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PROGRADE DIGITAL 1TB 1700 GOLD CFEXPRESS B CARD
The ProGrade Digital 1TB 1700 CFexpress Type B card has listed specifications of 1700MB/s read a 1500MB/s write and sustained write performance of 400MB/s. Checking Amazon, we see ProGrade 1700 Gold pricing at $179.99 (128GB), $349.99 (256GB), $549.99 (512GB) and $899.99 (1TB).
We tested this card for both sustained write performance and also monitored the temperature during this test. The highest temperature this card reached was 54°C and its sustained right performance was an incredible 357MB/s.
We can see how much lower the sustained write speeds are in this card compared to the ProGrade Cobalt. The advantage of this lower speed is such that higher capacities avail themselves; you will never see the Cobalt in a 1TB size. If you want to know whether your camera is compatible, check the ProGrade Compatibility Chart here.
Crystal Disk Info is a great tool for displaying the characteristics and health of storage devices. It displays everything from temperatures, the number of hours the device has been powered, and even to the extent of informing you of the firmware of the device.
This Crystal Disk Info score validates that we are running in PCIe 3.0 and that this card follows the NVMe 1.3 protocol.
ATTO Disk Benchmark is perhaps one of the oldest benchmarks going and is definitely the main staple for manufacturer performance specifications. ATTO uses RAW or compressible data and, for our benchmarks, we use a set length of 256mb and test both the read and write performance of various transfer sizes ranging from 512b to 65mb. Manufacturers prefer this method of testing as it deals with raw (compressible) data rather than random (includes incompressible data) which, although more realistic, results in lower performance results.
CRYSTAL DISK BENCHMARK VER. 7. 0.0 X64
Crystal Disk Benchmark is used to measure read and write performance through sampling of random data which is, for the most part, incompressible. Performance is virtually identical, regardless of data sample so we have included only that using random data samples.
THROUGHPUT
IOPS
ANVIL STORAGE UTILITIES PROFESSIONAL
Anvil’s Storage Utilities (ASU) are the most complete test bed available for the solid state drive today. The benchmark displays test results for, not only throughput but also, IOPS and Disk Access Times. Not only does it have a preset SSD benchmark, but also, it has included such things as endurance testing and threaded I/O read, write and mixed tests, all of which are very simple to understand and use in our benchmark testing.
The AJA Video Systems Disk Test is relatively new to our testing and tests the transfer speed of video files with different resolutions and Codec.
TxBench is one of our newly discovered benchmarks that we works much the same as Crystal Diskmark, but with several other features. Advanced load bench-marking can be configured, as well as full drive information and data erasing via secure erase, enhanced secure erase, TRIM and overwriting. Simply click on the title for a free copy.
Overall a nice article. One thing to point out is there are big differences in card performance based on card size. Almost all 64GB CFExpressB cards have a low minimum sustained write speed. The ProGrade Gold card you tested is the fastest – the 1TB card – and smaller cards are much slower. The Canon R5 is a very good camera, but file size is what drives performance. The larger files of the Nikon Z7ii and Z9 are more demanding on card performance. Likewise smaller files but faster frame rates have a similar impact – more data to be written per second needs a faster card. The advice you gave is good – make sure you match what and how you use your camera to card choice.