{"id":145,"date":"2006-02-08T16:38:15","date_gmt":"2006-02-08T07:38:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2006-02-08\/145"},"modified":"2007-06-30T20:29:52","modified_gmt":"2007-06-30T11:29:52","slug":"update-on-transcend-4gb-120x-compact-flash-card","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2006-02-08\/145","title":{"rendered":"Update on Transcend 4GB 120x compact-flash card"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n<!--TECH-->\n<div class=\"robots-nocontent\" style=\"border: 2px solid #FF8080;\n            float: right;\n            padding: 0 1em 1em 1em;\n            margin: 10px 0 1em 1em;\n            display: inline;\">\n<p style='white-space: nowrap'><b>My Tech-Related Photography Posts<\/b><\/p>\n<ul style='margin:0; font-size:80%'>\n  <li><a href='\/blog\/lightroom-goodies\/ipad-howto2'>My Lightroom-to-iPad Workflow<\/a><\/li>\n  <li><a href='\/blog\/lightroom-goodies\/'>Lightroom Goodies<\/a> (lots of plugins)<\/li>\n  <li><a href='\/blog\/photo-tech\/color-spaces-page1\/'>Digital Image Color Spaces<\/a><\/li>\n  <li><a href='\/blog\/other-writings\/online-exif-image-data-viewer\/'>Online Exif (Image Data) Viewer<\/a><\/li>\n  <li><a href='\/blog\/photo-tech\/focus-chart\/'>Jeffrey's Autofocus Test Chart<\/a><\/li>\n  <li><a href='\/blog\/photo-tech\/calendar\/'>Photoshop Calendar-Template-Building Script<\/a><\/li>\n  <li><a href='\/blog\/lightroom-goodies\/ipad-howto'>How to Prepare Photos for an iPad<\/a><\/li>\n  <li><a href='\/blog\/photo-tech\/nef-compression\/'>A Qualitative Analysis of NEF Compression<\/a><\/li>\n  <li><a href='\/blog\/2007-08-24\/554'>Tripod Stability Tests<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style='font-size:85%; margin:10px 0 0 0'><a href=\"\/blog\/photo-tech\/\">more<\/a>...<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<!--\/TECH-->\n\n<p>\n\nThis is a followup to my previous post on <a\nhref=\"\/blog\/2006-01-24\/136\">testing <span class='nobr'>a Transcend<\/span> 4GB\n120x<\/a> Compact Flash card. <span class='nobr'>In that post<\/span>, <span class='nobr'>I found<\/span> that its write speed was\nactually <i>slower<\/i> than the 80x version of the same card (tested in a\n<a href=\"\/blog\/2006-01-14\/132\">separate post<\/a>).\n\n<\/p><p>\n\nI contacted Transcend Japan about the slow card, and to their credit they\nreplied very quickly at each step along the way. However, their initial\nreply was full of wishy-washy ways to avoid the issue, saying that there\ncould indeed be situations where tests shows the 80x is faster than the\n120x and that the speed rating they give is only for relative comparison\nonly, blah blah blah.\n\n<\/p><p>\n\nI replied that since the testing conditions were exactly the same between\nmy tests of the two cards, the one rated 50% faster turning out to be\nactually slower was clearly <span class='nobr'>a problem<\/span> with the card. <span class='nobr'>I made it<\/span> clear that <span class='nobr'>I\ndidn't<\/span> actually expect <span class='nobr'>a 50<\/span>% speed increase, but that the <b>slower<\/b>\nresult was an indication of <span class='nobr'>a problem.<\/span>\n\n<\/p><p>\n\nSo, they said to send it in and they'd test it. They didn't offer to pay\nfor shipping, and <span class='nobr'>I didn't<\/span> push it, so <span class='nobr'>I overnighted<\/span> it to them at my own\nexpense. <span class='nobr'>I sent them<\/span> the card (model number <tt>TS4GCF120<\/tt>; serial\nnumber <tt>129542-0419<\/tt>) last week and heard nothing from them until <span class='nobr'>a\nnew<\/span> one showed up today: serial number <tt>130417-0103<\/tt>.\n\n<\/p><p>\n\nI ran one test with the card as <span class='nobr'>I received<\/span> it (that is, <span class='nobr'>I didn't<\/span> format the\ncard first), and then <span class='nobr'>I ran<\/span> the test again after having formatted it\ndirectly in the camera (Nikon D200). <span class='nobr'>The latter<\/span> test replicates exactly\nwhat I'd done previously.\n\n<\/p><p>\n\nIn all cases, the tests are with <span class='nobr'>a Nikon<\/span> D200 in manual-focus,\nmanual-exposure (1\/200, wide-open aperture) mode at ISO 1600. Measurements\nwere taken from audio-recordings using Adobe Audition. <span class='nobr'>The tests<\/span> were of\nuncompressed raw (&#8220;NEF&#8221;, uncompressed) images, which are about 15.6\nmegabytes each.\n\n<\/p>\n\n<style type=\"text\/css\">\n.tt { border-top: solid black 3px }\n<\/style>\n<table border=\"1\" cellpadding=\"5\" cellspacing=\"0\">\n<tr valign=\"baseline\"><th>Card Tested<\/th>        <th align='center'>Initial frames<br\/>at 5 fps<\/th><th>Subsequent Frames<\/th><th>Maximum Write Speed<\/th><\/tr>\n\n<tr><td> <a href=\"\/blog\/2006-01-14\/132\">Transcend 4GB\n80x<\/a><\/td> <td align='center'>22<\/td> <td align='center'>2.156\nsec\/frame<\/td> <td align=\"center\">7.23\nMB\/sec<\/td><\/tr>\n\n<tr><td class='tt'><b>Transcend 4GB 120x<\/b> <br\/> <span class='nobr'>Previous card\n(in-camera format)<\/span><\/td> <td class='tt' align='center'>22<\/td> <td\nclass='tt' align='center'>2.265 sec\/frame<\/td><td class='tt'\nalign=\"center\">6.88 MB\/sec<\/td><\/tr>\n\n<tr><td>New card (as-received)<\/td> <td align='center'>22<\/td> <td\nalign='center'>2.209 sec\/frame<\/td><td align=\"center\">7.06 MB\/sec<\/td><\/tr>\n\n<tr bgcolor=\"#644\"><td>New card (in-camera format)<\/td> <td\nalign='center'>22<\/td> <td align='center'>2.108 sec\/frame<\/td><td\nalign=\"center\">7.40 MB\/sec<\/td><\/tr>\n\n<\/table>\n\n\n<p>\n\nSo, the new card 120x can be <i>slightly<\/i> faster than the 80x card, but\nthis difference is within the margin of variability of the test: another\ntest of the 120x card under conditions identical in every respect to the\nfinal-row test shown above, came in with an average subsequent-frame write\nspeed of 2.168 sec\/frame, making it slower than the 80x card's test.\n\n<\/p>\n<h3>Conclusions<\/h3>\n<p>\n\nIn the end, both the 80x and the 120x card are plenty fast enough for me\nand the D200. What this test shows is that the 80x and 120x cards are\nessentially identical under my use conditions, and thus the 120x card is\nnot worth the cost premium that its &#8220;120x&#8221; label garners. At\nleast, in my case, the cost premium was less than $20, so while\ndisappointed, it's not that bad.\n\n<\/p><p>\n\nSo, <span class='nobr'>I recommend<\/span> the 80x version of Transcend compact-flash cards, as\nthey're an excellent value compared to comparable products from San Disk\nand Lexar.\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p> This is a followup to my previous post on testing a Transcend 4GB 120x Compact Flash card. In that post, I found that its write speed was actually slower than the 80x version of the same card (tested in a separate post). <\/p><p> I contacted Transcend Japan about the slow card, and to their credit they replied very quickly at each step along the way. However, their initial reply was full of wishy-washy ways to avoid the issue, saying that there could indeed be situations where tests shows the 80x is faster than the 120x and that the speed [...]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}