x-pro2 performance with 2 SD cards

[Philhifi]

Did some of you guys evaluate the difference of speed when you have 2 SD cards inserted (vs one) ? Is the x-pro2 slower ? faster ?

[danwells]

There is a confounding factor here - the asymmetric slots mean that it's possible to put one card in the camera that is much faster than anything the second slot can take advantage of (you can put a UHS-2 card in the UHS-I second slot, but it won't be any faster than a good UHS-I card). This leaves four basic configurations (even before accounting for speed differences among cards in the same class), and makes the most logical fast configuration with dual UHS-2 cards a waste of money.

UHS-2 card in slot 1, slot 2 empty

UHS-2 card in Slot 1, UHS-I in slot 2

Two UHS-I cards

UHS-I card in slot 1, slot 2 empty

 

I have one of the new Lexar 2000x cards arriving tomorrow, and will be happy to try this with the very fast Lexar in Slot 1 and a fast UHS-1 card in Slot 2. I'm almost certain that the camera won't run any faster than the slowest card in backup mode (where it's writing to both cards), but it could if it's only writing JPEGs to the slower card, or in sequential mode where the slower card is not used until the fast one is full. The other test (and I'm not sure I can find two identical UHS-1 cards) would be two identical UHS-I cards - is it faster or slower than a single card?

[Wing0949]

Did some of you guys evaluate the difference of speed when you have 2 SD cards inserted (vs one) ? Is the x-pro2 slower ? faster ?

I've personally tried something today, hope this helps answer your questions.

 

I have a Lexar 32GB UHS-II card (the one that is 2000x and writes up to 300MB/s) and a Fujifilm 32GB UHS-I Class 10 card (have no idea the specs, but generally it writes pretty fast at least as fast as any UHS-1 Class 10 card I've ever used).

 

I'm currently always writing raw+jpeg.

 

First, the UHS-II is in slot 1 and UHS-I is in slot 2, naturally.

 

Writing raw to slot 1 and jpeg to slot 2, I noticed the led flashing while writing to continue blinking for approx. 4 seconds.

 

I then left slot 2 empty with only UHS-II in slot 1 and took a photo with raw+jpeg and it was super fast.. 1 second or just under.

 

I then left inserted UHS-I card into slot 1 and took a photo with raw+jpeg and it took about 3.5-4 seconds.

 

I then inserted the UHS-I card into slot 2 and left slot 1 empty and took a photo with raw+jpeg and it took about 4-5 seconds.

 

Lastly, I inserted the UHS-II card into slot 2 and left slot 1 empty and took a photo with raw+jpeg and it took 2 seconds.

 

I have yet to try fully loading both slot 1 & slot 2 with the same UHS-II type card, but I surmise that the overall writing speed for raw+jpeg will still be faster than any other combination.. that's if you want to write to both slot 1 & 2 simulataneously either as backup (raw+jpeg to slot 1 & raw+jpeg to slot 2) or raw/jpeg (raw to slot 1 & jpeg to slot 2).

 

Sure, slot 2 is not optimized for UHS-II card to use it to it's max performance, but, it is still faster than using the fastest UHS-I card effectively cutting the writing speed at least in half.

 

 

I just wanted to add, just because the light was blinking and still writing for the amount of time I noted, it doesn't mean the camera was inoperable.. the new X Processor Pro is great and keeps working.. so, while it's writing, you can keep snapping shots fast.. and if you want to review the image, it can display playback near instantly as well.. I suspect as long as it's written to slot 1 first, you can access and review the image just as fast as that... i imagine the extended blinking light is while it's still writing to slot 2.

Edited March 14, 2016 by Wing0949

[kivi]

This is useful information but when "First, the UHS-II is in slot 1 and UHS-I is in slot 2, naturally.

 

Writing raw to slot 1 and jpeg to slot 2, I noticed the led flashing while writing to continue blinking for approx. 4 seconds."

 

It doesn't seem to provide any gain over all older cards.