SD Card Speed and RD-1 Performance

[saxshooter]

Hi all, I looked through the forum and couldn't find if this was discussed (if I'm wrong, please point me in the right direction) but I was wondering what brand/speed of SD cards you all are using and whether the card speed has any affect on the performance of the RD-1 in JPEGs/RAW.

The RD-1 isn't an 8 frame per second motor driven camera so I was wondering if any of you have found that one card is better than the other in flushing the buffer:

standard SanDisk 1.0 GB card (slowest, not sure how slow)
SanDisk Ultra II 1.0 GB card (claims around 66x speed)
SanDisk Extreme III 1.0 GB card (claims around 120x speed)

I was wondering if the Extreme III (which sells for $114) gives any advantage over the Ultra II (which sells for around $85) in the camera. I'm guessing it would in RAW but I am shooting JPEGs. I'm guessing copying the card to the computer will be faster with the Extreme III.

I'm currently using the 1.0 GB Ultra II and considering another card.

Also, all these posts about shutter not firing after a succession of shots -- what kind of SD cards are you all using? Maybe it is a card speed issue.

Regards, Charlie

 

[Sean Reid]

I use the Ultra II cards and haven't tried the Ultra III yet. If you try them and there's a difference, please let us know.

Cheers,

Sean

 

[David Kieltyka]

I have a pair of 1GB Extreme IIIs. I can fire away 'til the cards are full at real-world speeds without clogging the buffer. Though if I try to shoot as fast as possible I can clog it. I suspect the R-D1 itself is the weak link in this particular chain. But I've never filled the buffer in actual use.

-Dave-

 

[Dan Lazin]

Rob Galbraith's database of memory-card speeds (here) shows no appreciable difference in card-to-computer transfers between the Ultra and Extreme series SD cards.

He doesn't measure the basic Sandisk card -- most of his database is CF tests, since those are in wider use in pro cameras -- but the Kingston SD card mentioned in that test is probably in the same ballpark, and it's a bit slower in transferring to the computer. I'm pretty sure the basic Sandisk card, by the way, has a 4x write speed (and possibly 14x read)? The Ultra II is 66x read, but only 60x write. Still, what's a few seconds when you're sitting at the computer? Go make a coffee.

Probably the most important difference between the various cards is that faster cards *should* use less battery power since the camera doesn't spend as long writing. Since the R-D1 doesn't have such a hot battery, something on the Ultra II level is probably worth the money, but I don't know exactly how much of a difference it'll make.

I would be surprised if the Extreme cards are any faster in the R-D1 than the Ultra cards, however. It's all about bottlenecks, and on a camera that can only shoot one frame at a time, it would have been silly for Epson to expend much R&D effort in making the R-D1 able to shunt data around quicker than 60x. Although the Extreme cards can handle data faster, the camera probably can't, but I don't know for sure. That means you shouldn't notice any difference in battery use or write speed between either of the good cards, but both should be better than the basic card.

Even the crazy-fast EOS 1D/1Ds Mark II cameras -- the only other high-end cameras that can use SD -- only show about a 5% difference in write speed between the Extreme and Ultra cards, according to a different page in Galbraith's database. The Ultra is 300% faster than the basic card in those cameras.

 

[willemvelthoven]

no difference between ultra and extreme

no difference between ultra and extreme

I did some testing with raw and jpg on a sandisk ultraII and an sandisk extremeIII. the test was simple:

fire away at highest speed for 30 seconds and count the exposures.

there is no significant difference between ultra and extreme on the rd1; the extreme is about 3% better in this informal test. the camera's electronics are clearely the bottleneck here.

so unless you have a very fast card reader with your computer where there might be a more significant speed gain, you might as well buy the cheaper ones...

 

[saxshooter]

Thanks all. That's exactly what I was trying to find out. I noticed that Costco's website was offering the SanDisk 1gb Ultra II card at $89 with a $15 rebate over the weekend (the sale is over now). I wonder if we are about to see another drop in price of flash cards. Not so many of the 2gb-4gb cards, although announced, have seemed to hit the shelves yet. The faster ones, anyway.

Regards, Charlie

 

[Jim Watts]

Has anyone tried a card larger than 1gb in in the R-D1and found it works O.K.? Epson told me that it was designed to work ONLY with cards up to 1gb, but they did talk vagely about a possible firmware upgrade at some point.

 

[Sean Reid]

Hi Jim,

I haven't tried cards larger than 1-Gig in the R-D1 because I don't want to have too many of my eggs in one basket (should a card fail). I'd rather carry a bunch of 1-gigs.

Best,

Sean

 

[Jim Watts]

Hi Sean,
Yes I can see the sense of that and you get a resonable number of frames on a 1 Gig even in raw. was really just curious as to if it worked.