To Be or Not to Be...a fake XQD?

[paul_b.1]

<p> My Xqd reader just arrived and it seems (at first look) that the card is Ok.<br />It has/display 64 Gb capacity (even after formating) , the write speed is aprox 60Mb/s and read speed is 125 Mb/s.<br />What can I say !?..., surely the packing was not at EU or US standards, I can tell the difference.<br />Hopefully, it will do his job ...</p>

[ShunCheung]

<p>Paul, thanks for the update. I am glad your XQD card is ok as expected. However, the write speed seems slow for an XQD cards. Since as far as I know you don't shoot "machine gun" style, this is probably not an issue.</p>

<p>However, if one uses this card on a D5 or D500 and shoot 10 fps, @ 60MB/sec, you are writing approximately three 20MP RAW files (depending on compression level) per second onto this card. It may still be ok with the deeper buffer on the D4 and D5. As far as I know the actual buffer in the D500 is much shallower and the buffer can fill up within 2 seconds and then it will be 3 fps, constrained by the card speed.</p>

<p>60MB/sec is slower than the fastest SanDisk 95MB/sec UHS-1 Extreme Pro SD card. I have measured the actual write speed on a D7100 and D7200. I can get about 80MB/sec. (Since the D7100/D7200 are 24MP, their files are a bit larger and those SD cards can receive 3 fps.)</p>

<p>I think it explains why Nikon chose CF + XQD for the D4 and D4S because back in 2012, the fastest CF cards were on par with XQD at that time. Today, the fastest 2933x XQD cards are much faster, and you can dump 20MP files at 10 fps onto those cards so that buffer size becomes irrelevant. With 4K video, etc., CF is now out-of-date technology. Unfortunately, so are the early, slower XQD cards from 2, 3 years ago.</p>

[paul_b.1]

<p><strong>" However, the write speed seems slow for an XQD cards"</strong><br />...yes it is , and that's why I run a test with 3 cards, two XQD : Sony N 64GB + Lexar 1333 64GB and one CF : Sandisk Extreme 64GB/120MB/s (in this order)<br /> Why those ? : because they are the cheapest of their kind and almost the same on the paper.<br /> Equipment : One PC with Windows 7(Intel I7) and SSD hard drive and two card readers, Lexar and Sony XQD, both USB 3.<br /> The file to move : one folder(5,66GB) containing 635 pictures.<br /> The write(from SSD to card) time on the cards was : 4M46s, 2M39s and 1M48s.<br /> The read(from card to SSD) time was aprox : 8seconds, 7s and 5s<br /> Conclusion : <br /> -if you want speed on the XQD, you have to buy the latest models<br /> -CF is not dead yet - they are fast enough if you have a deep buffer.</p><div></div>

[ShunCheung]

<p>Found this article on Nikon USA's web site:<br>

http://www.nikonusa.com/en/learn-and-explore/article/i7rd4235/what-is-xqd-and-why-should-i-use-it.html<br>

I would treat it as a bit of an "infomercial." It looks like some of the early XQD cards from 2012 or so aren't all that fast in today's standards, which have changed since 4 years ago. That is why Paul's card seems on the slow side now.</p>

<p>Meanwhile, the latest CF cards have pretty much reached their theoretical speed limit.</p>

[paul_b.1]

<p>Very interesting Shun, thanks . And very important for future users of D500. More than one year I use my Sony XQD card only as a backup and never had single problem with it. I thought it was a very fast one like advertised. Not so. And that's the reason I posted the above test...<br /> Many people will be tempted to buy less expensive models . They should be aware of the limitations concerning those XQD cards.</p>