Am I using the slowest memory card in the world is something wrong with my camera?

When I purchased my A900 it included a SanDisk 16GB Memory Stick Pro Duo. I didn't know what to expect since I've never seen or used a MS. I'd like to know if this is the worlds SLOWEST memory card in the world? I no longer use it, I bought a fast SanDisk CF card to use in the CF slot but kept the MS in its slot to keep the dust out and just in case my CF card went bad. When I say slow, a 15 frame burst writing raw files takes at least 85 seconds to write all images to the card.

Slowest would be way slower. I still have 6MP SLRs. The older one takes 1 minute to write 5 RAWs on CF. Camera is the bottleneck there. Another has a 3 frames buffer and I noticed a huge difference in writing speed to a contemporary supermarket no name 1GB card and a unspectacular (at that time! ) Sandisk. Reading a 1GB card through LPT port took over an hour.

If you have an USB 3 reader for both cards you could test them against each other. I guess your memory stick is just a bit slow but a 10 frames per minute writing speed doesn't sound that horrible for a tourist walking around and many similar kinds of usage, especially considering that you shoot 24MP RAWs.

If you need the MS as a backup for sports journalism or weddings better do the testing with a reader and try to find out if faster sticks are available. Otherwise I'd just use it.

Once you have downloaded and backed up images from the card, you should format it in the camera rather than delete images. Formatting restores the data structure and makes the entire card available to the camera. Deleting images causes fragmentation of the memory. The camera can still store images, but must look for open space, and may split files between partitions. This takes more time and increases the possibility of cross-linked or corrupted files.

 

It's usually not necessary to format the card with a computer. However this gives you more options, including detection and marking of bad sectors, or restoring bad sectors with a low level format (which can take a very long time). Always follow up with a format in the camera itself.

Thanks for your responses. All I was trying to do was point out how SLOW the memory stick is compared to a CF card. Why would someone use the memory stick in a camera? I only use it just in case something goes wrong with the CF card.