Low file transfer rate from camera to hdd, trying to find the bottleneck/problem.

[Ein0r]

I'm not entirely sure if this is the right forum, or if camera or storage would be better suited for this.

 

I went to an event recently, took a lot of photos and some videos and copied them all to my hdd yesterday. There were ~1200 files, which add up to ~50gb of data. I copied them straight from the camera, the process took 50+ minutes. I played Runeterra in the meantime which probably affected the transfer but I didn't think it would be so grave. It took so long that I got an error message that something is wrong with my camera. Nothing serious, the battery ran out of power... After that ordeal was over, I did some simple testing. Because 50 minutes seemed a little long, even while playing a game.

 

My Hardware

 

• PC:  Ryzen 5 1600, Asus Prime B350+ Motherboard, 2x 16gb ddr 4 RAM, Win10 home 64bit, Seagate Barracuda 1TB HDD
• I also did a chckdisk /F /R  for that particular drive (E:) and no errors were found or had to be repaired. 

 

• Camera: Fujifilm X T200 with a 3.1 usb type c port and the usb type c to type a adapter that was included with the camera. And for comparison a type c to a charger cable of a samsung phone (s8 or s10, not entirely sure, probably doesnt matter?)

 

• 2 SD Cards: Sandisk 128gb Extreme Pro, one with 170mb/s and one with 150mb/s

 

• A Hama USB 2.0 USB SD Card reader

 

• My old haf cooler master big tower case with probably USB 2.0 Ports (front i/o)

 

 

 

I tried copying 200 RAW images files (~40mb per file, ~8gb combined) to the Seagate HDD, using different usb ports. Once with the sd card in camera and once with the sd card in the usb card reader. However I didn't complete each copy process, I only looked at the estimated times once they were shown.

 

The results:

 

• HAMA USB 2.0 Card reader + Sandisk 170mb/s

6m 30s with 20mb/s on my  2.0 front i/o 

6m30s with 20mb/s on USB 3.0

9m30s with 9mb/s on USB 3.1 port

 

• Fuji X t 200 with the type c to a adapter cable + Sandisk 170mb/s

14 minutes at unknown speed on all three ports. 

 

It only showed "copy" and gave me an estimated time after a short moment but no option to view transfer rates. Same result with the Samsung phone charger cable on the 3.0 port.

I also copied 200 files to a different pc from the camera, using the 150mb/s card. That PC also had Win10 but I've no idea what type of usb port. It had the same result: 14 minutes for ~8gb. from camera to drive.

 

 

But I have no idea what to make of these numbers and where my problem lies. My only guess right now is the adapter cable. Getting 20mb/s on a usb 2.0 card reader seems somewhat plausible? Except for when I put it onto the 3.1 port and got a slower result? But going by the numbers and the hardware involved with the camera, I get less than 20mb/s of speed on all ports, even when the connection from camera to pc would be a straight 3.0 connection.

 

Attached are two images with combinations of task manager, resource monitor and file transfer window. The first image with the green transfer bar is from the usb sd card reader (on 3.0 usb port) The second image is the transfer from the camera, also on the 3.0 port.

 

I hope this helps, if you need anything else please feel free to ask.

 

EDIT UPDATE:

I bought a new cable. Hama 5Gbps USB 3.2 Gen1. I connected the devices with the new cable and used the 3.1 port of my motherboard. It had the same results. It took 14 minutes to copy the same files from sd card in my Fuji camera to my hdd. It took roughly 5minutes to copy the 200 files (40mb each) to my smarthphone, and also 5 minutes to copy them back to my hdd from my smartphone. That's comparable to my usb 2.0 speeds.

 

 

 

[Kilrah]

15 minutes ago, Ein0r said:

Getting 20mb/s on a usb 2.0 card reader seems somewhat plausible?

Yes it's normal.

15 minutes ago, Ein0r said:

usb type c to type a adapter that was included with the camera. And for comparison a type c to a charger cable of a samsung phone

Both of these may only be wired for USB2.0, most random ones you find will.

 

So basically you either need a USB3 card reader, or make sure the cable used to connect the camera is USB3.

[Ein0r]

Thank you for confirming my hunch.

 

Kind of annoying that they added such a lousy cable to a camera that has a 3.0 type connection. Maybe it was just meant to be a charger after all. Which means I'll have to go out tomorrow and get a decent cable and/or reader. Not that they are particularly expensive, but it feels a bit wasteful.

 

On the bright side it is good to know that the rest probably works as intended and that it hopefully is just the cable. I'll give an update tomorrow after I get the cable.

[Ein0r]

Update on the cable: Fail?

 

I bought a type c to a cable with usb 3.2 gen1 and 5gbps speed but I get the same 14 minutes for ~8gb of files. It didn't make a difference whether I put it on the 3.0 or 3.1 ports of my board.

 

Okay, the final time for copying 200 files with each ~41mb takes around 11m30s from the sd card in fuji camera to my hdd. New cable, connected to a 3.1 port on the mainboard. It takes ~4 seconds per file, the task manager showed me that the spikes are at around 40mb, which is clear. And 200 files that take each ~4 seconds are roughly 13 minutes.

 

When I use the cable to transfer the same files to my smartphone, it takes roughly 5 minutes from hdd to phone. Copying the files back from my phone to my hdd also takes roughly 5 minutes.

 

 

 

[Ein0r]

Is there anything I need to have plugged in on the motherboard? The manual only says there are 10-1 pin connectors and a 20-1pin connector if I want to install additional usb modules, so I guess not. I have one 10-1 pin connector plugged in in usb56, and that belongs probably to the front usb ports of the case.

 

With all the amateur testing I did I am also thinking that I just expect too much? Except for the fact that my tests with the 2.0 sd card reader are faster than everything on the camera and equal speed as the hdd to smartphone test.

[Kilrah]

The new cable is really USB3, with the pins in the back (left)?

 

 

Transfer from camera should be fast from specs but the fact it operates as MTP device and not mass storage can slow things down. There may be some setting in the menu to change mode, some do. 

 

But really a card reader is what pretty much everybody would be using.

 

8 minutes ago, Ein0r said:

Is there anything I need to have plugged in on the motherboard?

Not if you use the ports at the back of the computer. Obviously for front panel there would. 

[Ein0r]

It is usb 3. At least I wasn't a complete idiot today. Unfortunately they didn't have any usb3 sd card readers, otherwise I would have bit the bullet  and also got one of those to try. Maybe there is something limiting coming from the camera but there's nothing in the menu. I can switch between "off", "usb card reader" and "webcam mode". And bluetooth to connect with their own app but I don't really use that, it's awful.