Fast CF card reader

Does anyone know what the fastest card reader is for compact flash? I currently use a Lexar Professional reader that is USB 2.0 The cards I'm using are Sandisk Extreme III and Lexar Professional 133x cards. I have a MAC so I could also use firewire. I need a fast reader because I work for a sports presswire service and I upload during the event so time is critical for me. Hope someone can help. Thanks.

Di Dear ,

I do not know the configuration of your laptop / desktop . But , having a minimum of 4 Gb RAM of high-speed with high-end graphics card , will help you a lot and desired performance. ( If your computer supports 4 slots for RAM , then go for 8 Gb RAM )
Regards ;
jayant atrey

p.s. : I use very high-end configuration with dual quad processors on-board with 32 GB RAM with dual-high-end graphics cards in crossfire . It takes less than 2 minutes to open all files on 32 Gb CF Card( Class 6 UDMA comliant which has writing speed of 90 Mb/sec. )

I'm still waiting for the USB 3.0 readers to show up, but no sign of them yet.

I think the SATA reader is the fastest at the moment, but there are a lot of quirks you have to get right to make it work. Google around for details.

There are also express card readers - plenty of quirks with those, too.

Firewire is faster than USB2, so probably the best bet if you have a Mac.
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• Bill

This one is beautiful and very fast once you find a reliable eSata interface card:

http://www.addonics.com/products/flash_memory_reader/AEPDDESU.asp

jayant atrey said:

I do not know the configuration of your laptop / desktop . But , having a minimum of 4 Gb RAM of high-speed with high-end graphics card , will help you a lot and desired performance. ( If your computer supports 4 slots for RAM , then go for 8 Gb RAM )

Click to expand...

the amount of ram or the speed of your graphics card have nothing what so ever to do with the performance of a card reader... ignore the above.

I think you answered your own question. You have a MAC with a firewire port.. get lexar's fw800 reader. Having faster cards than you have stated would help also.

I think this is the best you can get today (if you have a free PCI slot or a SATA port to connect to):

http://www.addonics.com/products/flash_memory_reader/adsacf.asp

I bought a Sandisk Firewire reader a while back for my Mac and it is absolutely your best bet. The difference is night and day. The readers are expensive, but worth the cost.
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I actually have a Lexar firewire card reader that when I first tried it it seemed to be actually slower than the Lexar USB 2.0 reader. I'll try it again. Thanks.

I don't know what version Mac you have, but if it has a Firewire 800 port that's the way to go right now.

I hear USB 3 will be fastest when it becomes more common.

My Lexar RW034 UDMA FW800 cfcard reader does 90 MB/sec. 100% reliable as well. Never had an error yet, better for me than the Sandisk FW reader.

Oilers said:

I actually have a Lexar firewire card reader that when I first tried it it seemed to be actually slower than the Lexar USB 2.0 reader. I'll try it again. Thanks.

Click to expand...

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I have a brand new 15" Mac Book Pro with 8gb ram. I'll try the firewire reader today again. Thanks.

I'm not sure about your macbook, but my iMac has both FW400 and FW800 ports. Make sure to use the 800
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I have the firewire 800 CF card reader. It's blazing fast with my 7D 32 gb RAW files. Download time around 2 minutes to my MBP.

Oilers said:

Does anyone know what the fastest card reader is for compact flash? I currently use a Lexar Professional reader that is USB 2.0 The cards I'm using are Sandisk Extreme III and Lexar Professional 133x cards. I have a MAC so I could also use firewire. I need a fast reader because I work for a sports presswire service and I upload during the event so time is critical for me. Hope someone can help. Thanks.

Click to expand...

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Like others here, I suffer from GAS.
Gear Acquisition Syndrome.
a few hundred nautical miles SW : 17º 52S, 149º 56W

Add to that, a faster hdd.

But from what I can see, your bottle nick is your cf card.

comes out next month. just gotta make sure you have a usb 3.0 port. it should double the speed of your usb 2.0 CF download.

http://www.mydigitaldiscount.com/ProductDetail.jsp?LISTID=80000EAB-1293551992

"Transfer your data 10X faster than USB 2.0 readers - up to 5Gb/s!

Pretec, the leader of the highest capacity (128GB) CF card, fastest CF card (667X), and first SDXC card in the world, announces P240 USB3.0 High-Speed Multi-Card Reader, the 1st USB3.0 card reader in the world supporting high-performance SDXC, CF and other major memory cards.

With interface speed of 5Gb/s (or 625MB/s, 10X faster than USB 2.0), USB 3.0 has solved the speed bottleneck for high speed memory card data transfer.

Today’s high speed memory card can reach to > 50MB/s for SDXC, > 100MB/s for CF card, > 300MB/s for SSD, all above have far exceeded the transfer speed of USB 2.0 (theoretical data is 60MB/s, and practical maximum is around 40MB/s) and hence much need the 10X speed enhancement of USB3.0.

Pretec P240 USB3.0 Multi-Card Reader is a perfect solution for potable usage, which has made Pretec’s full line card reader series the most complete and most comprehensive in the world. The ultra high performance allows user applications to demand a higher performance connection between PC and increasingly sophisticated peripherals."

Oilers said:

Does anyone know what the fastest card reader is for compact flash? I currently use a Lexar Professional reader that is USB 2.0 The cards I'm using are Sandisk Extreme III and Lexar Professional 133x cards. I have a MAC so I could also use firewire. I need a fast reader because I work for a sports presswire service and I upload during the event so time is critical for me. Hope someone can help. Thanks.

Click to expand...

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fun photos

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See this site, there are lots of tests of various reader, card, and camera combinations.

http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/reader_report_multi_page.asp?cid=6007-9392

If you have a laptop with a express card port, a express card reader will be very fast, pretty much the fastest.

http://www.lexar.com/products/lexar-professional-expresscard-compactflash-cf-reader?category=531

I have a Lexar and a Sandisk firewire 800 reader and they are very fast, but they were expensive, and did not sell, so they are discontinued.

I've ordered the Lexar Express Card reader. I'll report how it does with my SanDisk ExtremePro 32 Gb 600x card (MacBook Pro).

HTD

I usually use a external usb card reader and I can tell you when you shoot a 32g card full it can take awhile to copy the photos.

I recently decided to buy a firewire 800 for faster transfer rate and after reading the tests from Rob G, he basically said sandisk, lexar and synchotech are basically the same performance as they use the same chipsets etc.

Rob Galbraith DPI: Card-to-Computer: CF Readers

"The read speeds for the Delkin Reader-39, Hoodman RAW UDMA FireWire 800, Lexar Professional UDMA FireWire 800 and Synchrotech CFFire800 Pro are effectively identical to this SanDisk reader, because all four utilize the same controller from Oxford."

I ordered the synchrotech f800 and it takes about 2/3 less time to transfer a 32g to my mbook pro compared to usb.

CFFire800 Pro FireWire 800 to UDMA CompactFlash Drive Read-Writer, Synchrotech

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Canon 5D II, 7D & Nikon D7000

Just wondering how that card worked for you?

Thanks!

Tom

customminds said:

comes out next month. just gotta make sure you have a usb 3.0 port. it should double the speed of your usb 2.0 CF download.

http://www.mydigitaldiscount.com/ProductDetail.jsp?LISTID=80000EAB-1293551992

Click to expand...

This has been coming out next month for the last 8 months. Well, now at least some vendors are claiming it is in stock, or 1 week delivery. Anyone get one of these yet?

I would check resellerratings.com before ordering.
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• Bill