fastest compact flash II card available?

solrac

Mac Ninja
I have a Canon Digital Rebel XT with a 2 GB compact flash II card.

The card can download images to my computer at about 4-6 MB per second, on my USB 2.0 port. This is 10 times slower than what USB 2 has to offer.

Now obviously the bottleneck must be the CF card itself.

On this page, there is a list of CF II card speeds
http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=6007-7699

It seems as if ~ 4 MB / sec is top of the line, on this chart. And that's what I have then. My question: anyone know of anything faster?

Is there a CF II card that could max out the USB 2 port? (60 MB / sec)?
Is there a CF II card that could max out a Firewire 800 port??*(100 MB / sec)?

I really doubt it... but the real question is what is the fastest available read / write speed on a CF II card?

Thanks!
 
While the speeds differ between several of the cards, it is unlikely that a Canon Digital Rebel XT would be able to read/write at the highest possible speeds anyway. I recommend a Sandisk Ultra II. The Extreme III is only marginally faster than the Ultra II, but with higher tolerance for extremes of heat and cold - unless you're a wildlife photographer its not worth the extra money. The fact is that card writing speeds are limited by the camera's firmware and processor and all but the most high-end D-SLRs & medium-format cameras won't run faster with a faster card. Most camera makers set the upper limit at 4.5 mb/s to keep on the safe side.
 
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