R5 to PC Transfer Speeds Cable/Card Reader/Pure

[LesT]

Started this morning because i wanted to find the fastest way to get pictures from the R5 to my PC. It was great that the Type-C plug in charges when the camera is off and simply displays folders on the PC when on. My interest, however, was to move data the quickest way possible.

So we started with a large continuous run of RAW pictures on the CFExpress card...617 with a total size of 27.4GB. Only took a few seconds on the R5 with no buffer jam. LOVE THIS!

Next up, I had a PCIe 3.0 x4 (4 lane) AIC card with a CFExpress adapter made for me by Lexar which plugs directly into the computer PCIe slot (see below) as I wanted to know the fastest speed possible to move the data from that card to the PC. - 38 seconds. Pretty impressive.

Testing cables. I did two tests with the supplied cable and a 40Gbps Tbt3 Type-C cable. They both returned with the same time in moving that data at 4 minutes and 20 seconds. Alot slower but we have to live with this I guess.

Lastly, I wanted to test out the Lexar CFExpress card reader. So... all card readers right now are limited to two lane which maxes their transfer speeds out at 1GB/s...or 10Gbps. If you are considering a card reader... DONT WASTE YOUR TIME. Via card reader, and they are all the same right now, it took 8 minutes and 37 seconds to move that data.

Havent tried wi-fi or BT yet...but it will be slower.

So...two things learned to help others...

1. Don't go buying a 40Gbps cable as it will not speed data transfer up any faster than the USB 3.1 SS cable supplied.

2. It is cheaper and much easier to simply plug the cable into your R5 than buying a CFExpress card reader which will double your transfer times.

Have a good one.

Oh lastly... I had done a report on that card in my business and it can be found here... hope its ok to post.

https://www.thessdreview.com/featur...gb-long-awaited-storage-media-storage-speeds/

 

[trulybogus]

What would you recommend if I don't have a USB-C port on my computer? I'm trying to decide if it would make more sense to get an adapter of some sort that would allow me to use the supplied 3.1 cable with a female (USB-C) to male (USB 3.0) or if going the card reader route would be faster.

 

[LesT]

What would you recommend if I don't have a USB-C port on my computer? I'm trying to decide if it would make more sense to get an adapter of some sort that would allow me to use the supplied 3.1 cable with a female (USB-C) to male (USB 3.0) or if going the card reader route would be faster.

Yes, you can get a USB-C to USB-A adapter and, in fact, most current smartphones include one. I don't know anything about your PC so hesitate to recommend. For example, is it a laptop or desktop? If its a desktop, have you access to a PCIe connector on the inside? If so, I would definitely recommend looking for a Type-C adapter of faster speeds in that case.

 

[koenkooi]

Where your recent CFe card tests done with this reader?

 

[gavin]

Just buy a USB-C to USB-A cable. I use Anker ones and they work great.

 

[tomarse]

Started this morning because i wanted to find the fastest way to get pictures from the R5 to my PC. It was great that the Type-C plug in charges when the camera is off and simply displays folders on the PC when on. My interest, however, was to move data the quickest way possible.

So we started with a large continuous run of RAW pictures on the CFExpress card...617 with a total size of 27.4GB. Only took a few seconds on the R5 with no buffer jam. LOVE THIS!

Next up, I had a PCIe 3.0 x4 (4 lane) AIC card with a CFExpress adapter made for me by Lexar which plugs directly into the computer PCIe slot (see below) as I wanted to know the fastest speed possible to move the data from that card to the PC. - 38 seconds. Pretty impressive.

Testing cables. I did two tests with the supplied cable and a 40Gbps Tbt3 Type-C cable. They both returned with the same time in moving that data at 4 minutes and 20 seconds. Alot slower but we have to live with this I guess.

Lastly, I wanted to test out the Lexar CFExpress card reader. So... all card readers right now are limited to two lane which maxes their transfer speeds out at 1GB/s...or 10Gbps. If you are considering a card reader... DONT WASTE YOUR TIME. Via card reader, and they are all the same right now, it took 8 minutes and 37 seconds to move that data.

Havent tried wi-fi or BT yet...but it will be slower.

So...two things learned to help others...

1. Don't go buying a 40Gbps cable as it will not speed data transfer up any faster than the USB 3.1 SS cable supplied.

2. It is cheaper and much easier to simply plug the cable into your R5 than buying a CFExpress card reader which will double your transfer times.

Have a good one.

Oh lastly... I had done a report on that card in my business and it can be found here... hope its ok to post.

https://www.thessdreview.com/featur...gb-long-awaited-storage-media-storage-speeds/

I didn't fully understand as English isn't my native language.

How was the fastest run of "only a few seconds" performed? Via cable plugged into the R5 and the PC?



I have ordered a CFExpress Card Reader because when I plug in the R5 into my iMac (via USB-A to USB-C cable, nothing happens...

 

[LesT]

The fastest data could be moved was through use if the PCIe card I had made. As far as the comparison between the cable and the CFexpress card reader, they were both the same.

 

[LesT]

koenkooi wrote:

Where your recent CFe card tests done with this reader?

I have three methods of testing, the PCIe reader I had made, the Sonnet Thunderbolt 3 reader and the newest ProGrade Thunderbolt 3 reader. I use all three when testing drives that arrive and have found, this far, that all three provide the same results. That would make sense as all 3 are capable of data throughout of 2.8GB/s which is significantly higher than that of any card.

 

[Tmjc]

So we started with a large continuous run of RAW pictures on the CFExpress card...617 with a total size of 27.4GB. Only took a few seconds on the R5 with no buffer jam. LOVE THIS!

I didn't fully understand as English isn't my native language.

How was the fastest run of "only a few seconds" performed? Via cable plugged into the R5 and the PC?

I have ordered a CFExpress Card Reader because when I plug in the R5 into my iMac (via USB-A to USB-C cable, nothing happens...

Are you referring to this? If so that's not a transfer speed but rather the time it took to take all the pictures in the R5.

 

[LesT]

• Tmjc wrote:

So we started with a large continuous run of RAW pictures on the CFExpress card...617 with a total size of 27.4GB. Only took a few seconds on the R5 with no buffer jam. LOVE THIS!

I didn't fully understand as English isn't my native language.

How was the fastest run of "only a few seconds" performed? Via cable plugged into the R5 and the PC?

I have ordered a CFExpress Card Reader because when I plug in the R5 into my iMac (via USB-A to USB-C cable, nothing happens...

Are you referring to this? If so that's not a transfer speed but rather the time it took to take all the pictures in the R5.

That was actually how impressed I was taking the pictures and not downloading them at so at that point.

 

[Wing2]

I got the same CFExpress Reader for free, its performance is disappointing.

If you don't mind the extra work to setup your computer, a good wifi could be much faster than this, because wifi can start transferring while you are still shooting using FTP transfer mode or image.canon services.

 

[tomarse]

• Tmjc wrote:

So we started with a large continuous run of RAW pictures on the CFExpress card...617 with a total size of 27.4GB. Only took a few seconds on the R5 with no buffer jam. LOVE THIS!

I didn't fully understand as English isn't my native language.

How was the fastest run of "only a few seconds" performed? Via cable plugged into the R5 and the PC?

I have ordered a CFExpress Card Reader because when I plug in the R5 into my iMac (via USB-A to USB-C cable, nothing happens...

Are you referring to this? If so that's not a transfer speed but rather the time it took to take all the pictures in the R5.

That was actually how impressed I was taking the pictures and not downloading them at so at that point.

I was thinking about it, but then again, 600+ images @20fps max would take more than just a few seconds, so I thought you were describing a way to download. Thanks for clarification!

I was just wondering why downloading via USB-C to USB-C (to my 2019 MacBook) works flawlessly while USB-C to USB-A (as described in another posting) doesn't do anything. My 2015 iMac has only USB-A ports.

 

[adawro1]

Hello

I have done some tests.

Using MacBook Air M1 with my new Sandisk Extreme PRO CFexpress USB 3.1 Gen2 with USB-C connector reader I have transferred 8 GB of over 200 RAW files in 10-15 seconds, so it was almost as fast as your fastest solution - (PCIe 3.0 x4 (4 lane) AIC card with a CFExpress adapter).

One weird thing :

On the second laptop (Lenovo X230T) using regular USB 3.0 ports with the same mew Sandisk reader speed was only about 44 megabytes per second with the same CFexpress card.

My old USB 3.0 reader with Sandisk card SD UHS-II card was faster - speed was 83 megabytes per second

 

[Dan W]

Started this morning because i wanted to find the fastest way to get pictures from the R5 to my PC. It was great that the Type-C plug in charges when the camera is off and simply displays folders on the PC when on. My interest, however, was to move data the quickest way possible.

So we started with a large continuous run of RAW pictures on the CFExpress card...617 with a total size of 27.4GB. Only took a few seconds on the R5 with no buffer jam. LOVE THIS!

Next up, I had a PCIe 3.0 x4 (4 lane) AIC card with a CFExpress adapter made for me by Lexar which plugs directly into the computer PCIe slot (see below) as I wanted to know the fastest speed possible to move the data from that card to the PC. - 38 seconds. Pretty impressive.

Testing cables. I did two tests with the supplied cable and a 40Gbps Tbt3 Type-C cable. They both returned with the same time in moving that data at 4 minutes and 20 seconds. Alot slower but we have to live with this I guess.

Lastly, I wanted to test out the Lexar CFExpress card reader. So... all card readers right now are limited to two lane which maxes their transfer speeds out at 1GB/s...or 10Gbps. If you are considering a card reader... DONT WASTE YOUR TIME. Via card reader, and they are all the same right now, it took 8 minutes and 37 seconds to move that data.

Havent tried wi-fi or BT yet...but it will be slower.

So...two things learned to help others...

1. Don't go buying a 40Gbps cable as it will not speed data transfer up any faster than the USB 3.1 SS cable supplied.

2. It is cheaper and much easier to simply plug the cable into your R5 than buying a CFExpress card reader which will double your transfer times.

Have a good one.

Oh lastly... I had done a report on that card in my business and it can be found here... hope its ok to post.

https://www.thessdreview.com/featur...gb-long-awaited-storage-media-storage-speeds/

I'm going to guess most shooters are not in that big of a rush to off load a card. I get home and stick in the card and begin the download off the card, while that's happening I clean my gear if needed or unpack the car or get something to eat ,etc.. I use Capture One for post, I import from that. C1 is slow on importing anyway because its creating the previews at the same time. OR, I could offload it using lightning fast and expensive hardware but as soon as I go to sort and edit I will have to wait for C1 to generate the previews anyway lol.

I'm not a fan of using the camera to do downloads. Card readers are cheap should the plug get wore out over a few hundred times of inserting and removing the cable in all kinds of angles, I would rather have to buy a $40 reader then sending my camera in and have to replace the whole circuit board. But thats just me. I did try it when I first got it and it did in fact charge the battery and I could see the files. but haven't done that since.

 

[RogerZoul]

Started this morning because i wanted to find the fastest way to get pictures from the R5 to my PC. It was great that the Type-C plug in charges when the camera is off and simply displays folders on the PC when on. My interest, however, was to move data the quickest way possible.

So we started with a large continuous run of RAW pictures on the CFExpress card...617 with a total size of 27.4GB. Only took a few seconds on the R5 with no buffer jam. LOVE THIS!

Next up, I had a PCIe 3.0 x4 (4 lane) AIC card with a CFExpress adapter made for me by Lexar which plugs directly into the computer PCIe slot (see below) as I wanted to know the fastest speed possible to move the data from that card to the PC. - 38 seconds. Pretty impressive.

Testing cables. I did two tests with the supplied cable and a 40Gbps Tbt3 Type-C cable. They both returned with the same time in moving that data at 4 minutes and 20 seconds. Alot slower but we have to live with this I guess.

Lastly, I wanted to test out the Lexar CFExpress card reader. So... all card readers right now are limited to two lane which maxes their transfer speeds out at 1GB/s...or 10Gbps. If you are considering a card reader... DONT WASTE YOUR TIME. Via card reader, and they are all the same right now, it took 8 minutes and 37 seconds to move that data.

Havent tried wi-fi or BT yet...but it will be slower.

So...two things learned to help others...

1. Don't go buying a 40Gbps cable as it will not speed data transfer up any faster than the USB 3.1 SS cable supplied.

2. It is cheaper and much easier to simply plug the cable into your R5 than buying a CFExpress card reader which will double your transfer times.

Have a good one.

Oh lastly... I had done a report on that card in my business and it can be found here... hope its ok to post.

https://www.thessdreview.com/featur...gb-long-awaited-storage-media-storage-speeds/

I'm going to guess most shooters are not in that big of a rush to off load a card. I get home and stick in the card and begin the download off the card, while that's happening I clean my gear if needed or unpack the car or get something to eat ,etc.. I use Capture One for post, I import from that. C1 is slow on importing anyway because its creating the previews at the same time. OR, I could offload it using lightning fast and expensive hardware but as soon as I go to sort and edit I will have to wait for C1 to generate the previews anyway lol.

I'm not a fan of using the camera to do downloads. Card readers are cheap should the plug get wore out over a few hundred times of inserting and removing the cable in all kinds of angles, I would rather have to buy a $40 reader then sending my camera in and have to replace the whole circuit board. But thats just me. I did try it when I first got it and it did in fact charge the battery and I could see the files. but haven't done that since.

I do a similar thing with LR instead of C1, and the LR part always takes way longer than transferring files, as I almost always bring home lots and lots of raw files. Like you, I go do something else while the 1-to-1 previews are being made. So, one should consider one's overall workflow when deciding how best to deal with transfers. I prefer to let LR manage the files rather than dealing with them myself.