For content material creators, a laptop computer with a built-in SD card reader is a most well-liked function. Some customers go as far as to think about laptops solely if they’ve a reader.
One mistake with that selection is it assumes all SD card slots are created equal. Our exams clearly present they are not. It’s additionally tough to understand how quick the SD card reader in your laptop computer is. If SD card pace actually issues to you, the easiest way to get what you need is to purchase an exterior reader whose specs are clearly designated.
PCWorld put 4 newly manufactured laptops’ SD playing cards by their paces. For this problem we checked out:
To give us a management level, we additionally recorded the efficiency of a SanDisk Extreme Pro UHS-II USB 3.0 card reader inserted into one of many Dell G5 15 SE’s USB 3.0 slots.
Because this check can be pointless with no quick SD card, we used a 128GB SanDisk Extreme Pro SD card. The card is a UHS-II card, which means it rides on the Ultra High Speed II bus and incorporates a second row of contact pins on the again to hit the upper efficiency scores of the interface. The UHS-II bus can hit 312MBps in full duplex mode and 624MBps in half-duplex mode. We formatted the cardboard in exFAT, which has seemingly change into the usual for many large-capacity SD media.
We used a 128GB SanDisk Extreme Pro card rated for 300MBps reads and 260MBps writes for our testing.
The SanDisk Extreme Pro SD Card is rated for learn speeds proper as much as the restrict of UHS-II at 300MBps with write speeds rated at 260MBps.
Why not UHS-III?
If you are questioning why we’re not utilizing a fair quicker SD card utilizing the newer UHS-III bus, it is as a result of we could not discover a card that even supported the newer interface, which takes speeds to 312MBps in full duplex mode and 624MBps in half duplex mode. Searching Amazon.com simply final week, we noticed no indicators of a UHS-III card on the market.
(And no, do not confuse UHS-III (the bus) with the U3 image. U3 refers back to the card’s “UHS Speed Class” mark for video efficiency of a digital camera and card. Yes, they severely have U3 and UHS-III which do not imply the identical factor. U3 has largely been supplanted by the newer and barely much less complicated “V” video pace class mark.)
We contacted SanDisk to ask why it wasn’t providing a more recent UHS-III bus card. Company officers mentioned it is largely concentrating on the even faster SD Express standard, which has a pace restrict of 3,940MBps.
Laptop SD Card slot efficiency
All 4 laptops function built-in card readers, however efficiency diversified vastly, as you possibly can see from our first check, Crystal Disk Mark’s default sequential learn check. The Dell XPS 15 9500 comes out in entrance by a good margin over the XPG Xenia 15 and Dell G5 15 SE, however it’s very near the Gigabyte Aero 17.
IDGAero 17 and XPS 15 9500 customers could be blissful they’re getting superior learn efficiency, however you are most likely questioning simply why the Xenia 15 and G5 SE 15 are sucking wind. You’ll see the explanation should you have a look at the labels for the laptops above: It’s largely as a result of card reader and the interface they’re related to.
For the worst laptop computer right here, the Dell G5 15 SE, it is probably gated by the USB 2.0 interface it is connected. USB 2.0 has a most theoretical pace of 480Mbps or 60MBps. Once you account for overhead it is typically far decrease than 60MBps.
After the Dell, the XPG Xenia 15 doubles the efficiency of the G5 15 SE with about 91MBps learn speeds. The Xenia 15 highlights the opposite situation that issues for a laptop computer’s SD card reader: It’s not simply the interface, it is also what the host card reader is rated for.
For the Xenia 15, we could not discover something aside from that it is a RealTek card reader on USB 3.0. Because USB 3.0 can attain speeds of 5Gbps or 625MBps on paper, we all know it isn’t the USB 3.0 interface. We can solely assume that the Xenia 15 makes use of a UHS-I reader rated for 104MBps switch speeds.
We make that assumption as a result of clearly the Aero 17 on USB 3.0 with its RealTek UHS-II reader can simply attain 262MBps learn speeds. Our management, the SanDisk Extreme Pro UHS-II reader, can also hit a good 246MBps learn pace.
The winner of this, though not by the margin you’d hope for, is the Dell XPS 15 9500, with its UHS-III-rated RealTek card reader hooked as much as the PCIe bus. The XPS 15 9500 has a good edge, however it’s probably gated by the truth that we solely have entry to a UHS-II card for our testing.
Laptop SD slot write speeds
Writing to the playing cards is slower for the XPS 15 and Aero 17 and largely a tie. The SanDisk Extreme Pro card reader additionally does a high quality job. Meanwhile, the G5 15 SE and Xenia 15 are far, far behind the pack.
IDGReal-world exams
Writing to an SD card from a laptop computer is not one thing most individuals do. The commonest methodology is to shoot photographs or video to an SD card after which copy the contents to your laptop computer for modifying within the subject.
To simulate that we took a folder of 266 JPEG and RAW recordsdata totalling 3.4GB, shot with a Canon EOS 5D Mark IV. We manually timed how lengthy it took to repeat the recordsdata to the Windows desktop of every laptop computer. We carried out the check thrice, with reboots between runs to take away OS caching from equation. We additionally manually trimmed the laptop computer’s inner SSDs earlier than testing was performed.
The outcomes largely mirror our learn exams utilizing Crystal Disk Mark 7. The higher-performance card readers all observe very intently, the Xenia 15 achieves an appropriate 47 seconds, and the G5 15 SE strolls previous the end line the following day.
IDGOur final check created a nine-minute video with the EOS 5D Mk IV, utilizing its 4K video setting. The digital camera makes use of the insanely inefficient MJPEG codec at a 500Mbps bit fee, which produced a whopping 34GB file. As with our nonetheless picture check, we take a median of manually timed runs with reboots in between.
IDGWith a file this massive, we now see why having a high-speed SD card reader is so beneficial. It takes just a little over two minutes with the XPS 15 9500 and Aero 17 to repeat a 34GB file to the desktop. The Xenia 15 takes about 5 further minutes to repeat over. The Dell and its USB 2.0-bound card reader takes a painful 15 minutes to do the identical process. And bear in mind: 34GB looks like a big file, however meaning 90GB of video recordsdata would take most likely 45 minutes. That’s time misplaced on the modifying course of.
Gordon Mah UngContent creators hate utilizing exterior readers, however a quick USB 3.0 reader equivalent to this SanDisk Extreme Pro reader might be quicker than your laptop computer’s reader.
Conclusion
The first takeaway from that is that clearly, not all laptop computer SD card readers are created equal. All 4 of the laptops we examined are present fashions launched this yr, but we see an enormous swing in efficiency.
The second takeaway is, cease turning up your nostril at USB card readers. We’ve talked to content material creators who see a scarcity of an onboard SD reader as a cause to not purchase a selected laptop computer. But you simply do not know what degree of card reader you are going to get, even on new laptops. So simply purchase a verifiably good exterior reader and do not look again.
The third suggestion is to not get too caught up in wanting UHS-III. Some new laptops have touted UHS-III assist as a bullet level, and to be truthful, the Dell XPS 15 9500’s UHS-III reader on the PCie 3.0 bus was constantly the quickest in our exams. It’s simply not clear that the usual will matter if card makers skip UHS-III playing cards for SD Express.
Gordon Mah UngThe pace of your laptop computer’s SD card will not matter should you solely feed it sluggish 40MBps playing cards just like the 128GB Sony UHS-I card under. Run a UHS-II card such because the 128GB SanDisk Extreme Pro, which may hit 300MBps, and even the Lexar card which may attain 150MBps.
Our ultimate takeaway is that this actually issues provided that you care about efficiency: to have a quick SD card reader in your laptop computer, and feed it with a quick SD card. For instance, should you have a look at the image above, the 128GB Sony UHS-I card will learn at a dismal 45MBps and write at 36MBps on the Dell XPS 15 9500. The Lexar UHS-II card will learn at 153MBps and write at 71MBps, whereas the SanDisk Extreme Pro will learn at 279MBps and write at 217MBps. So do not feed a quick laptop computer a sluggish card, and do not feed a sluggish laptop computer a quick card, should you care about efficiency.