dtrayers]

I'm using a Delkin Cardbus32 PCMCIA CF adapter on a Thinkpad laptop. I get anywhere between 8-10 MB/sec with Sandisk Extreme III and Lexar 80x cards. Sandisk Ultra II's are in the 6 MB/sec neighborhood.