Testing CF Express Type B cards

Craikeybaby

Craikeybaby

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I have been having a few locking up issues on my Fuji X-H2S, and the consensus seems to be that it is likely to be the memory cards. I can swap out the SD card for another one (albeit not UHS-II rated) and do performance tests using the UHS-II SD card reader on my MacBook Pro, however I have not got another CF Express Type B card, or even an external reader for it. Currently I download images by connecting camera to Macbook directly.

Given how expensive CF Express cards are, I would rather not have to buy another speculatively, but it there a definitive way I could test if the card I have is broken? FWIW it is a SanDisk Extreme Pro card, bought from WEX.
 
I thnk Sandisk have a lifetime warranty on some of their cards, so you could send it back to them, though it might take a few weeks to get a replacement or your own one back if it is fine.

I'd be tempted to buy a second hand card and maybe a cheap reader from these forums to do some testing, or even Ebay. You could then sell them on afterwards for little or no loss. With a reader you would be able to run a variety of performance tests on the card. There might even be some Black Friday deals on Amazon for card readers? I know there were some cheap Lexar SD cards.

I think I've now got 3 CF Express Type B card readers and 5 or 6 cards. One stays plugged in permanently to my PC at home, one I use on my laptop when away from home and another one that I give to clients whilst on site, so we can both copy from different cards at the same time.
 
I've just been down the rabbit hole of CFExpress card readers - there's a lot of names I have never heard of on Amazon, but a fairly sensibly priced Lexar one is available. If I am buying it to test that a card isn't playing up, I want something I know I can rely on.
 
I was going to recommend H2testw but unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a version for Apple unfortunately, the only recommendation I've found is an overpriced app on the app store. I take it you can write to the card from your computer? If so I'd try doing a sustained write with a large number of image files and see if it holds up, if it can manage that ok then I think it's less likely to be a card issue.

I've found SD cards to be extremely reliable and I think the only times I've had them fail it's been a mechanical failure with the casing coming apart, I've had less success with micro SD cards but when they failed, it was very definite. The Sandisk cards went into a read only mode and didn't allow any data to be written (a known failure mode, the lock switch wasn't in the wrong position) and the Samsung cards just died completely and couldn't be read at all. How do you delete images from the camera, do you delete the files individually or do you format the card each time in camera?

I use a Sabrent CF Express card and reader on my Nikon camera since they're a known brand for SSDs and I think they're good value for money.
 
Craikeybaby said:
I have been having a few locking up issues on my Fuji X-H2S, and the consensus seems to be that it is likely to be the memory cards. I can swap out the SD card for another one (albeit not UHS-II rated) and do performance tests using the UHS-II SD card reader on my MacBook Pro, however I have not got another CF Express Type B card, or even an external reader for it. Currently I download images by connecting camera to Macbook directly.

Given how expensive CF Express cards are, I would rather not have to buy another speculatively, but it there a definitive way I could test if the card I have is broken? FWIW it is a SanDisk Extreme Pro card, bought from WEX.
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you can get a 128 gig one for £60 so I would not say they are expensive.
 
Delkin is popular in the Nikon wildlife community.
I also have a Delkin card reader, so far no issues.
 
I've had good experience with agfaphoto and angelbird cf express cards.
 
JohnMcL7 said:
I was going to recommend H2testw but unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a version for Apple unfortunately, the only recommendation I've found is an overpriced app on the app store. I take it you can write to the card from your computer? If so I'd try doing a sustained write with a large number of image files and see if it holds up, if it can manage that ok then I think it's less likely to be a card issue.

I've found SD cards to be extremely reliable and I think the only times I've had them fail it's been a mechanical failure with the casing coming apart, I've had less success with micro SD cards but when they failed, it was very definite. The Sandisk cards went into a read only mode and didn't allow any data to be written (a known failure mode, the lock switch wasn't in the wrong position) and the Samsung cards just died completely and couldn't be read at all. How do you delete images from the camera, do you delete the files individually or do you format the card each time in camera?

I use a Sabrent CF Express card and reader on my Nikon camera since they're a known brand for SSDs and I think they're good value for money.
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Thanks - I had come across H2testw, and already found a something for Mac that runs the same algorithm - https://github.com/AltraMayor/f3. I will run this on my SD card, as the second part of the problem is that I don't have a way to write to the card from my computer, I have only been accessing it through the camera.
 
Nikon f1.8 said:
you can get a 128 gig one for £60 so I would not say they are expensive.
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Thanks - I'm wondering if despite choosing a card from the Fuji approved list, I may have gone for a slower version that could be causing the issue.
Peter123 said:
Delkin is popular in the Nikon wildlife community.
I also have a Delkin card reader, so far no issues.
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Thanks, I am considering their cards/reader. Although bizarrely their newer cards aren't on the Fuji approved list.

sk66 said:
Free software to test CFE cards: AJA System Test
Card reader that can fix CFE-B card errors (among other things)- CFTek Trimmer
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Thanks - I have AJA System Test, just not a reader to test the card with.
 
Depends which card you actually bought, look at the read / write speeds on the card
these are fast cards and can be used with a Nikon Z6ii without slowing down, are they on the list ??? LINKY
 
Craikeybaby said:
Thanks, I am considering their cards/reader. Although bizarrely their newer cards aren't on the Fuji approved list.
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They were released after the H2S

Craikeybaby said:
Thanks - I'm wondering if despite choosing a card from the Fuji approved list, I may have gone for a slower version that could be causing the issue.
Click to expand...
I rather doubt card speed is the issue; unless you are shooting longish bursts of at 40fps raw. But heat might be; Sandisks are known to run hotter (and they write slower when they are). The CFTek Trimmer also allows you to monitor card temp during stress testing/operation.
 
My SanDisk certainly heats up when transferring from the card to computer so that could be a cause. I’ve never monitored in camera temperature but then as predominantly landscape I rarely shoot at high FPS.
 
sk66 said:
They were released after the H2S


I rather doubt card speed is the issue; unless you are shooting longish bursts of at 40fps raw. But heat might be; Sandisks are known to run hotter (and they write slower when they are). The CFTek Trimmer also allows you to monitor card temp during stress testing/operation.
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I'm going to go for one of the Delkin Black cards, mainly to rule out the card being the issue.
Buck said:
My SanDisk certainly heats up when transferring from the card to computer so that could be a cause. I’ve never monitored in camera temperature but then as predominantly landscape I rarely shoot at high FPS.
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The SanDisk cards seem to keep cropping up with regards to performance - I think the issue happens for me when the camera has been on for a while, rather than lots of shooting.
 
Hi, I am definitely not interested much into gear despite I am geek in RL (real life) .. I have these cards (CFe + SD and reader) and they never let me down .. I was always using Sandisk Extreme and truth to be told, I don't see any difference except of the peace of mind with Prograde (because I've experienced in past years two times unreadable Sandisk Extreme card due to the hot weather) .. However the real gamechanger for me was to buy that dual CFe/SD card reader .. It literally changed my life .. It ofc works will all other cards that I have (I have bunch of Sandisk Extreme cards - those two on photo are actually my backup set from my photo bag that I hope I will never need, I use CFe + 1/2 capacity SD, RAWs on CFe and JPEGs on SD) ..

Based upon my own experience I can recommend a Prograde to consider .. As far as it is known, they are runaways from Lexar and Sandisk, and cards are manufactured on Taiwan ..

Yes, it's `big investment' but hopefully the CFe should be a standard that will last for many years ..
 
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Thanks. I've ordered the Delkin Black, as you say, mainly to have the peace of mind of a premium card.

I haven't felt the need for a card reader - I have a UHS-II SD reader built into my MacBook, so always used that until I got my X-H2S. But as that did not come with a charger, and you are expected to plug it in to USB-C to charge it I just download the images whilst I am doing that.

I also run raw to CFE and jpeg to the SD card, currently "only" 32GB, so it will be interesting to see where the bottleneck is...
 
Craikeybaby said:
I have a UHS-II SD reader built into my MacBook, so always used that until I got my X-H2S. But as that did not come with a charger, and you are expected to plug it in to USB-C to charge it I just download the images whilst I am doing that.
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I dare to say that buying a dual CFe/SD card reader was `one giant leap for me' (despite one small step for a mankind) .. I resisted for many years and I was always plugging cameras in to the computer directly .. Now, while looking back, it was certainly more influential for me to buy a dual card reader than particular cards ... So consider it .. Transfer that took 10 minutes from my D850 (or D810 or x100f) now takes less than minute and you can browse with equivalent responsiveness the images directly on cards .. on both in the same time
 
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Craikeybaby said:
I'm going to go for one of the Delkin Black cards, mainly to rule out the card being the issue.
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Well, that should be more than adequate. I guess it doesn't really matter why the current cards are causing issues; but I'm curious that way.

IMO the Delkin Power G4 is the bargain line from Delkin; has the sustained write speed needed to handle 8k raw. I use them in my Z9 and they're close to the original Black lineup of cards.

The newer 4.0 cards (Delkin Black/Power 4.0, ProGrade Cobalt 4.0, etc) all have very high stated sustained speeds; but no camera can take advantage of it, because none (AFAIK) is PCI-E 4.0 compliant. Although if you have a computer and reader that is PCI-E 4 compliant you will get faster downloads.

Also IMO, the best cards are still the ProGrade Cobalt 2.0 as they use entirely SLC storage... but you certainly pay a high price for it.
 
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There was a great deal on the Delkin Power 4.0 512GB card on WEX yesterday - cheaper than most of the Power G4 cards with lower storage. I was tempted, but it isn't on the approved list for Fuji, so I didn't go for it.
 
Craikeybaby said:
Thanks. I've ordered the Delkin Black, as you say, mainly to have the peace of mind of a premium card.

I haven't felt the need for a card reader - I have a UHS-II SD reader built into my MacBook, so always used that until I got my X-H2S. But as that did not come with a charger, and you are expected to plug it in to USB-C to charge it I just download the images whilst I am doing that.

I also run raw to CFE and jpeg to the SD card, currently "only" 32GB, so it will be interesting to see where the bottleneck is...
Click to expand...

I went for the Delkin Black for my Canon Camera it’s been completely reliable, it is worth trying out a card reader I use a cheapie one from amazon no issues at all
 
I'll get the Delkin one when my wallet has recovered...
 
Delkin Black CFExpress card has arrived, but I haven't had a chance to test it, because the SD slot on my X-H2S is broken, it won't keep the card in. I hope that after spending £180 on a new CFExpress card it wasn't a dodgy connection to the SD card causing the locking up issues!
 
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