HK Tech Phooey

Now, this is a fast card--SanDisk Extreme Pro

Sep 29, 2009 22:48

Last week, I was asked to try the all new SanDisk Extreme Pro CompactFlash card, thanks to the guys at TEXT100 HKG (PR firm in Hong Kong). As an amateur photographer, I wouldn't pass on the chance to check out the fast transfer speed of this new memory card, which is rated at 90MB/sec.

So, how fast is this card? According to SanDisk:

• Its reading and writing performance can go up to 90MB/sec (600x)


• UDMA 6 is enabled (works in all UDMA modes)


• Comes with a power core controller and enhanced super-parallel processing (ESP) technology invented by SanDisk to increase the card's performance level

Well, I did some testing of my own with the card at home. I ran a few read and write tests and I used the older-generation SanDisk Extreme IV and the SanDisk Extreme FireWire Reader to benchmark the results.



For each full-frame picture I took on my Sony A900 dSLR, the size of the RAW file was around 37.6MB. I switched the shooting mode to burst mode and took 10 pictures consecutively. The average writing speed after the 10 shots were as follows:

SanDisk Extreme IV 16GB--11.9 secs
SanDisk Extreme Pro 16GB--9.4 secs

Not bad for writing speed. In fact, this new Extreme Pro is superfast. Given the price and storage size (64GB being the highest), it is the ultimate dream card when it comes to capturing large images and video files.

Next up, I tried the read and write time by copying 342 picture files (11.9GB) to and from my computer, and the results were as followed:

SanDisk Extreme IV 16GB

• Writing to card--13 minutes 6 seconds


• Reading from card and copying to PC--7 minutes 16 seconds

SanDisk Extreme Pro 16GB

• Writing to card--12 minutes 48 seconds


• Reading from card and copying to PC--8 minutes 14 seconds

Looking at the results, one wonders. Shouldn't the more expensive Extreme Pro be a lot faster than the old Extreme IV? The answer is yes, the faster Extreme Pro does read and write faster. But in order to see the results, it depends on what kind of card reader you are using. SanDisk can roll out even faster cards, but it needs a fast reader as well. The 45MB/s FireWire Reader from SanDisk can't seem to catch up anymore.

SanDisk, hope you dig this.

One of my readers, David Golden, sent me an email pointing out that the card performance is most likely optimized for high performance burst mode as your statistics indicate. The sustained write performance (copying 12GB of data to the card) is not nearly as important. Thanks, David, for your input.

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