I'm behind in SD and card-reader tech

[Justme]

I have a 1.5 year old pc from Dell i7, lots of RAM. However, still a slow card reader connected to USB 3 port. It is showing its age transferring 200gb of images from a micro-SD card in a SD card adapter.

What are the bottlenecks I can fix? New card reader with a C connector? I know the bottleneck can be the read/write speed of the card.

Any suggestions for upgardes (card reader, SD card, micro-SD?

 

[CBR1100XX]

The first question is what kinda cards are you using?

The UHS-II cards are a lot faster but need special readers. These will be ~300 mb/s and are much more expensive

For regular UHS-1 cards even the cheap transcend ones are fine. And they should be listed as around 95 mb/s if they're recent.

The wild card is the non spec SanDisk UHS-1 cards that will be listed as 170 or 200 mb/s. These aren't that expensive and will also work fine on standard card readers but you'll only get speeds equivalent to a 95 mb/s card. Since to get those higher speeds their using non SD spec tech you'll need to get specific SanDisk readers that support it. They're not too expensive but just double check the reviews before buying.

As to ports that won't be a bottleneck. Even a standard USB 3.0 port can handle the fastest UHS-II SD card.

 

[Sean Nelson]

I have a 1.5 year old pc from Dell i7, lots of RAM. However, still a slow card reader connected to USB 3 port. It is showing its age transferring 200gb of images from a micro-SD card in a SD card adapter.

The MicroSD form factor has added additional contacts on the card to support SDUC speeds and capacities. If you have an older MicroSD card adapter it may not use those extra contacts, and that would result in the card falling back to an earlier, slower protocol.

You might need to look for a USB-3 card reader that's SDUC-compatible.

 

[Justme]

The first question is what kinda cards are you using?

The UHS-II cards are a lot faster but need special readers. These will be ~300 mb/s and are much more expensive

For regular UHS-1 cards even the cheap transcend ones are fine. And they should be listed as around 95 mb/s if they're recent.

The wild card is the non spec SanDisk UHS-1 cards that will be listed as 170 or 200 mb/s. These aren't that expensive and will also work fine on standard card readers but you'll only get speeds equivalent to a 95 mb/s card. Since to get those higher speeds their using non SD spec tech you'll need to get specific SanDisk readers that support it. They're not too expensive but just double check the reviews before buying.

As to ports that won't be a bottleneck. Even a standard USB 3.0 port can handle the fastest UHS-II SD card.

UPDATE: Sorry, I am using one of the USB 3 ports on the front of the Dell XPS PC.

And only transferring 160gb of videos from micro-SD card to computer.

SAMSUNG (MB-ME256GA/AM) 256GB 100MB/s (U3) MicroSDXC EVO Select Memory Card

UHS-I (U3) & Class 10

Read: Up to 100MB/s

Writer: Up to 90MB/s

I use them in dashcams.

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[Justme]

I have a 1.5 year old pc from Dell i7, lots of RAM. However, still a slow card reader connected to USB 3 port. It is showing its age transferring 200gb of images from a micro-SD card in a SD card adapter.

The MicroSD form factor has added additional contacts on the card to support SDUC speeds and capacities. If you have an older MicroSD card adapter it may not use those extra contacts, and that would result in the card falling back to an earlier, slower protocol.

You might need to look for a USB-3 card reader that's SDUC-compatible.

I will look into that option. Any recommendations? What about the following one?

SanDisk Professional PRO-Reader SD and microSD - High Performance Card Reader for SD and MicroSD Cards - SDPR5A8-0000-GBAND, Gray

 

[CBR1100XX]

The first question is what kinda cards are you using?

The UHS-II cards are a lot faster but need special readers. These will be ~300 mb/s and are much more expensive

For regular UHS-1 cards even the cheap transcend ones are fine. And they should be listed as around 95 mb/s if they're recent.

The wild card is the non spec SanDisk UHS-1 cards that will be listed as 170 or 200 mb/s. These aren't that expensive and will also work fine on standard card readers but you'll only get speeds equivalent to a 95 mb/s card. Since to get those higher speeds their using non SD spec tech you'll need to get specific SanDisk readers that support it. They're not too expensive but just double check the reviews before buying.

As to ports that won't be a bottleneck. Even a standard USB 3.0 port can handle the fastest UHS-II SD card.

UPDATE: Sorry, I am using one of the USB 3 ports on the front of the Dell XPS PC.

And only transferring 160gb of videos from micro-SD card to computer.

SAMSUNG (MB-ME256GA/AM) 256GB 100MB/s (U3) MicroSDXC EVO Select Memory Card

UHS-I (U3) & Class 10

Read: Up to 100MB/s

Writer: Up to 90MB/s

I use them in dashcams.

A Transcend TS-RDF5K or TS-RDF5W if you want a white one should be fine if you're not getting good speeds right now. The white one is only 8 bucks on Amazon.

 

[BobKnDP]

Maybe a UHS-II reader would be better?

BH Photovideo

Whether the USB 3.0 port on your PC could keep up with a 312MBps reader, I can't guess. Maybe.

 

[Tom_N]

Maybe a UHS-II reader would be better?

BH Photovideo

Whether the USB 3.0 port on your PC could keep up with a 312MBps reader, I can't guess. Maybe.

312 MBps (2496 Mbps) is about half of the theoretical speed of a USB 3.0 port, before overhead. It's also much faster than any single mechanical hard disk drive.

So if you're copying a large amount of data to a hard disk, you'd be lucky if the overall transfer ran at about 1/3rd to 1/2 of that speed. You might have a better shot at that speed (keeping fingers crossed) if you were copying to a SSD.

 

[cfmccuskey]

I am sure someone else can explain this better but many usb controllers limit the speed of all devices attached if a slower item is attached via one of the connectors. There was a post about this a few months ago. When I set up my computer I just connected the usb devices wherever. Now by just moving the mouse and keyboard to the 2.0 controller the 3.0 card reader on the front of the case is much faster.

 

[BobKnDP]

Maybe a UHS-II reader would be better?

BH Photovideo

Whether the USB 3.0 port on your PC could keep up with a 312MBps reader, I can't guess. Maybe.

312 MBps (2496 Mbps) is about half of the theoretical speed of a USB 3.0 port, before overhead. It's also much faster than any single mechanical hard disk drive.

So if you're copying a large amount of data to a hard disk, you'd be lucky if the overall transfer ran at about 1/3rd to 1/2 of that speed. You might have a better shot at that speed (keeping fingers crossed) if you were copying to a SSD.

As you say, a USB 3.0 port is rated at 5Gbps (625MBps), but that is usually not achieved in practice.

I believe that USB 3.0, USB 3.1 Gen1, and USB 3.2 Gen1 are all the same. The naming convention seems designed to confuse. Wikipedia

 

[Sean Nelson]

I believe that USB 3.0, USB 3.1 Gen1, and USB 3.2 Gen1 are all the same. The naming convention seems designed to confuse. Wikipedia

USB 3.0 - 5GBit/sec

USB 3.1 10GBit/sec

USB 3.2 - 20Gbit/sec

 

[BobKnDP]

I believe that USB 3.0, USB 3.1 Gen1, and USB 3.2 Gen1 are all the same. The naming convention seems designed to confuse. Wikipedia

USB 3.0 - 5GBit/sec

USB 3.1 10GBit/sec

USB 3.2 - 20Gbit/sec

In a more readable form than Wikipedia: Kingston

Includes the table:



In short, USB 3.1 Gen 1 and USB 3.2 Gen 1X1 are re-named USB 3.0.

Buyer beware.

 

[Tom_N]

I believe that USB 3.0, USB 3.1 Gen1, and USB 3.2 Gen1 are all the same. The naming convention seems designed to confuse. Wikipedia

USB 3.0 - 5GBit/sec

USB 3.1 10GBit/sec

No. USB 3.1 Gen 2 = "up to 10 Gbps" but USB 3.1 Gen 1 = "up to 5 Gbps", and appears to be just another name for USB 3.0.

USB 3.2 - 20Gbit/sec

No. USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 = "up to 20 Gbps". There are also USB 3.2 names corresponding to the USB 3.0 and USB 3.1 Gen 2 speeds.

Just to make things more confusing,

• USB4 Gen 2x1 is not compatible with USB 3.2 Gen 2x1 a.k.a. USB 3.1 Gen 2
• USB4 Gen 2x2 is not compatible with USB 3.2 Gen 2x2

The speeds are the same but the encoding on the wire is different.

 

[LynniePad]

I am sure someone else can explain this better but many usb controllers limit the speed of all devices attached if a slower item is attached via one of the connectors. There was a post about this a few months ago. When I set up my computer I just connected the usb devices wherever. Now by just moving the mouse and keyboard to the 2.0 controller the 3.0 card reader on the front of the case is much faster.

Yes, I was thinking that as well, since Dell XPS should have a built-in SD card reader.

 

[CBR1100XX]

I am sure someone else can explain this better but many usb controllers limit the speed of all devices attached if a slower item is attached via one of the connectors. There was a post about this a few months ago. When I set up my computer I just connected the usb devices wherever. Now by just moving the mouse and keyboard to the 2.0 controller the 3.0 card reader on the front of the case is much faster.

Yes, I was thinking that as well, since Dell XPS should have a built-in SD card reader.

Sometimes they are slow, my Dell laptop from 2017ish only gets about 35-40 MB/s and using the built in reader while even the cheap Transcend one I mentioned earlier doubles it.

 

[CBR1100XX]

I am sure someone else can explain this better but many usb controllers limit the speed of all devices attached if a slower item is attached via one of the connectors. There was a post about this a few months ago. When I set up my computer I just connected the usb devices wherever. Now by just moving the mouse and keyboard to the 2.0 controller the 3.0 card reader on the front of the case is much faster.

It comes down to how many ports per USB controller. With a system/motherboard it's sometimes hard to tell but if you go searching for PCI-E expansion cards you'll find ones with a lot more controllers on the board so you'll get higher speeds though they're also usually more expensive.

 

[Austinian]

I am sure someone else can explain this better but many usb controllers limit the speed of all devices attached if a slower item is attached via one of the connectors. There was a post about this a few months ago. When I set up my computer I just connected the usb devices wherever. Now by just moving the mouse and keyboard to the 2.0 controller the 3.0 card reader on the front of the case is much faster.

Yes, I was thinking that as well, since Dell XPS should have a built-in SD card reader.

Sometimes they are slow, my Dell laptop from 2017ish only gets about 35-40 MB/s and using the built in reader while even the cheap Transcend one I mentioned earlier doubles it.

According to reviews I've seen, compared to other laptops the XPS laptop SD card readers are fairly fast, the Inspiron laptop SD card readers pretty slow. I haven't bothered to measure either of mine, I just do something else while images are being transferred.

 

[StillStihl]

If nobody's mentioned it already, make double sure you've got a decent branded cable. There's a huge amount of c#*p leads on Amazon from Chinese companies using fake reviews, which more often than not don't meet their claimed specs. The same is very true when charging phones/tablets, you can have a great charger, but it's useless with a substandard cable. My own experience suggests Hama and Digitus are among the more reliable offerings.

 

[John Sheehy]

Maybe a UHS-II reader would be better?

BH Photovideo

Whether the USB 3.0 port on your PC could keep up with a 312MBps reader, I can't guess. Maybe.

312 MBps (2496 Mbps) is about half of the theoretical speed of a USB 3.0 port, before overhead. It's also much faster than any single mechanical hard disk drive.

So if you're copying a large amount of data to a hard disk, you'd be lucky if the overall transfer ran at about 1/3rd to 1/2 of that speed. You might have a better shot at that speed (keeping fingers crossed) if you were copying to a SSD.

There is still a lot of per-file overhead when all the other bottlenecks get out of the way, so the same card, full of low-Q low-res JPEGs, will transfer much slower than a card full of long video files. I didn't see much difference in speed between large and small files until I started transferring to a fast NVMe (3.5GB/s both ways). When the target is a spinning HDD, that becomes a big bottleneck for 300MB/s cards.

 

[sludge21017]

UPDATE: Sorry, I am using one of the USB 3 ports on the front of the Dell XPS PC.

And only transferring 160gb of videos from micro-SD card to computer.

SAMSUNG (MB-ME256GA/AM) 256GB 100MB/s (U3) MicroSDXC EVO Select Memory Card

UHS-I (U3) & Class 10

Read: Up to 100MB/s

Writer: Up to 90MB/s

I use them in dashcams.

If you are hitting 90MB/s you are fine.