Roundup: CompactFlash Cards For Professionals

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Comparison Table, Test Setup, Card Reader

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Manufacturer Kingston Lexar Lexar PNY
Family Ultimate Platinum II Professional UDMA Optima Pro Ultra High Speed
Model Number CF/16GB-U2 Row 1 - Cell 2 Row 1 - Cell 3 P-CF8GB-266W-DVDC
Capacity 16 GB 16 GB 16 GB 8 GB
Rated Performance 266x 80x 300x 266x
Flash Memory Type SLC - - -
Form Factor CF CF CF CF
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Manufacturer Sandisk Silicon Power Transcend Transcend
Family Extreme Ducati Edition 300X Professional Extreme Speed Ultra Speed
Model Number SDCFX4-008G-AD1 SP032GBCFC300V10 TS8GCF300 TS32GCF133
Capacity 8 GB 32 GB 8 GB 32 GB
Rated Performance 300x 300x 300x 133x
Flash Memory Type - - SLC MLC
Form Factor CF CF CF CF

Test Setup

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System Hardware
Processor(s) 2x Intel Xeon Processor (Nocona core)3.6 GHz, FSB800, 1 MB L2 Cache
Platrform Asus NCL-DS (Socket 604)Intel E7520 Chipset, BIOS 1005
RAM Corsair CM72DD512AR-400 (DDR2-400 ECC, reg.), 2x 512 MB, CL3-3-3-10 Timings
System Hard Drive Western Digital Caviar WD1200JB120 GB, 7,200 RPM, 8 MB Cache, UltraATA/100
Mass Storage Controller(s) Intel 82801EB UltraATA/100 Controller (ICH5)
Compact Flash Addonics ADSACFW SATA
Secure Digital HC Transcend M5 USB
Networking Broadcom BCM5721 On-Board Gigabit Ethernet NIC
Graphics Subsystem On-Board GraphicsATI RageXL, 8 MB
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System Hardware
Performance Measurements c't h2benchw 3.6
I/O Performance IOMeter 2003.05.10Fileserver-Benchmark, Web server-Benchmark, Workstation-Benchmark
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System Software and drivers
OS Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition, Service Pack 1
Platform Driver Intel Chipset Installation Utility 7.0.0.1025
Graphics Driver Default Windows Graphics Driver

Card Reader: Addonics ADSACFW

Since USB 2.0 card readers aren’t fast enough to support the high throughput of the tested CompactFlash cards, we decided to use a reader device that is based on a SATA interface. USB 2.0 devices typically max out at a bit more than 30 MB/s, while this device supports SATA 1.0a at 150 MB/s. Even though fast hard drives and flash SSDs are faster than this, the bandwidth is enough to test CompactFlash cards, which reached up to 47 MB/s in our tests (for the Kingston Ultimate).

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The device, an Addonics ADSACFW, comes installed into a 3.5” drive bay, but Addonics also adds standard and low profile slot covers, which means that the reader can also be installed at the rear of your PC. Of course, it can be hooked up to SATA/300 controllers, it supports hot swapping, and you can boot from CF cards as well. Hot swapping, however, requires controller support.