OT: Card Reader Speeds--Problem Solved!

I just purchased a Lexar UDMA Reader Dual-Slot USB 2.0 RW035 Card Reader and hooked it up to my Mac. I inserted an 8 GB Lexar UDMA compact flash card and proceeded to copy the card contents to a folder on my hard drive. There is 5.2GB of data on the card.

It initially said it would take over 4 hours to transfer the data!! After about 5 minutes it now says 2 hours to transfer the data. Is this right? 2 hours to transfer 5.2GB? Based on user reviews, I thought this reader was supposed to be lightning fast. Is this normal or is there something wrong?

Definitely should not be considered normal. I have an old USB 2.0 card reader and I can load 8 GB directly into a Lightroom catalog, while converting to DNG and generating previews at a fraction of that time.

What were your transfer times before this new reader?

That is incredibly slow! I have a Sandisk Extreme Firewire Reader made specifically for use with their Extreme IV cards that downloads a full 8G card in less than 10 minutes. You can use other cards with this reader, and it is FAST. I have a cheaper Promaster multiformat card reader that downloads a full 8G card in somewhere around 20-30 minutes. The Sandisk reader is about $80, but worth it when out in the field with a laptop it downloads quickly and saves the laptop battery, actually its worth it anyway since I'm not a patient person by nature.

Hmmm. I suspected as much. I have a 6 year old CF card reader that is even slower. An 8GB card took 10-12 hours.

So I bought this new one thinking I would get much faster speeds but its still pretty darn slow. The card reader is plugged into a USB hub. Could that be slowing things down?

I looked up your Lexar reader on their website and they don't even tell what speed that reader read/writes, just that it is 'high speed'. The Sandisk Extreme Firewire Reader has a read/write speed of 40MB/sec.

Could be Phillip, but I don't think USB 2 and firewire speeds are that far apart. Although the Sandisk reader is firewire while my other one is USB.

Phil, once you get all the data off, make sure you format that card in-camera (I know, obvious one). That's definitely not normal. Those Lexars are the same 45mb/sec rating as the Extreme IVs (300x = 45mb/sec). My Extreme IVs transfer at 26-30mb/sec in both my $11 internal reader in my PC and the ExpressCard Slot reader on my laptop, which means about 5 minutes for a full card. 8-10 hours is obviously a bad glitch somewhere! Your Lexar reader is true USB 2.0 which is capable of transferring at the Lexar 300X max of 45mb/sec (but in reality we get 25-30mb). The real question is, what on earth is going on with your reader. Did you have to load drivers to mount the reader? I think I found drivers on there website right here. I'd try the latest drivers, and if that doesn't work, bug 'em here:

Lexar Media, Inc.
47300 Bayside Parkway
Fremont, CA 94538

Tel: 510-413-1200
Fax: 510-440-3499
Email Support and Sales: support@lexar.com

For reference, I have a new Sandisk USB card reader which is really fast. Not sure the exact speed, but it's so fast it almost seems like copying from one internal drive to another.

Thanks for the replies so far. I did not load any drivers--I simply plugged in the reader and inserted a card. Then all of my USB ports went dead and I had to reboot the iMac. Once it came back up all the USB ports were working again.

My old card reader is incredibly slow but I thought it was just because its an old card reader. (I bought it when 1GB cards were just coming out). But now this new one is also very slow so I'm thinking its a Mac problem??

The card reader is plugged into a USB hub. Could that be slowing things down?

Does your hub and port support USB2 as well or just USB1? There's a huge difference in speed between the two...480mbps v. 11mpbs respectively.

Something is absolutely wrong somewhere in the chain. The fact that it was already taking 10 hours to transfer 8GB makes me think it's a problem with something other than your new reader. It shouldn't take more than 10-15 min at the most. Are you certain the hub and computer controller are USB 2? Is the hub powered? Have you tried disconnecting all the other USB devices and connecting the card reader directly to the computer?

I'll have to try it again without the hub. (I can't remember if it is USB2 or not). I'm at work right now and can't play with it till this evening but thanks for the suggestions! I'll try them all when I get home and report back.

" An 8GB card took 10-12 hours."

There's something really wrong there. That's under 2 mb/sec. I have a $10 card reader from about 5-6 years ago. I don't think I've ever transferred a full 8 GB but have transferred 5-6 GB and it's never taken more than 30-40 mins. Even at USB 1 it wouldn't take that long, not even close.

I think I have the same reader and it only takes a few minutes to download an 8GB card with lots of photos on. It seems fast to me.

OK, it turns out that my USB hub sucks! I plugged the reader directly into the USB2 port on the iMac and it transferred 5.2GB in 4 minutes! Woohoo!

Thanks to everyone for responding and providing suggestions!!

This is not Phillip's problem, but I have found another problem when using Windows XP. Foe some unknown reason, XP defaults to setting the priority to "Optimize for quick removal". You need to change this to "Optimize for performance". would think that this would only effect the write function, but it seems to really slow down read and make the write slower than a USB1 connection. To get this reset, you have to right click on a USB drive and select Properties. Then click on the Hardware tab. This will list all the connected devices and you will have to choose which one you need to change, or just go through them one at a time and change all of them. After you have selected your drive, click on Properties at the bottom. This will open a new window. In this window, select the Policies tab. Click on the "Optimize for performance" button and select OK. This should clear up the problem. The write speed becomes acceptable. After you do this, you will have to go through the procedure to safely remove the hardware after writing to the device.

Glad you got it figured out. If I had seen this post earlier, I would have commented. Like Bill above, I have this same card reader and some standard and UDMA cards. It is extremely fast at transferring data off the cards no matter what type of card I use. I have definitely run into problems with hubs before, so I keep things like card readers plugged directly into USB ports, not into hubs. Incidentally, I don't know the difference, but I've had much better luck with powered USB hubs vs the non-powered ones. I only buy AC-powered USB hubs now.