The search for the World's Best Memory Card

Yep, I know this isn't exactly flying related, but...

As some of you know, I am what I call an enthusiastic amateur photographer. This means I may not be any good but I am bloody persistant! I know the camera doesn't matter, but I do like my Canon 30D. With a 5 fps continuous mode, for about 80 large/fine/JPG images, it rocks for airshows and other occasions you need fast frame rates. It is also bigger than my old 350D, and it's built like a brick outhouse. Problem is with 5 fps you fill memory cards quick, so the challenge is to find a memory card solution that is damn quick - not for camera->card but card->mac. The camera probably won't be any faster with a fast card but the transfer to computer sure as hell will be!

My old Lexar 40x CompactFlash used to run about 3mb/s via a usb card reader talking to my old G4 iBook. That's pretty crappy!! So I have been looking round for something better, and came across Ken Rockwell's CF Speed Tests some time ago, and I was just blown away! Those sort of speeds are impossible, surely?

I bought a Sandisk Extreme III 4GB card in the end, because I read the IV needs a special Firewire card reader which wasn't available in NZ, and the III is only half the price, and still promises 20mb/s. I was initially disappointed because I was only able to get 4mb/s out of it direct from the camera, and the Sandisk reader was still not available in this country, so I placed a backorder for one and decided to stop whining and live with the slow speed until it turned up.

It turned up a few months later, and I was exteremely pleased to get a consistent 15mb/s - that's megabytes per second, out of it! Very much in line with Rob Galbraith's Card speed tests. According to his tests I should get about 38mb/s for an Extreme IV card. So, now a 4 gig card takes just under 5 minutes to download, and with an Extreme IV card it will take about 2.5 minutes. That's even faster than my hard drive in my laptop!!! As a comparison the old Lexar would probably take over 20 minutes to download 4 gig.

Sandisk seem to be one of the best manufacturers. The packaging and free extras that you get with the products (I also have a Titanium USB drive) are top notch and I am very very happy with their products. I hear Lexar has released a 266x card and reader, which should be comparable, and anyhow both brands are very good, but I am definitely sold on Sandisk.

Edit: The Lexar I had was a 40x, the Extreme III is 133x and the Extreme IV is 266x but only with the Extreme Firewire Reader