X-bit labs

SanDisk Extreme IV Compact Flash Card and New Card-Readers (page 6)

Category: Storage

by Aleksey Meyev

[ 07/30/2007 | 06:52 PM ]

Random Read & Write Patterns

We’ll evaluate the speed of random read and write operations by measuring the time the drives take to perform them. The data block size is varied from 0.5 to 32768KB in this test.

It can be seen that the random read speed grows up on data blocks of 512KB and higher. As for the smaller blocks, the read speed of the old Ultra II card is far lower than that of the Extreme series products. The difference between the cards becomes negligible on large data blocks and the difference between the readers becomes conspicuous. It’s like in the previous test: the Extreme III has its highest speed in the Extreme USB reader while the Extreme IV card prefers the Extreme FireWire.

The random write test produces almost the same results as the random read test above. It’s on large data blocks that you see a big difference between the competitors. The best card/reader combinations are the Extreme III in the Extreme USB and the Extreme IV in the Extreme FireWire. The Ultra II is still slower on small data blocks although not as much slower as in the random read test.