Prospec USB 3.0 card reader.
A few weeks ago I decided that my Mac Pro4.1 early 2009 needed to be upgraded to USB 3, seeing as I’d not long since fitted it with an SSD for the OS – yes, I found myself in the mood to spend money; obviously I was unwell!
So I bought a 4-port expansion card from Mac Upgrades, installed it in the Mac and connected my 8TB G-drive – and all has worked perfectly ever since.
Being a mainly Nikon user, the XQD reader showed an instant improvement in transfer speed too, but for all my CF cards I was still stuck with my ancient Sandisk USB 2 reader.
I perused a few USB 3 reader prices in was left gasping – obviously I was now feeling a little better!
But then I spied this:
Prospec USB 3.0 Multi-Card Reader
Twenty quid! That’s right, just £20 – bargain!
Real world read-speed testing using Black Magic, and 32 GB Prospec 1010x CF cards yield the following results:
- Sandisk USB 2 reader – 36.9 MB/sec
- Prospec USB 3.0 reader – 112.7 MB/sec
and just as a comparison, the Sony XQD reader and H-series card averages 139.2 MB/sec.
Previous blog posts have shown you that I’m a fan of Calumet Prospec CF cards; mainly because they are re-badged Delkins, and in my experience simply bomb-proof and good VFM.
I can’t say for sure without checking, but this Prospec USB 3 reader looks VERY much like a re-brand of the Delkin USB 3.0 multi-card reader, but is basically £10 cheaper.
It certainly sucks up uncompressed D800E 14bit RAW files at an impressive rate of knots I can tell you.
In my earlier Prospec CF card post I did allude to the slightly odd fact that the larger the CF card capacity was, the faster its read speed became. I also bought a 64Gb Prospec 1010x, just to give the D800E more capacity for shooting HQ time-lapse – this card clocks a read-speed average of 119.8 MB/sec – basically 7MB/sec faster than its 32GB cousin.
Yes, there’s cards and readers out there that might yield faster results; but at what cost to your pocket?
But this level of “REAL WORLD” performance is plenty fast enough for yours truly – especially if, like me, you have short arms and long pockets!
You can view the product HERE – BUY one!
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