H4150 with Sandisk Ultra II 256 SD ?

[echizen]

Hello Everyone,

This is my first post, so hopefully I get it right.

I have a query, I bought a Sandisk Ultra II 256 SD card recently after reading on various forums that it was more reliable than the normal ones and is faster than all other types of SD cards currently out at the moment.

The problem I have is that using Kaisoft Card Speed Test, I am getting approximately a write speed of 450KB/Sec to 650KB/Sec. Which is pretty ok. However, I am consistenly getting 214KB/Sec or less Read speeds even on a clean system. I have already done this test many times and the results are pretty consistently like this. The read speeds are actually the same as my old Sandisk 64 SD card....

I have even tried using the card benchmarking function in Pocket Mechanic and its giving me attrocious read and write speeds... Far worse than using Kaisoft (ie. approx w=0.11KB/Sec r=0.11KB/Sec).

I was wondering if anyone else out there has this combination of iPAQ and SD card and can give me a feedback as to what kinds of performance are they getting as I am unsure if its the Sandisk Ultra II 256 SD card or my iPAQ H4150... I would have thought that the read speeds would be faster than the write speed too... kinda wierd.

Regards
Echizen

[Mark_Venture]

Any chance you can bench mark the cards in a reader/writer attached to your pc? (preferably USB 2.0) That might help you tell if the iPAQ or the card is the limiting factor.

[echizen]

Hiya,

No can do with the card reader as I do not have one as of yet, at still considering whether I should get one or not as I do not transfer all that much information around.

Regards
Echizen

[Mark_Venture]

I just installed the trial version of PocketMechanic v1.29 on my iPAQ 2215 and got the following results...

I have two SD cards and one CF card to test... Lexar 256Meg SD (mod SD256-231), SanDisk 256Meg SD PLAIN (the red/blue label one sold at Circuit City and Best Buy), and a SanDisk Ultra 256Meg CF (its not ultra II, purchased just prior to Xmas 2002 for use in my Nikon digital camera).

Lexar 256Meg SD
Read: 0.88 MB/s or 6.0x
Write: 0.09MB/s or 0.6x

SanDisk 256Meg SD
Read: 0.10MB/s or 0.7x
Write: 0.01MB/s or 0.1x

SanDisk Ultra 256Meg CF
Read: 0.09 MB/s or 0.6x
Write: 0.05 MB/s or 0.3x

I tried to find a trial version of Kaisoft Card Speed Test for comparison, but I can only find that bundled in the $39.99 tool package that has no trial version. :(

To compare these to in a USB 2.0 memory reader see the results I posted in.... http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=19753&highlight=

[Mark_Venture]

Almost forgot... one other card... Lexar 16 Meg CF 8x speed rated (Nikon Coolpix Starter Memory Card)


Pocket Mechanic tests in iPAQ....
Read: 0.21 MB/s 1.5x
Write: 0.12 MB/s 0.8x

SiSoftware Sandra in USB card reader...

Drive Index: 2426kB/s
Buffered Read : 2439 kB/s
Sequential Read : 2709 kB/s
Random Read : 2667 kB/s
Buffered Write : 985 kB/s
Sequential Write : 1388 kB/s
Random Write : 1320 kB/s

[dhettel]

Ok here are some more results;

Hp 5555 Windows Mobile 2003............Dell Axim X5 PPC 2002

SanDisk 256 MB Extreme SD
Read: 0.08 MB/s 0.6X.............................0.10 MB/s 0.7X
Write: 0.09 MB/s 0.6X.............................0.17 MB/s 1.2X

SanDisk 256 MB normal Blue SD
Read: 0.10 MB/s 0.7X.............................0.10 MB/s 0.7X
Write: 0.01 MB/s 0.1X.............................0.01 MB/s 0.1X

SimpleTech 512 MB normal Blue SD
Read: 0.84 MB/s 5.7X.............................0.55 MB/s 3.8X
Write: 0.10 MB/s 0.7x.............................0.13 MB/s 0.9X

SanDisk 1 GB Extreme CF
Read: 0.08 MB/s 0.6X.............................0.08 MB/s 0.6X
Write: 0.06 MB/s 0.4X.............................0.06 MB/s 0.4X

RiDATA 256 MB CF
Read: 0.65 MB/s 4.4X.............................0.88 MB/s 6.0X
Write: 0.13 MB/s 0.9X.............................0.14 MB/s 0.9X


David

[echizen]

Hello Everyone,

Thanks for the feedback. I did some additional testing on my iPAQ H4150 running WM2003 with my Sandisk 64 SD, Sandisk 512 SD and Sandisk Ultra II 256 SD cards using SPB Benchmark, Kaisoft Card Speed Test and Pocket Mechanic. Ran the cards through the benchmarking programs 3 times each.

So if anyone is interested in what I got, you can get them at

http://members.westnet.com.au/soldat/sdbench.xls

Regards
Echizen

[Andy Whiteford]

The Ultra range of cards are designed for Digital Photography were writing the picture that has just been taken to the card and freeing up the memory buffer as quickly as possible so the camera is ready to take the next shot is highly desirable. The write speed (which was typically slower than the read speed) is more important than the read speed in terms of digitally photography which is why this line of cards was created. I'm not sure what the official line is on this but the fact you are not seeing any real improvement in read speed but a good increase in write speed does not seem surprising.
Of course other products such as Pocket PCs will derive a benefit in these cards but in this instance, more in installing software or saving large files than anything else.