p.8 #1 · Deal alert -- OWC CFe-A 4.0 cards on sale
I bought a card from BHphoto before I realized it would be cheaper through OWC...not worth the effort of returning it and paying return postage...this card came with the adapter!
I bought another card and a reader from OWC and it just arrived...no adapter with either the card or the reader.
About as unhappy as Mike except by fluke, I have a reader. Of course since I wanted to check the cards, my old iMac has too old an operating system to use the app and my Laptop has the latest firmware and supposedly it doesn't work either, but haven't tried using it yet.
I don't have a CFe NVME 1.4 reader at this location. The speeds seem near the limit for NVMe single lanes (1.3), so that is probably the limiting factor. Realistically the write speeds should be adequate for the current cameras. It's still unclear what is up with being only VPG 200 vs. VPG 400. Maybe somebody has info on how the controller uses the flash memory.
EBH
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Thanks, I couldn't get mine to go over 800 MB/s using various USB 3 ports and OWC USB 4 reader. I suspect the reader, but I will only be able to test an USB 3.2 2x2 (20 Gb/s) reader next week...
p.8 #4 · Deal alert -- OWC CFe-A 4.0 cards on sale
EB-1 wrote:
I'm not seeing any Type A readers from OWC that are compatible with NVMe 1.4 (PCIe 4.0), but I may be missing some.
EBH
No, OWC only makes a Type B 4.0 reader but it ships Type A to B adapters with all its cards... or at least it used to. I bought two 480GB cards last month, one from B&H and one direct from OWC and both came with adapters.
j4nu wrote:
Thanks, I couldn't get mine to go over 800 MB/s using various USB 3 ports and OWC USB 4 reader. I suspect the reader, but I will only be able to test an USB 3.2 2x2 (20 Gb/s) reader next week...
USB 3.x ports can only do up to a theoretical maximum of 10Gbps, which is roughly 1.2GB/s, but real world speeds are usually less than that for various reasons like cable quality, drivers, CPU overheads, latency, flow control etc. I've never really seen much more than about 850MB/s from a USB3.2 port TBH. The 2x2 ports can do double that but are not always fully supported. You need USB4 or TB3/4 (theoretical maximum of 40gbps, or 5GB/s) to max out a 4.0 card/reader.
p.8 #5 · Deal alert -- OWC CFe-A 4.0 cards on sale
I think 20gbps (USB 3.2 2x2) should be plenty for around 1600 MB/s transfers... But that's only part of the story as you still need to have enough bandwidth "inside" the PC. Anyways, I'll try it out with 20gbps reader and type-A to type-B adapter for the cards next week ...
wordfool wrote:
No, OWC only makes a Type B 4.0 reader but it ships Type A to B adapters with all its cards... or at least it used to. I bought two 480GB cards last month, one from B&H and one direct from OWC and both came with adapters.
USB 3.x ports can only do up to a theoretical maximum of 10Gbps, which is roughly 1.2GB/s, but real world speeds are usually less than that for various reasons like cable quality, drivers, CPU overheads, latency, flow control etc. I've never really seen much more than about 850MB/s from a USB3.2 port TBH. The 2x2 ports can do double that but are not always fully supported. You need USB4 or TB3/4 (theoretical maximum of 40gbps, or 5GB/s) to max out a 4.0 card/reader. ...Show more →
p.8 #7 · Deal alert -- OWC CFe-A 4.0 cards on sale
j4nu wrote:
I think 20gbps (USB 3.2 2x2) should be plenty for around 1600 MB/s transfers... But that's only part of the story as you still need to have enough bandwidth "inside" the PC. Anyways, I'll try it out with 20gbps reader and type-A to type-B adapter for the cards next week ...
It would be great if you can find a faster USB 3 Gen 2x2 / USB 4 reader that is only for Type A. I'm not sure it is worthwhile given that the card read speed is not very important to me at this point (I normally D/L in the field), but may be of some value in future. I'm concerned that the cards will overheat on full write cycles. Mine was already reaching 70°C+ on that OWC adapater in the PCIe 3.0 reader.
I'm not understanding what you mean by bandwidth inside the computer. Are you concerned about the sustained writes of a target drive such as SSD after pSLC is exhausted or something else? Of course if the data is being passed through to a slower target like a NAS with HDDs then the card reader may not be a bottleneck.
p.8 #8 · Deal alert -- OWC CFe-A 4.0 cards on sale
I don't think there is a type A 20gbps reader yet .
As for thermals, I don't know if the adapter contributes negatively - I'll have to check.
I didn't want to go into details, but if your PC doesn't have a USB 2x2 port built-in, then adding one through pcie / nvme can run into limitations of the pcie bandwidth / lanes shared between other devices . I want to find out if the OWC reader was not able to switch to 2x2 properly in my case or it's something other in my old pc (though I shuffled everything inside so that would be a surprise ) ...
EB-1 wrote:
It would be great if you can find a faster USB 3 Gen 2x2 / USB 4 reader that is only for Type A. I'm not sure it is worthwhile given that the card read speed is not very important to me at this point (I normally D/L in the field), but may be of some value in future. I'm concerned that the cards will overheat on full write cycles. Mine was already reaching 70°C+ on that OWC adapater in the PCIe 3.0 reader.
I'm not understanding what you mean by bandwidth inside the computer. Are you concerned about the sustained writes of a target drive such as SSD after pSLC is exhausted or something else? Of course if the data is being passed through to a slower target like a NAS with HDDs then the card reader may not be a bottleneck.
p.8 #10 · Deal alert -- OWC CFe-A 4.0 cards on sale
j4nu wrote:
I think 20gbps (USB 3.2 2x2) should be plenty for around 1600 MB/s transfers... But that's only part of the story as you still need to have enough bandwidth "inside" the PC. Anyways, I'll try it out with 20gbps reader and type-A to type-B adapter for the cards next week ...
EB-1 wrote:
It would be great if you can find a faster USB 3 Gen 2x2 / USB 4 reader that is only for Type A. I'm not sure it is worthwhile given that the card read speed is not very important to me at this point (I normally D/L in the field), but may be of some value in future. I'm concerned that the cards will overheat on full write cycles. Mine was already reaching 70°C+ on that OWC adapater in the PCIe 3.0 reader.
I'm not understanding what you mean by bandwidth inside the computer. Are you concerned about the sustained writes of a target drive such as SSD after pSLC is exhausted or something else? Of course if the data is being passed through to a slower target like a NAS with HDDs then the card reader may not be a bottleneck.
EBH ...Show more → j4nu wrote:
I don't think there is a type A 20gbps reader yet .
As for thermals, I don't know if the adapter contributes negatively - I'll have to check.
I didn't want to go into details, but if your PC doesn't have a USB 2x2 port built-in, then adding one through pcie / nvme can run into limitations of the pcie bandwidth / lanes shared between other devices . I want to find out if the OWC reader was not able to switch to 2x2 properly in my case or it's something other in my old pc (though I shuffled everything inside so that would be a surprise ) ... ...Show more →
I have at least one home system with a USB 3.2 2x2 port from the chipset (rear I/O panel). I also have a laptop with 2x USB 4 ports. It seems like full speed transfers would be possible with an appropriate Type A reader, or am I missing something?
p.8 #11 · Deal alert -- OWC CFe-A 4.0 cards on sale
Yes, if only there was an USB4 or USB3 2x2 type A reader .
But you should be seeing max (~1600 MB/s) speeds for these cards using OWC USB4 reader (with type B adapter) with the laptop already.
I hope the same can be achieved with USB3 2x2 reader...
EB-1 wrote:
I have at least one home system with a USB 3.2 2x2 port from the chipset (rear I/O panel). I also have a laptop with 2x USB 4 ports. It seems like full speed transfers would be possible with an appropriate Type A reader, or am I missing something?
p.8 #13 · Deal alert -- OWC CFe-A 4.0 cards on sale
EB-1 wrote:
It would be great if you can find a faster USB 3 Gen 2x2 / USB 4 reader that is only for Type A. I'm not sure it is worthwhile given that the card read speed is not very important to me at this point (I normally D/L in the field), but may be of some value in future. I'm concerned that the cards will overheat on full write cycles. Mine was already reaching 70°C+ on that OWC adapater in the PCIe 3.0 reader.
I'm not understanding what you mean by bandwidth inside the computer. Are you concerned about the sustained writes of a target drive such as SSD after pSLC is exhausted or something else? Of course if the data is being passed through to a slower target like a NAS with HDDs then the card reader may not be a bottleneck.
Yeah, I'm not yet seeing the value of Type 4, 4.0 readers that all (all 3-4 of them currently available) cost about $100 just yet. For some people perhaps time is money, but I'm happy to sacrifice a few extra minutes and stick with my current reader. I'm curious about the temperature you were seeing on the OWC card -- was that the card case itself (internal) or just the reader enclosure? A hot enclosure is generally a good thing IMO because it indicates a good heatsink functioning well. A hot card less so!
Transfer speeds via USB can certainly be bottlenecked by the speed of the drive you're writing to (especially if it's an SSD with no DRAM that tends to choke after a while) but most PCIe3.0 and higher SSDs should easily cope with a fast card reader unless you're writing a bunch of other stuff at the same time and/or the drive has inadequate cooling and starts to throttle. Another bottleneck can be how the PCIe lanes in the computer are assigned, and what else might be sharing the lanes on which the USB port operates (then you're at the mercy of whatever flow control the computer decides to implement). And then you have to make sure you have a USB4 or TB3/4 certified cable -- many cheap chinese cables apparently don't support the sustained speeds they claim to, especially if they're over 1m.
Using it on a Thunderbolt 4 port, with the OWC A-to-B adapter, I'm getting about 1600mbps writes and 1500mbps reads, which is essentially the rated speed of the 480GB card. (This compares to about 900/750 with a 10gbps reader.) Not bad.
p.8 #16 · Deal alert -- OWC CFe-A 4.0 cards on sale
The unfortunate thing about having cards from different manufacturers is that OWC, Prograde, Angelbird etc. require me to buy their own proprietary card reader for firmware upgrades, maintenance, diagnostics an so on. If I had known that, I would have been more systematic in my card purchases (I do like that OWC bundled an A to B adapter with theirs, since I have both types of cards).
p.8 #17 · Deal alert -- OWC CFe-A 4.0 cards on sale
wordfool wrote:
Yeah, I'm not yet seeing the value of Type 4, 4.0 readers that all (all 3-4 of them currently available) cost about $100 just yet. For some people perhaps time is money, but I'm happy to sacrifice a few extra minutes and stick with my current reader. I'm curious about the temperature you were seeing on the OWC card -- was that the card case itself (internal) or just the reader enclosure? A hot enclosure is generally a good thing IMO because it indicates a good heatsink functioning well. A hot card less so!
Transfer speeds via USB can certainly be bottlenecked by the speed of the drive you're writing to (especially if it's an SSD with no DRAM that tends to choke after a while) but most PCIe3.0 and higher SSDs should easily cope with a fast card reader unless you're writing a bunch of other stuff at the same time and/or the drive has inadequate cooling and starts to throttle. Another bottleneck can be how the PCIe lanes in the computer are assigned, and what else might be sharing the lanes on which the USB port operates (then you're at the mercy of whatever flow control the computer decides to implement). And then you have to make sure you have a USB4 or TB3/4 certified cable -- many cheap chinese cables apparently don't support the sustained speeds they claim to, especially if they're over 1m. ...Show more →
I'm seeing a temperature increase to 80°C after literally less than 3 minutes of sustained writing when the adapater is used. results were similar in two different types of Type B readers, so it appears the card+adapter is the issue rather than the reader. After 80°C speeds really slow down (throttling to protect). Using a cheapie Type A reader that has very limited heatsinking it writes about 80% (~8 minutes) before overheating.
I suppose they assume you only read from the computer and write in the camera. If cameras ever get to the full sustained CFe 4 speeds they will have to dissipate all that heat.
I have decent internal SSDs. A couple of years ago I used this array, but later upgraded.
p.8 #18 · Deal alert -- OWC CFe-A 4.0 cards on sale
I purchased two cards directly from OWC and neither one came with the A to B adapter. I sent a technical support request via the website and asked about the missing adapter. A representative replied and said that no adapters are included in spite of the product page showing them at the time I ordered.
I also provided my serial numbers and asked if they had the latest firmware already applied. The representative had no idea what I was talking about.
How are the rest of you contacting OWC? Is there a different form or e-mail address I should be using?
p.8 #19 · Deal alert -- OWC CFe-A 4.0 cards on sale
I contacted OWC last week on their site and provided the FW number. Today there was a reply that if I bought the card in 2025 it was good and that they needed the S/N. I feel they could have handled the whole situation much better by posting the info on the website by FW number and list of affected S/N range if they have that. The FW number should be definitive if that fixes the problem. I have write/verify read tested the card pretty heavily and run it to throttling multiple times in the A-B adapater. It is good so far and adequately tested IMO.
p.8 #20 · Deal alert -- OWC CFe-A 4.0 cards on sale
MSantiago wrote:
I purchased two cards directly from OWC and neither one came with the A to B adapter. I sent a technical support request via the website and asked about the missing adapter. A representative replied and said that no adapters are included in spite of the product page showing them at the time I ordered.
I also provided my serial numbers and asked if they had the latest firmware already applied. The representative had no idea what I was talking about.
How are the rest of you contacting OWC? Is there a different form or e-mail address I should be using?
I ordered a 480GB Atlas Pro from the OWC web site macsales.com. I have not opened the box since I plan to return it, but the box says "A to B Adapter Included". I called customer support to arrange a return since I don't want to buy an OWC card reader to be able to update firmware. The customer support person offered a discount on a reader, which I declined, and informed me after the call via email that the card I have does not require a firmware update. The customer support number I called was listed on the memory card packing list, 800-275-4576.
...
. I want to find out if the OWC reader was not able to switch to 2x2 properly in my case or it's something other in my old pc (though I shuffled everything inside so that would be a surprise 