CompactFlash Speed Tests
Just when we thought we knew it all, the world changed again!
Oct 2001 - Microtech, a leader in manufacturing ultra-fast compactflash has scooped the market again with their new high speed flash products. These CF type 1 format cards have been independantly tested, and have performed as high as 27X as compared to the 16X Sandisk Ultra, and the Lexar Pro (26X). Performance of course will vary depending on the device that the card is used with. d-store recommends these Microtech high speed cards as a best buy.
Oct 2001- Sandisk, the inventor of CompactFlash has
always been known for long-lasting stable products which have the greatest compatibility.
They were never known for their speed. This month, they began shipping a
"High Speed" Ultra CompactFlash. While testing is still underway,
it is reported that the new
CompactFlash is equivalent to a 16X Lexar speed. This new Sandisk product is very
agressively priced!
d-store took pictures with various compactflash using a Nikon 990 camera just to see whether the latest information that the compactflash manufacturers were providing was accurate. Frankly, we were surprized.
We took the same picture at fine resolution (~1.1 MB jpg) and recorded the time it took the camera to write to the card. We did this twice, then formated the card in the camera, and took the picture a third time. The results (in seconds) are tabled below.
Time to write (sec) Fine resolution Nikon 990
CF Brand |
Pic 1 | Pic 2 | Format | Pic3 |
| SimpleTech | ||||
| 64 MB | 7.90 | 7.28 | 2.16 | 6.10 |
| 96 MB | 8.28 | 7.50 | 2.87 | 7.09 |
| 128 MB | 5.28 | 4.94 | 2.56 | 5.10 |
| SanDisk | ||||
| 64 MB | 7.91 | 8.09 | 2.15 | 9.03 |
| 96 MB | 9.19 | 7.69 | 3.25 | 8.90 |
| 128 MB | 9.00 | 8.31 | 4.37 | 9.00 |
| 160 MB | 8.60 | 8.35 | 3.18 | 8.86 |
| 192 MB | 8.53 | 8.45 | 3.50 | 9.12 |
| Microtech | ||||
| 48 MB C4 | 6.03 | 5.85 | 1.56 | 5.03 |
| 64 MB C4 | 5.30 | 5.18 | 1.44 | 4.78 |
| 64 MB C5 | 7.16 | 6.69 | 2.21 | 7.66 |
| 96 MB | 4.96 | 4.50 | 2.56 | 5.06 |
| 128 MB | 5.96 | 5.39 | 2.72 | 4.78 |
| Delkin | ||||
| 128 MB | 9.12 | 9.12 | 4.00 | 7.93 |
| Lexar | ||||
| 80 MB 8x | 7.00 | 6.22 | 4.03 | 6.48 |
| 160 MB 8x | 4.18 | 4.50 | 1.24 | 4.13 |
| 160 MB 10x | 4.22 | 4.13 | 1.28 | 4.13 |
Time to write (sec) High resolution (~9.3 MB tif) Nikon 990
CF Brand |
Pic 1 | Pic 2 | Format | Pic3 |
| SimpleTech | ||||
96 MB |
45.88 | |||
| SanDisk | ||||
| 96 MB | 51.68 | 50.34 | 2.25 | 50.63 |
| 128 MB | 52.50 | 52.55 | 4.25 | 53.79 |
| 160 MB | 52.69 | 53.68 | 2.69 | 57.85 |
| 192 MB | 54.25 | 54.15 | 3.55 | 60.16 |
| Microtech | ||||
| 96 MB | 45.44 | |||
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