XQD Discussion

Ironheart

The obvious reason to drop PCIe 3 support is that it is electrically different from PCIe 2 and the bit encoding on the bus is completely different as well. This is why it is only 8GT/s vs a doubling of the 2.5

Ade

Hmm I guess it depends on what you mean by different. It might be more precise to say that PCIe 3 is electrically compatible with PCIe 2.

PCIe 2 devices can negotiate channel bandwidths of 2.5 GHz and 5 GHz, while PCIe 3 devices can additionally negotiate a 8 GHz channel. PCIe 2 devices can only use 8b/10b encoding while PCIe 3 devices support both 8b/10b as well as the more efficient 128b/130b encoding.

That means PCIe 2 and PCIe 3 devices can freely and fully interoperate with each other. You can plug in a PCIe 2 device into a PCIe 3 bus, or a PCIe 3 device into a PCIe 2 bus -- and they will all "natively" work together perfectly without the need for any translation or compatibility layer.

It might be useful to think of PCIe 3 as an "extension" of PCIe 2, rather than being something entirely "different" than PCIe 2.

Ironheart

Yes, but for a card to take advantage of both version 2 and 3 speeds requires it to support two different signaling methods and two different bit encodings = more expensive. Hence the dropped 3 support for the next turn of the crank.

Golf007sd

Well looks like Sony has just released their New G Series of XQD cards:

The new G Series is compliant to XQD Format Version 2, both PCI Express Gen.2 and USB3.0 interface are supported on a newly-developed controller for high performance.
The G Series delivers increased read 400MB/s and write 350MB/s speeds, which is three times the speed of the previous N Series cards.

Personally, I just place a pre-order for the new 32Gig version.

DenverShooter

It would be nice if Sony released a new driver for the XQD QDA-EX1 card reader for Mac OS 10.10.

Repeated attempts to contact Sony Support have failed.

Be one thing if it was cheap...

Denver Shooter

DenverShooter

So I just spent 20 min of my life trying the Sony support website "Chat". After being "transferred" to three different folks the answer is they don't support it on chat and you have to call Sony.

And Sony wonders why they are getting their ass handed to them by the competition in virtually every space they are in. One needs to look no further than their support.

Denver Shooter

Golf007sd

Got a notification that my pre-order for the new Sony G Series XQD has shipped. Looking forward in seeing how this new memory card improves the overall R/W speed in clearing out the buffer. Not that this has ever been an issue for me on my D4, but still, I always hunger for more speed :P

Photobug

Got a notification that my pre-order for the new Sony G Series XQD has shipped. Looking forward in seeing how this new memory card improves the overall R/W speed in clearing out the buffer. Not that this has ever been an issue for me on my D4, but still, I always hunger for more speed :P

Just remember that "speed kills". As my daughter has said for years, "what gives with Men and the Need For Speed?" Fast memory cards really do make a difference. I find it amazing how many photographers use cheap memory cards that are slower than a turtle.

Golf007sd

So toady I got the new Sony XQD G-series.



The image above shows you what comes with the new package. What I found very useful was that Sony is providing a new reader for the G memory card. However, this new reader only works with G memory cards. This is kinda lame on Sony not making it backward compatible. I have not been able to test to see if my Sony Express Card reader work with it yet because Sony is dragging their butt in updating the needed driver to work with OS X 10...not happy with them on that part as well. Bad-boy Sony...bad!

Now, if you were luck to get one of the early D4's when they first came available, Nikon and Sony had a nice bundle with every D4. Namely, it came with a 16Gig XQD H-memory card; moreover, they also offered a USB card reader as well (Good-boy's Sony/Nikon). This original reader does recognize the new G-memroy cards, but it is not USB 3.0, thus the transfer rate is I'm sure maxed out at the USB 2.0 read/write speed. My current MacBook Pro 17" lacks USB 3.0 so I cannot fully take advantage of the G-Card transfer rate. Having said that, I was still able to get better transfer rate using the G card reader than the original card reader that came with the H series memory card.

1.5Gig worth of image taken with my S-series 168 MB/s memory card took 14.45 second to transfer (via original card reader); while with the new G-seriers 400MB/s card took 13.8 seconds (via G card reader). The buffer does clean-out faster as well, thus allowing less time between shooting cycles when buffer fills up, but the exact level of performance gained is something I did not test.

I'm sure more precise test will begin showing up on the web, by others with more sophisticated testing equipment than mine, but so far I'm pleased with the performance.

Side bar: The G-card reader has a removable cap that expose a USB connector, thus allowing you to connect it directly to a USB on a laptop or to the front of a desktop computer. If you lack such an interface, then you put the cap back on and use the extender cable provided.

rmp

Hello All,

Thank you for this thread on memory card specs. I have not read any of the history of the standards or actual cards, and now, after reading this tread, I do not feel I need to bother. You have done all the work for me. Thanks again.

Bob

NSXTypeR

A bit of a bump, but can anyone speculate on why Canon isn't adopting XQD and instead sticking to CF and SD cards?

Maybe they don't want to pay the licensing fees for XQD cards? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

WestEndFoto

It might be cheaper just to have a bigger buffer.

starralazn

maybe because CFast is the successor to CompactFlash? although its not backwards compatible..

NSXTypeR

I was thinking it wasn't worth having bent Compact Flash pins occasionally, because that could really ruin your day if you're in the middle of nowhere.

heartyfisher

cfast dont use pins anymore ...

IanG

Golf007sd said:

So toady I got the new Sony XQD G-series.

I'm sorry, who is "toady" please?

starralazn

maybe he meant today

Ironheart

The comments all have dates. That one is November 2014.

NSXTypeR

Looks like Sony and Nikon really like sabotaging the XQD format.

spraynpray

Not Lexar?