Card Readers, getting the most speed out of you fast CF cards
Having a fast CF card, is not enough to get the highest download speed, here is what you should know about CF card readers.
1. USB card readers are limited to about 42/GB/s or about half the speed of current cards (80-90GB/s), but faster than your camera.
2. If you want fast, you will need reader that is UDMA and supports Mode 6.
3. Your options to go faster than USB, are different depending on your type of computer:
a. If you have a Mac, look at a Firewire reader
b. If you have a Mac or PC laptop with a PCMCIA slot a UDMA reader that fits here this is as good an option as #a
c. If you have a PC desktop, look at an E-SATA drive that will fit into either
i. A slot in the motherboard ( access via the rear of computer)
ii. A slot for an optical drive or 3.5 inch drive space
iii. Or in an external case
4. Drivers are important for card readers; some of the card readers are not yet compatible with the Apple Snow Leopard operating system.
5. If you are in a real hurry, there are E-SATA/ PCMCIA readers that take more than one card (2x or 4x) at the same time. It is recommended that you have really fast or solid state drives otherwise the write speed of the computer’s hard drive becomes the bottleneck.