CF type I & II writing speeds explained

Since I've had my CP5000 upgraded to Firmware 1.7, I've been suspicious about it becoming slower at writing to the memory card. So I conducted a simple test. I own various memory cards from different mfg's and here are the results. The camera is set to Automatic mode, 1/60 shutter speed, flash used, 3:2 format at fine jpg mode. Each photo is 1.44 mb in size.

1. HP 32 mb - 11.32 seconds
2. Sandisk 16 mb - 8.38 seconds
3. IBM microdrive - 44.71 seconds
4. no-name 64 mb - 22.64 seconds

For some reason it seems like the IBM 340 mb is taking a very long time to write whereas I don't think it was quite this slow before upgrading to Firmware 1.7. Or could it just be my imagination?

Can anyone explain the differences in write times I'm experiencing... has anyone else conducted such a test and how much longer are other's taking to write to a Microdrive vs a standard cf card.

Looking forward to your test results or answers.

Ciao

Jim

The 340 mb microdrive is not certified for the CP5000. There are some other threads about this

http://www.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1007&message=2665790

With a 1 gig microdrive NEF files are writing in about 10 sec. Fine JPGs are less.

Tom