Mac Photographers – Thunderbolt to FireWire Adapter to Upload Files. Is it worth it?

Like many other photographers using Macs, I was tired of waiting for my photos to upload using a USB 2.0 card reader.  My FireWire 800 port is tied up for my external drive that stores my photos.  Macs, other than the newest models, don’t support USB 3.0, and Thunderbolt compact flash readers are nowhere to be found.

I recently purchased the Apple Thunderbolt to FireWire Adapter ($29) and a Delock FireWire 800 compact flash card reader ($45) to speed up the photo uploads from my compact flash cards.  But for some reason, the photo uploads seem to take just as long with the FireWire 800 card reader.  So, I decided to run some tests and share the results with you.

Test Results

I ran each test 2 times to ensure consistent results.  When I ran the test comparing the FireWire 800 card reader (using the Thunderbolt adapter) against the USB 2.0 card reader with my Drobo as the destination for the uploaded files, the results were surprisingly similar.  Both the USB 2.0 and the FireWire 800 card readers took between 8:25 and 8:35 minutes for 9.22 GB of photos.

However, when I ran the test using my iMac’s internal hard drive as the destination drive, the FireWire 800 Compact Flash Card Reader with the Thunderbolt to FireWire adapter was 40% faster than the USB 2.0 drive.  The FireWire 800 card reader uploaded the files in a quick 2:52 minutes while the USB 2.0 card reader took an average of 4:54 minutes.

So, overall the Delock FireWire 800 CF reader was significantly faster than the USB 2.0 card reader.  However, your system is only as fast as the slowest component.  In my case, the Drobo is slowing down the photo uploads to the point where the speed of the card reader and interface don’t matter.

If you’re interested in more details, here is the equipment that I used for the tests.

• Transcend 32GB UDMA 400x Compact Flash card with 322 Canon 5d Mark iii raw files totaling 9.22 GB
• Kingston multi format USB 2.0 card reader
• Delock FireWire 800 Compact Flash Card Reader
• iMac 3.4 GHz Intel Core i7 with 8 GB memory
• Drobo 4-Bay USB 2.0/FireWire 800 SATA 6GB/S Storage Array connected to the FireWire 800 port
• Apple Thunderbolt to FireWire 800 adapter

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