Card Reader: Built-In vs. ExpressCard vs. Ext. Firewire

bandgeekndb

So, after a few happy months with my new D90, I'm realizing how much time i waste waiting for cards to upload to my computer. I'm using a Dell Inspiron E1505 with windows 7, 2GB of RAM and a 2.0Ghz Core 2 Duo processor. Right now, I'm using the built-in card reader, but i don't know what or how it's hooked up to the innards, and how fast it is...i can't imagine it's high quality...

So, a couple of things:

1) How do I determine whether Lightroom and other computer parts are limiting my import vs. the card reader speed? I was thinking of doing an identical import, one from the HD, and one from the card. (BTW, i'm using 20 Mb/s Sandisk Extreme cards, so they're definitely high quality, high speed cards)

2) Assuming the built-in card reader is a piece of junk, which would be my FASTEST option? Either an expresscard reader that would stay in my laptop, or an external firewire or USB card reader, whichever is faster?

Thanks!
~Nick

colourbox

bandgeekndb wrote:

1) How do I determine whether Lightroom and other computer parts are limiting my import vs. the card reader speed?

You might want to try different raw importers, like download some just to try out, and average the times. The reason is that some, like Lightroom, will do more than just import, they will also build previews, do DNG conversions, etc. depending on how you set them up. Which means you'd be measuring all of that too. You could try shutting off all tasks that are done on top of the pure import. I would also try a straight file copy off the card to the HD to exclude all software related variables.

Ric Grupe

A sandisk usb reader will be almost three times faster than the built-in dell.

cabbey

bandgeekndb wrote:

So, after a few happy months with my new D90, I'm realizing how much time i waste waiting for cards to upload to my computer. I'm using a Dell Inspiron E1505 with windows 7, 2GB of RAM and a 2.0Ghz Core 2 Duo processor. Right now, I'm using the built-in card reader, but i don't know what or how it's hooked up to the innards, and how fast it is...i can't imagine it's high quality...

So, a couple of things:

1) How do I determine whether Lightroom and other computer parts are limiting my import vs. the card reader speed? I was thinking of doing an identical import, one from the HD, and one from the card. (BTW, i'm using 20 Mb/s Sandisk Extreme cards, so they're definitely high quality, high speed cards)

Look for a filesystem benchmark and run it in read mode against your cards, that will tell you how fast the system is reading data from the card. If you were on a mac or a unix machine there are several built in utilities that could do this... no clue about windows world.

2) Assuming the built-in card reader is a piece of junk, which would be my FASTEST option? Either an expresscard reader that would stay in my laptop, or an external firewire or USB card reader, whichever is faster?

Thanks!
~Nick

When it comes to an express card reader, there's an important difference to remember: which bus inside the express card slot is it attached to. Expresscard has both usb and pci-e inside it. The pci-e based express card cf readers are WICKED fast... especially when combined with a good fast card.