Performance with Compact Flash Cards

Intel IOMeter Sequential Read and Write

IOMeter is sending a stream of read and write requests with a request queue depth of 4. The size of the requested data block is changed each minute, so we will see the dependence of the reader’s linear read/write speed on the size of the data block.

The results are divided in two groups for better readability. The card-readers based on the AU6263 controller with firmware 01.26 and 01.29 are the worst at reading, reaching a speed of 3MB/s only (the card can yield data at a much higher speed than that). Interestingly, the same controller but with firmware 01.00 is much faster at nearly 20MB/s. The IC1210 and ND3260 controllers are very poor at sequential reading too, their maximum speeds being lower than 10MB/s. That’s too low a speed for a modern flash card. SanDisk’s card-readers are traditionally good. The readers based on the Genesys Logic controllers are good, too. Alcor Micro’s new AU6377 controller is first, achieving a speed of 30MB/s on large data blocks.

It’s the same as in the writing test: the AU6377 is in the lead, and there are two groups based on speed. The AU6362 with firmware 01.26 and 01.29 is on the losing side. Note the performance of the SanDisk Extreme USB: it is far faster than the other readers on small data blocks (from 2 to 8KB).