Fastest-writing SD card for the S3?

[epines]

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I occasionally shoot my S3 in Continuous (burst) mode, and when I do, it stops to write images after about five shots. I know the camera should be able to maintain a longer burst than this. The cards I currently use are ones I got a few years back: SanDisk Extreme Pro 32GB, 300 MB/s. They are not SDXC. They also say "SD V90 HC II" on the front. I think they might be UHS-II.

Can someone recommend a card that writes faster? I'd like to get the fastest one I can. And I'd prefer not to go over 64GB. Maybe this one?:

SanDisk 64GB Extreme PRO UHS-II SDXC Memory Card

Thanks!

e

 

[davidmknoble]

These have a write speed of 260mb/s so they should work better than what you had.  I also use Lexar Gold, which also have 260 write speeds. However, I do not shoot the S3 or S007 on burst mode, so I cannot comment on that ability, but the speed is about as good as you’ll get for SD.

The CF cards are much faster, have you considered only putting a CF card in and not the SD?  You’ll likely fair better…

[epines]

On 8/24/2024 at 7:08 PM, davidmknoble said:

These have a write speed of 260mb/s so they should work better than what you had.  I also use Lexar Gold, which also have 260 write speeds. However, I do not shoot the S3 or S007 on burst mode, so I cannot comment on that ability, but the speed is about as good as you’ll get for SD.

The CF cards are much faster, have you considered only putting a CF card in and not the SD?  You’ll likely fair better…

Thank you for this. A few questions:

• I'm surprised to hear that CF cards are faster. The fastest one I can find on B&H right now has a write speed of 150 MB/s. What makes you say that CF cards are much faster? Am I missing something?
   
• The SD card I currently have (which only allows a burst of five images) is pictured below. It seems to be the 32GB version of the 64GB one I linked to in my initial post. Do you know of anything faster?

 

 

 

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[davidmknoble]

Here's the basics on CompactFlash cards, or CF cards (not CFe cards or CF Express that the SL3 uses).

CF cards typically have top transfer speeds of 160mb/second using a parralell ATA interface.  Today's SD UHS II cards typically get about 300m/b second. 

But, the throughput of the CF card is higher.  In simplest terms, the CF card has 50 pins, or 50 pathways for data to write and read.  An SD Card, UHS I has 9 contacts and an SD Card UHS II has 17 contacts.  The throughput can only be so fast per 'pin' or 'contact' regardless of how fast the inside of the card is. 

CF Cards are durable and have great speed, but they are also big compared to an SD card, which also has higher storage capacity today.  In addition, the method of inserting and removing SD cards is easier and less prone to problems whereas some people bend the pins on the CF card slots, causing things not to work.  So, as the volume of non-professional users of digital cameras became higher and higher, the SD card was a good solution. The UHS II cards had speeds that were sufficient for high quality video.  CF cards have always had the throughput for video.

I use both cards, CF and SD in the S system bodies and frequently load them on my computer with a CF card reader, which is an extra accessory to bring, even though my MacBook has an SD card reader built in.  The load times are just faster for the large file sizes.

[perb]

I'm afraid it isn't as simple as buying the fastest card. You have to look the camera as well.

The S3 is not compatible with uhs2. Get a fast uhs1 card instead.

If you use uhs2 then the card has to go into back compatibility mode. A 300 mb/s uhs2 card may actually be slower than a 150 mb/s uhs1 card.

And then there is the max speed of the camera internal bus. It is probably matched to the cf udma 7 of 160 mb/s.

Regards

Per

[epines]

David and Per -- thank you so much. Finally, clarity. I just bought a CF card (160 MB/s) and a UHS-I SD card (200 MB/s). I'll compare to see how the perform.

[epines]

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Interesting results from the card test I just did. To compare write speeds, I set the camera to Continuous (burst) mode, had it shoot six shots in fast sequence (seemingly the most it will do in a single burst), then timed how long it took the red “writing” light on the back of the camera to stop flashing.  All cards are SanDisk Extreme Pro cards.

SD card: 32GB, UHS-II, 300 MB/s speed
7.5 sec.

SD card: 64GB, UHS-I, 200 MB/s
5.75 sec.

CF card: 64GB, 160 MB/s
5.5 sec.

Thus the 200 MB-S UHS-1 SD card writes faster than the 300 MB/s UHS-II SD card, as Per thought might happen. Good to know!

 

[ben446]

What are the largest SD and UDMA7 cards that the 007 and S3 can use?

Would like the SD card to be able to record 4k video.  ( I am assuming that would be the highest recording requirement.)

Was looking at:

SanDisk Extreme PRO 256GB UHS-I U3 SDXC Memory Card -  200mb/s

and for pic backup

SanDisk 256GB Extreme PRO CompactFlash Memory Card UDMA 7 Speed Up To 160MB/s- SDCFXPS-256G-X46

S3 tech sheet shows:

CF cards (max. UDMA 7), SD-/SDHC-/SDXC- < 512 GB memory cards UHS-I (recommended), UHS-II, 4K video recordings can only be stored on SD cards (UHS-I)

Does user experience verify 512 GB works? Is 007 the same?

thanks

Edited August 30, 2024 by ben446