CF reader speeds

[Project Alice]

Hey guys,
As some of you know I got a PB1400 recently; because of that I bought a 32GB CF card to make file transfers easier. I used my 15" 1.5GHz AlBook for this. Well it seemed to me that it was taking forever to copy any files to the card. I also wanted to be able to transfer files to the card on a desktop computer. So I found a FireWire 800 CF card reader on eBay.
Out of curiosity, I decided to run some speed tests on the adapters.

The first is from my kingston PCMCIA CF reader:

Results    5.29  
    System Info      
        Xbench Version        1.3
        System Version        10.5.8 (9L31a)
        Physical RAM        2048 MB
        Model        PowerBook5,4
        Processor        PowerPC G4 @ 1.50 GHz
            L1 Cache        32K (instruction), 32K (data)
            L2 Cache        512K @ 1.50 GHz
            Bus Frequency        167 MHz
        Video Card        ATY,RV360M11
        Drive Type        LEXAR ATA FLASH CARD LEXAR ATA FLASH CARD
    Disk Test    5.29  
        Sequential    3.57  
            Uncached Write    3.22    1.98 MB/sec [4K blocks]
            Uncached Write    3.33    1.89 MB/sec [256K blocks]
            Uncached Read    5.19    1.52 MB/sec [4K blocks]
            Uncached Read    3.17    1.59 MB/sec [256K blocks]
        Random    10.18  
            Uncached Write    9.71    1.03 MB/sec [4K blocks]
            Uncached Write    5.93    1.90 MB/sec [256K blocks]
            Uncached Read    191.89    1.36 MB/sec [4K blocks]
            Uncached Read    8.62    1.60 MB/sec [256K blocks]

This one is my other PCMCIA reader for MicroDrives but also work with CF:

Results    5.33  
    System Info      
        Xbench Version        1.3
        System Version        10.5.8 (9L31a)
        Physical RAM        2048 MB
        Model        PowerBook5,4
        Processor        PowerPC G4 @ 1.50 GHz
            L1 Cache        32K (instruction), 32K (data)
            L2 Cache        512K @ 1.50 GHz
            Bus Frequency        167 MHz
        Video Card        ATY,RV360M11
        Drive Type        LEXAR ATA FLASH CARD LEXAR ATA FLASH CARD
    Disk Test    5.33  
        Sequential    3.60  
            Uncached Write    3.25    1.99 MB/sec [4K blocks]
            Uncached Write    3.34    1.89 MB/sec [256K blocks]
            Uncached Read    5.23    1.53 MB/sec [4K blocks]
            Uncached Read    3.19    1.60 MB/sec [256K blocks]
        Random    10.30  
            Uncached Write    10.36    1.10 MB/sec [4K blocks]
            Uncached Write    5.87    1.88 MB/sec [256K blocks]
            Uncached Read    182.34    1.29 MB/sec [4K blocks]
            Uncached Read    8.62    1.60 MB/sec [256K blocks]

Lastly, the FW800 adapter:

Results    69.89  
    System Info      
        Xbench Version        1.3
        System Version        10.5.8 (9L31a)
        Physical RAM        2048 MB
        Model        PowerBook5,4
        Processor        PowerPC G4 @ 1.50 GHz
            L1 Cache        32K (instruction), 32K (data)
            L2 Cache        512K @ 1.50 GHz
            Bus Frequency        167 MHz
        Video Card        ATY,RV360M11
        Drive Type        LEXAR AT A FLASH CARD
    Disk Test    69.89  
        Sequential    88.87  
            Uncached Write    100.59    61.76 MB/sec [4K blocks]
            Uncached Write    111.60    63.14 MB/sec [256K blocks]
            Uncached Read    52.40    15.34 MB/sec [4K blocks]
            Uncached Read    142.43    71.58 MB/sec [256K blocks]
        Random    57.59  
            Uncached Write    17.67    1.87 MB/sec [4K blocks]
            Uncached Write    103.28    33.06 MB/sec [256K blocks]
            Uncached Read    1522.18    10.79 MB/sec [4K blocks]
            Uncached Read    395.54    73.39 MB/sec [256K blocks]

As you can see, it is (nearly) saturating the FW800 bus! I honestly just thought CF cards were slow. I know PCMCIA isn't the bottleneck as they're essentially 32bit PCI slots. Guess I just have some slow adapters...That said, does anybody have a recomendation for a faster PCMCIA reader? That would be for use in the PowerBook 1400, as all other transfers will take place over FW now..But it would be nice to know that I have an adapter that could saturate the PB1400's slot.

The FW adapter doesn't seem to work on Mojave for whatever reason. But it does work on Snow Leopard. I didn't test any other Intel Mac OS's.

 

[Amethyst1]

The problem with the PCMCIA adapter is that it doesn't do DMA, resulting in very slow speeds and high CPU usage.

I honestly just thought CF cards were slow.

Fun fact: the PATA interface was upgraded/specced to a max 167 MB/s transfer rate - just for fast CF cards.