How much faster can a card reader give you over camera

[faye]

Hi,

I want to knwo how much faster can a USB2.0 card reader over a direct connection from a digital camera (Panasonic FX01)

For example if i have a 80x and 150x SD card.

Thanks

 

[Peter]

Depends - on whether your camera's internal card reader is limiting the card throughput or not. If not, then it'll be as fast as your cards can go. Same for your computer's card reader.

 

[mrbill14]

I don't notice much difference between the two.... but it does save my camera's batteries (uploading the pictures on my card reader).

 

[corkyg]

The speed of your SD cards has little effect on reading, no matter how many X's. That speed refers to the SD'd speed of writing the picture data to it from the camera. Reading is reading.

The main advantage of a reader over a direct connection is conservation of the camera's battery, and the speed of removing the media from the camera and slipping it into a reader as opposed to finding the camera's cable, connecting it, turning on the camera, and having all that crap installed inyour computer.

I got my first digital camera in 1996, and tried the direct connection once. After that, I got a reader/writer (have had several) and never looked back.

With a reader writer, you need not install any of the camera's software. All the work can be done by normal Windows image processing programs.

 

[faye]

hmmm...
i don't have to install anything into windows if i use direct connection though..

I just plug it in, windows detects it.. and one more drive pop up in the file explorer...

I thought a card reader can save me much more time over direct connection

 

[Peter]

It doesn't get any more direct than through an USB-to-card controller device. Whether that happens to be a pure USB-card controller or whether that thing also happens to have a camera function doesn't matter.

 

[ForumMaster]

well, some cameras limit the data rate because the camera CPU is used which is slow. a card reader is therefor faster. but i don't know too much about the subject. perhaps they already have an equivilent of DMA?

 

[Peter]

... just as well as some card readers don't achieve full throughput because their electronics are cheap and simple. My point exactly.

 

[corkyg]

Originally posted by: Peter
... just as well as some card readers don't achieve full throughput because their electronics are cheap and simple. My point exactly.

And all are limited by the USB link. If the camera is older and has USB 1.1, it can't compete at all with a decent USB 2 card reader/writer.

Nowadays, the newer laptops (travelling darkrooms) have built-in reader slots for SD.

When I am on a photo mission, I always offload my camera media to my laptop - simple - pop in the media, use Windows Explorer to move all of the images from the media to the laptop HDD. Then return the media to the camera and resume picture taking. No cables or 3rd party software needed.

 

[dderolph]

Originally posted by: faye
hmmm...
i don't have to install anything into windows if i use direct connection though..

I just plug it in, windows detects it.. and one more drive pop up in the file explorer...

I thought a card reader can save me much more time over direct connection

Win XP, right? Win XP is more sophisticated in dealing with digital cameras without installing any special software than older versions of Windows.

 

[corkyg]

Originally posted by: dderolph

Win XP, right? Win XP is more sophisticated in dealing with digital cameras without installing any special software than older versions of Windows.[/quote]

No - I did the same thing with Win98 using Windows Explorer and a card reader/writer. No camera software needed. That was in 1996 with my first Oly 320D. Win XP is more sophisticated in that no drivers are needed for the reader/writer. But, they came with the devices, and installing on 98 was easy.

 

[dderolph]

If you're saying Win 98SE automatically detects a digital camera, I disagree. I know you can open Explorer and view photos once the camera is attached. And, the camera will appear in My Computer as a Removable Disk, if you open My Computer. But, Win 98SE does not automatically open Explorer or any screen when camera is attached. Any automatic opening of windows requires installation of some software such as Exif Launcher, and that that software be running when the camera is attached.

 

[corkyg]

Originally posted by: dderolph
If you're saying Win 98SE automatically detects a digital camera, I disagree.

Nope! Didn't say that at all. RTP!

" . . .with Win98 using Windows Explorer and a card reader/writer. " Fact is, we agree!

 

[QueBert]

I learned recently about hispeed vs full speed usb2 xfer rates. A lot of camera are hi-speed, which is much slower then full speed. If your camera is full speed you shouldn't see a difference. Although, I don't know about what most card readers use (hi or full) from what I read the difference bwtween fullspeed vs hispeed rates are easily noticable.

 

[Madwand1]

USB 1.1 allowed a maximum transfer rate of 12Mbits/second. It is now obsolete, but both of its speeds (1.5Mbps & 12Mbps) are being adopted into USB 2.0, and they are now called Original USB officially. Though some manufacturers label their products Full-Speed USB. Note that this seems a bit deceptive as it's easy to mistake Full-Speed for Hi-Speed. You won't be fooled from now on as you now aware that Full Speed USB is only 12Mbits/second where Hi-Speed USB mode is capable of a much faster 480Mbits/second.

http://www.everythingusb.com/usb2/faq.htm

The USB-IF?s recommended nomenclature for consumers is ?USB? for slower speed products (1.5 Mb/s and 12Mb/s) and ?Hi-Speed USB? for high-speed products (480Mb/s)

http://www.usb.org/about/usb_nomenclature

 

[Madwand1]

Originally posted by: faye
I want to knwo how much faster can a USB2.0 card reader over a direct connection from a digital camera (Panasonic FX01)

The best card reader transfer speeds are around 8 MB/s according to this article:

http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=6007-6894

The Panasonic's writing speeds are around 2 MB/s according to this article:

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/panasonicfx01/page4.asp

There's no certain correlation between read and write speeds, although one would assume that reads would be somewhat proportional and faster. It would be best to measure it directly, and that would be up to the OP.

Galbraith's article also mentioned variability in USB card reader performance, so the other part, assuming that the camera performs less than optimally, would be to find a USB reader that performs well or at least that doesn't perform badly.

Here are some additional performance tests, they show some variability in card reader performance, and a max of around 5 MB/s in this case (which might be due to the unspecified OS (see Galbraith's comments), or the card reader).

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/accessories/4gb-sd.shtml

 

[Peter]

Originally posted by: QueBert
I learned recently about hispeed vs full speed usb2 xfer rates. A lot of camera are hi-speed, which is much slower then full speed.

It's the other way round actually. USB speeds:

Low - 1.5 Mbit/s
Full - 12 Mbit/s
High - 480 Mbit/s (USB 2.0 only)

Note that USB 2.0 specification still includes Low and Full speed; so just because it says "USB 2.0" on the box doesn't imply the device is using High speed. There is a distinct logo (w/ extra "High Speed" tag) for devices that do.

 

[corkyg]

Originally posted by: Peter
. . . Note that USB 2.0 specification still includes Low and Full speed; so just because it says "USB 2.0" on the box doesn't imply the device is using High speed. . .

Right, Peter - that is commonly known as "backward compatibility."

 

[Peter]

Backward compatibility is not necessarily given. High Speed devices may or may not work on Full Speed ports; e.g. TV/Video dongles often enough don't.

USB 1.1 had two speed levels, USB 2.0 has three - none have been dropped. You'll find that USB 2.0 keyboards and mice mostly are Low Speed devices, most misc gadgetry and printers are Full Speed, and only those things that demand high throughput are High Speed - storage, high end printers, imaging devices and such.

 

[malG]

Originally posted by: Madwand1
The best card reader transfer speeds are around 8 MB/s according to this article:

Hmmm...that speed is absolutely pathetic when compared to mine:

SD card: Lexar 2GB SD Pro 133X
I'm using the free USB reader (Lexar model RW027 Rev A) that's included with above card.

HD Tach: http://img198.imageshack.us/img198/4521/lexarpro133xhdtach5sv.png
Average read: 18.2 MB/s, burst: 19.3 MB/s

Sandra 2007: http://img198.imageshack.us/img198/7465/lexarpro133xsandra5eo.png
Combined Index: 9046 operations/min

 

[Madwand1]

Originally posted by: malG

Originally posted by: Madwand1
The best card reader transfer speeds are around 8 MB/s according to this article:

Hmmm...that speed is absolutely pathetic when compared to mine:

You're right, that site is either dated, or wrong, or both. They didn't list many SD cards either, and odds are that they've been improving.

I have a nothing-special Panasonic 256 MB SD card handy, and decided to run a test with an old Verbatim reader... I got a flat 8.7 MB/s HD Tach reading, and around 8.4 MB/s real file transfer performance. Both are close, so HD Tach is representative of actual file transfer performance in this case. And if my nothing-special card exceeds Galbraith's fastest card...

But returning to the OP, another maybe more fruitful way of looking at it would be to consider the overall time. 2 GB at 18 MB/s would take 111s, or just under 2 minutes. At 1/2 that performance (9 MB/s) it would take a bit under 4 minutes. How does that compare with the OP's camera? Is he dealing with more data at a time? Are such durations, 4m vs. 2m significant to him?

 

[LASTGUY2GETPS2]

I just care about saving battery life. Internal connections are nice for that...