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|| SportsShooter.com: Member Message Board
Current multi-card ingest workflow
Andrew Nelles, Photographer
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Chicago | IL | usa | Posted: 7:58 PM on 11.09.12 |
->> I'm currently running 3 Lexar FW800 readers daisy chained together for ingesting multiple cards on deadline. I was wondering if there are any newer solutions that would ingest quicker or take up less space in my bag. These readers are aging and I'm worried that their days are numbered.
I'm looking to be able to dump 2-3 cards at once. I have Thunderbolt, USB 2.0, and FW800 to work with.
Thanks in advance. |
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Perrone Ford, Photographer
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Tallahassee | FL | US | Posted: 12:52 AM on 11.10.12 |
| ->> I am REALLY looking forward to answers on this one... (as I sit here ingesting photos from NCAA Tournament Soccer) |
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Ting Shen, Student/Intern, Photographer
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Chicago | IL | U.S. | Posted: 1:43 AM on 11.10.12 |
->> theres the option of capitalizing the extra thunderbolt port on your MBP, get the $29 thunderbolt to FW800 adapter to decongest the already limited bandwidth on the sole FW800 port.
Also copying the files onto a SSD drive will help with the speed of the ingesting too(since HDD's bandwidth are mostly limited around top 80MB/s)
I dont think there is such thunderbolt interface multi-card CF card reader on the commercial market yet.
The other option we got now is USB 3.0. But once again, that means you'll have to get a new laptop(with SSD), and the Lexar USB 3.0 card reader.
But here comes the problem, USB is p2p. One port one device. So even if you got the newer MBP, you're still limited to two of those card readers(but hey they're much faster when used with the 1000x cards) and utilize the 2 extra Thunderbolt ports with the FW800 adapter, then you can ingest a pretty impressive amount of cards at the same time(all of this is under the condition if you have a retina display MBP) But still you'll have to carry like 4 or 5 card readers at the same time with all the cables..... which doesn't help with the situation.
Seems like a multi card Thunderbolt card reader is the only solution to have the ability to solve this issue, able to handle a very high volume of data, and the capability of daisy-chaining. Now just whos going to make this photographers wet dream come true?
Anyone got a electrical engineer friend that also knows logic board designs? Or a friend who works in the high chain command at Lexar or Sandisk? |
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Ting Shen, Student/Intern, Photographer
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Chicago | IL | U.S. | Posted: 1:48 AM on 11.10.12 |
| ->> or the other option is just to shoot JPEGs |
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Kenneth Armstrong, Photographer
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Sault Ste Marie | ON | Canada | Posted: 5:28 AM on 11.10.12 |
->> This Sonnet 4-card adapter looks promising, but it connects by ExpressCard so you would have to buy their Thunderbolt to ExpressCard adapter as well.
http://www.sonnettech.com/product/qiocf4.html
It is not at all cheap, $599 for the reader, $150 for the Thunderbolt to ExpressCard adapter. but if you do enough large data dumps from CF cards its probably worth it. |
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Andrew Nelles, Photographer
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Chicago | IL | usa | Posted: 9:30 AM on 11.10.12 |
->> Ting do you have any experience using the FW800/Thunderbolt adapter?
Is there any real advantage over just using the FW800 port?
I am running a SSD, so much better than a HDD, never going back. |
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Kenneth Armstrong, Photographer
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Sault Ste Marie | ON | Canada | Posted: 9:43 AM on 11.10.12 |
->> I think the advantage is when you have more than one card reader attached, rather than daisy-chaining them together over one single FW800 port you have one attached to FW800 and the other in the Thunderbolt port with FW800 adapter.
As I understand it, just using the Thunderbolt to FW800 adapter will give you no performance increase over simply using FW800 if you are only using a single reader or daisy-chaining multiple readers.
I have the Thunderbolt to FW800 adapter from Apple and it works as advertised and is very sturdy for an adapter cable. Well worth the $29 just to have in the laptop case. |
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Andrew Nelles, Photographer
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Chicago | IL | usa | Posted: 1:30 PM on 11.10.12 |
| ->> Sadly the Sonnet PCIe ExpressCard Pro Dual is discontinued. |
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Patrick Fallon, Photographer, Assistant
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Torrance | California | USA | Posted: 1:07 PM on 11.11.12 |
| ->> The sonnet reader is unreliable with drivers and such. When it works I hear it is great. Do the 2 readers one in fw800 and one on thunderbolt. |
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Travis Haughton, Photographer
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Crystal Lake | IL | USA | Posted: 1:42 PM on 11.11.12 |
->> Hey Andrew - Using Apple's Thunderbolt to Firewire 800 adaptor will allow you to effectively double your current throughput. Firewire 800 is usually fast enough for even the fastest cards (~100mb/s). But since you're running three readers through one port, each gets cut to 1/3 of the max.
By putting at least one of the readers on the thunderbolt channel, you should be able to get the card's max on that as well.
This all assumes you're using the fastest cards you can find, which right now are Lexar's 1000x Pro. http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/841571-REG/Lexar_LCF16GCTBNA10002_16G...
I would love to see a simple dual CF or even four card Thunderbolt reader dedicated to the pro market. |
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Andrew Nelles, Photographer
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Chicago | IL | usa | Posted: 1:16 PM on 11.14.12 |
->> Picked up the adapter. Thanks.
Agreed, someone needs to make a thunderbolt reader capable of taking multiple CF cards. |
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Ting Shen, Student/Intern, Photographer
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Chicago | IL | U.S. | Posted: 4:19 PM on 11.14.12 |
| ->> Lets start a petition to the companies who make stuff like those? |
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Stephen Brashear, Photographer, Assistant
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Seattle | WA | USA | Posted: 6:17 PM on 11.14.12 |
| ->> Patrick - The Sonnet Pro Dual CompactFlash Adapter ExpressCard/34 tends to be unreliable when used the in the ExpressCard slot on a MBP. I spent a lot of time trying to figure it out. It is actually an Apple engineering issue as per Apple engineers. Strangely, it runs great on a 32-bit kernel, but not so well on a 64-bit kernel. It runs pretty well, using the Thunderbolt adapter. In my experience it is as least as reliable as my Lexar FW800 readers. |
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Lyle Aspinall, Photographer
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Calgary | AB | Canada | Posted: 2:01 PM on 11.15.12 |
| ->> I'm not sure if it's relevant for you, but I'm able to ingest three cards (2 SD cards and 1 CF) at once using my MacBook Pro's built-in SD slot and a 12-in-one card reader. My two cents... |
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Chuck Steenburgh, Photographer
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Lexington | VA | USA | Posted: 2:40 PM on 11.15.12 |
->> My PC has plenty of USB 3.0 slots. Problem solved.
(Been waiting like 12 years to say that.) |
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Michael Stevens, Photographer, Assistant
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Glendale | AZ | USA | Posted: 4:39 PM on 11.24.12 |
| ->> You could always get a hub to plug in many USB items. I'm using Transcend USB 3 readers and they are like lightning. Definitely a must if you work events with tens of thousands of photos like marathons and triathalons. |
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