Thinkpads Forum

I'm trying to use the SD card reader in the X60 under XPSP2 with a Transcend 4GB 150x SD card. I benchmarked the drive with sandra and it's nearly an order of magnitude slower than the reference drive benchmarks. I'm pretty sure this isn't the card's issue. I've also heard some people say that the slot works with readyboost under XP so I'm thinking the issue is with the drivers for the sd host controller.

Is anyone experiencing slow performance with the card reader or, conversely, not experiencing the same thing?

rkuo wrote:I'm trying to use the SD card reader in the X60 under XPSP2 with a Transcend 4GB 150x SD card. I benchmarked the drive with sandra and it's nearly an order of magnitude slower than the reference drive benchmarks. I'm pretty sure this isn't the card's issue. I've also heard some people say that the slot works with readyboost under XP so I'm thinking the issue is with the drivers for the sd host controller.

Is anyone experiencing slow performance with the card reader or, conversely, not experiencing the same thing?

I'm having no problems downloading my Sandisk Extreme III 2g SD card that is frequently filled to near capacity.

But in reference to your first paragraph, I have no idea what you are asking.

You're right the reader is painfully slow. All the readers built into laptops are awfully slow.

Get a SD/SDHC to PcCard adapter or a USB2 external reader if speed is important. I myself find it more or less important, using high speed cards when I dump pics from my DSLR.

yes, it is very very slow! I have a reader given with my MB free and much times faster..

my pda can write my SD card faster

O, got my self a decent reader (Sandisk 12-in-1, SDHC compatible) and the conclusion is:

Internal reader limited in reading speed at 2500 KB/s
Sandisk 12-in-1 with the same card: 12-13000KB/s

I suppose I do not need to comment...

i want to use the sd card slot for outlook .pst storage. is going to be real slow if i use it for that purpose?

tyanlion wrote:i want to use the sd card slot for outlook .pst storage. is going to be real slow if i use it for that purpose?

Anything under 10mb will write slowly but tolerably. If you want to write 1gb on the card, go make coffee or lunch and when you come back it will be finished.

i get ye point yeah i don't think that it would be possible with the amount of mails I have on. plus my normal hard drive is already so slow in getting the mails in.

I've try using build-in SD Reader for Readyboost, the performance is bad.

Although the SD Reader reading speed is not too slow, it make too many Processor Interrupt and make audio playback stop.

Use "Reliability and Performance Monitor" to make a graph. Add Processor Interrupts/sec

You will see about 2,000 Ips (Interrupts/sec) at normal.
When I chkdsk C:, it will up to about 2,200 Ips, I think defragment should below 2,500 Ips.

After I plug in a SD to SD Reader and active Readyboost, the Interrupts/sec sometimes jump to 14,000 Ips !!!!

Also I make the following test. Format a 2GB Class 6 SD (~15MB Write per second, 22MB Read per second on my USB Card Reader)

Use Build-in SD Reader to format, reading around 14,000 Ips.
Use USB Card Reader, reading around 3,000 Ips

Final word, the build-in SD Card Reader create about 12K more Interrupts per second when run the card at full speed.

PS. I don't know why my X60 get 2,000 Ips at normal. When I compare with the other X60 running XP, reading is about 200 Ips. However, the Card reader test still valid because coping a large file from Disk to SD still on that X60 aslo create 12K more Interrupts per second.