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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Transfer speeds on new MacBook Pro SSD/Sonnet Pro Dual Card Reader

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Claus Mueller

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I‘ve tried this set up on a new Macbook Pro:

MacBook Pro, 2.53
128 GB SSD, Transcend MLC
Sonnet Dual Card Reader ExpressCard/34
2x RED 16 GB Cards
2x 2.5“ Drives (HDD/SSD), Onnto enclosures with eSata/FW800

Copying two 16 GB Cards (about 27.6 GB) from Card Reader to the internal SSD or an external FW 800 2.5“ SSD drive takes 7:30 minutes (61 MB/s)

Copying two 16 GB Cards (about 27.6 GB) from Card Reader to an external FW 800 2.5“ HDD drive, 5.400 rpm, takes 8:14 minutes (56 MB/s)

So, there is not so much difference between these two solutions, the bottleneck is write speed on MLC-SSD Drives for now, but with the upcoming 2nd Generation SSD‘s we‘ll get write speeds up to 200MB/s, 256 GB storage and price drop very soon.

What I like is that everything is bus-powered, fast, light/compact and with internal/external SSD drives you‘ve a very quiet and rugged storage solution.
 
Thanks for posting this- I was just doing some research on this very thing. So far I'm finding mixed reviews of the SSD's. (Either people love them or hate them.)

- What is your take on it?
- Has the SSD been reliable in the MBP?
- How about for external drives is the SSD working out?
- I've been looking for a solution for external drives that can be buss powered via FW800- do these work?
 
I was looking for a fast and solid field solution. The Sonnet Fusion 2 is great, it is fast, bus-powered over FW and connected via two eSata ports. But you‘ve only one FW port on the new MacBook Pro, so there‘re only two slow USB 2.0 ports left for an external drive.
I could transfer to the internal MBP drive, but I prefer external drives, because my further workflow is on a MacPro, so I don‘t have to transfer twice.

Nexto is also great, I‘ve the ND2525, but with the Dual Card Reader you can copy two cards at once.

So the Card Reader is connected via eSata and the FW 800 is left for a bus-powered external 2.5“ SSD drive. I‘ve tried an external 3.5“ HDD drive as well, but it isn‘t faster and it isn't bus-powered.

The 128 GB SSD has been reliable so far, costs about 200 Euros. One is housed in an external Onnto enclosure with one eSata port und two FW 800 ports (TB-S12T). I‘ll upgrade to a 256 GB 2nd Generation SSD as soon as they‘re available and affordable.

We all know that USB 3.0 will give us more than 300 MB/s in a year or so, but this solution is quite nice for now.
 
Thanks for the feedback and I'm glad it is workign for you. The SSD's really intrigue me. And I think I'll be swapping out the drive in my MacBook for one...

Claus Mueller said:
So the Card Reader is connected via eSata and the FW 800 is left for a bus-powered external 2.5“ SSD drive.
Click to expand...

This confuses me a bit- did you mean to say that you have the dual card reader connected via Express34? The one you mention in your first post has that connection...
 
Perfect. Thanks. :)
 
Claus,

Can you copy to two Onto external bus-powered drives at the same time for safety?

Or are you stuck with one in the field because of bus-power?
 
As far as SSD drives go, the new Samsung is the King. There are other companies selling them rebranded. Check out Toms Hardware (not exact page link but you can search around) for comparisons.

samsung-solid-state-hard-drive.jpg
 
Benjamin,

I've only tried simultaneous copying from Sonnet CF Reader to the internal drive and the bus powered FW 800 drive, works fast and secure. You could copy from CF Reader to FW 800 G-Raid, Raid 1, as well.
 
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