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Compact Flash Card write Speeds


stephen_doldric

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<p>I thought I would share this for anyone interested in the data I collected. Its Compact Flash and a D700, but the concept applies to SD, CF and other camera bodies. I've noticed that SD and CF card between Lexar and Sandisk, the Sandisk cards always seem faster. At least in the same rated speeds. But what I found was really happening is the<strong> rated write</strong> speeds are different. Just because a card says 30mb/s or 200x the manufactures are quoting the read speeds. Lexar seems to typically have slower write speeds per a given read speed.</p>

<p><br />***<strong> If you take anything away from this before you buy a card find out the write speed, use that for your comparison shopping</strong>. *** Also the D700 is caped out with the ability to write somewhere around 45MB/Sec (unconfirmed) so any card faster than the camera and it doesn't matter, hence I stopped at the 800x (120MB/s Read) lexar with a max write speed of 300X (45MB/s).</p>

<p>Here is my set of cards and my informal speed test:<br>

<strong> </strong><br>

<strong>Lexar Platinum II 16gb 200x CF Card</strong> (slowest)<br />30MB/s read --- ~22MB/s write<br />20 seconds to write full buffer to the cardd (r=17 on D700 NEF 12 Bit Raw)</p>

<p><strong> </strong><br>

<strong>Sandisk Ultra 16gb 30MB/s CF Card</strong> (Fast)<br />30MB/Sec read --- 30MB/s write<br />12 seconds to write full buffer to the card (r=17 on D700 NEF 12 Bit Raw)</p>

<p><strong> </strong><br>

<strong>Lexar Professional 32GB UDMA7 800x CF Card</strong> (Fastest)<br />120MB/s Read -- -45MB/s write<br />8 second to write full buffer to the card (r=17 on D700 NEF 12 Bit Raw)</p>

<p>** D700 12 bit raw active D off buffer displaying r17 in viewfinder</p>

<p><br />So why does this matter to me? Am I machine gun shooter? No, but I do shoot a lot of 5K road races. As the race progresses there are usually large clumps of people. I typically fire the shutter without using continuous, but even then I run into buffer full situations. On the Sandisk this happens sometimes, on the Lexar Platinum 200X a full buffer is a way of life. I just got the Lexar 800x after shooting a 2000 person race having swapped in the Platinum 200x card. The Lexar 800x (really 300x write) I can almost go full gun 3FPS without it ever overrunning the buffer. Thats awesome for what I do! </p>

<p> </p>

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<p>Thanks, Stephen. Coincidentally, I'm ordering new cards today. I received an email that they are on sale at the store I often do business with and this helps me with my decision.</p>
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<p>Be a bit careful with the SanDisk Compact Flash Extreme - 120MB/s read -- 60MB/s write. I would have bought that over the Lexar, but there are a lot of reviews about data corruption on B&H's website. Most of them in April and early May, so hopefully that batch is flushed out of the system by now.</p>

<p> </p>

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Is the 16gb 800x professioanl lexar the same rated speed? I dont remember where I saw it saying they are slower. Even

for a wedding, I never got close to using a full 16gb card. We dont shoot raw. Jpeg L fine is more than enough for a

double page spread. Thank you

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