Do any cards allow better than 13 seconds to write DSC-V3 raw?

[SQLGuy]

Anyway, the main reason it's really noticeable is that there's no buffer. My 1995 Kodak takes about 16 seconds to write a raw to a CF card (probably two to three times that if using a hard drive), but it does have a two shot (IIRC) buffer, so you're not always blocked while writing. One interesting thing in DPReview's original review of the DSC-V3 is that they got 11.6 seconds with a Sandisk Memory Stick, but could only get 13.5 seconds with CF cards. I guess that the CF cards they had to test with were not the fastest ones available, or, at least, not the fastest ones the camera could support.

Sony has a history of slowing writes to CF cards in favour of MS in cameras that have both. It certainly did it with the DSC-R1.

Maybe, but I'm still getting faster writes with CF than with MS in this camera.

I haven't tried in the A900... I'll see if I can find any such tests someone else has done, since I don't have any Memory Stick Pro HG cards. If they were throttling CF, though, it should be pretty obvious, since UDMA7 was well supported by the time the A900 shipped, and that standard is more than twice as fast as MS HG.

Edit: There are anecdotes about much better performance from the A900 with CF. And DPReview found much better CF performance, too: https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/sonydslra900/13 But it doesn't look like they used an HG MS.

On the other, other, hand, the A900 manual mentions that HG cards will work, but not whether the A900 can take advantage of their 8-bit/60MHz higher throughput capabilities.

Edit: I checked the A900 schematic, and the Memory Stick interface is an HG type (8 data contacts).

Edit 2: In some cases, Sandisk seems to have provided better Memory Stick performance than Sony did for the same standard (Pro, Mark 2, HG, etc). DPReview tested with a Sandisk Memory Stick when reviewing the V3. Maybe that's why they got a shorter write time than I got with my Sony Mark 2 Duo Pro. I just ordered a Sandisk Ultra Pro HG. I am curious to see whether that is faster in the V3 than the UDMA6 CF. I don't expect it to be, as the V3 uses a regular Memory Stick socket, which does not have the extra connections needed to use the 8-bit data bus of HG; but, maybe the Sandisk Pro mode is faster than the Sony Pro mode, and that might at least get this card down to the same write time as the UDMA6 CF. While write times of 11 seconds, or 15 seconds, or more, are all much slower than either of these cards should account for, the faster CF certainly did make a difference.

--
A7R4a with SAL2470Z (G1), 55Z, and a bunch of other adapted lenses (Canon FD, Minolta AF, Canon EF, Leica, Nikon...); A7R converted to IR. Many other old DSLRs.

 

[SQLGuy]

I just got my Sandisk Ultra MS Pro Duo HG. I tested it in the DSC-V3 and also in my A900.

In the DSC-V3, it's maybe a fraction of a second faster than the Sony MS Pro Duo (14.62s vs 15s to write a RAW). Not surprising that there's not much difference, since the HG standard came out a few years after the DSC-V3. The UDMA 6 CF card is still faster. Just to verify the assumption about UDMA 6 support, I tried a UDMA 7 CF card in the V3, and it wasn't any faster.

In the A900, the Sandisk Pro HG card is twice as fast for writing compared to the Sony MS Pro Duo. The A900 does support HG... even says it right next to the MS slot. However, UDMA 7 CF is still faster in the A900. 3 seconds to write RAW+JPG L with the Pro HG card, and 2 seconds with the CF card.

So, no, at least with these two examples, Sony did not implement slower CF slots than Memory Stick slots.