Lexar confirms that CFexpress cards run hotter than SD cards in cameras – and says it's an industry-wide challenge
Posted by wickedplayer494@reddit | hardware | View on Reddit | 62 comments
bobj33@reddit
A Ferrari also uses more fuel than a Honda Civic. Going faster uses more energy.
I have a SanDisk 512GB Extreme PRO CFexpress which has a max write speed of 1400 MB/s
My Nikon Z8 can record 8K video @60 fps. I'm not sure what the bit rate is of the videos I trust CF Express more than SD.
My SD UHS-II cards max out at 312 MB/s
The new SD Express standard has multiple versions and in theory could be faster but none of the current cards are and I don't think there is any camera that supports it yet. It seems only for Nintendo Switch 2 systems right now.
My Z8 has given me some "card hot" warnings but it keeps shooting.
It can
IguassuIronman@reddit
Interestingly, Top Gear raced a Prius against a BMW M3 on a track and the BMW got better gas mileage when going all out
Plank_With_A_Nail_In@reddit
Full throttle performance has been a solve issue since the 1920's, all of the R&D on car engines has been focused on efficiency at low throttle openings. Racing is complex when it comes to the throttle, foot fully down or foot fully off.
Plank_With_A_Nail_In@reddit
Any serious photographer knows that even SD cards are disposable items and carry many many backups.
SD cards do not last long when used regularly and never thought these new ones would last any longer.
spellstrike@reddit
Why not just have your storage medium be offloaded to something behind an ethernet connection. There it can have as much cooling and be away from the camera.
Tricky12321@reddit
Ethernet is likely to be too slow and have too much latency. The best ethernet max out at 10 gbit, you need fiber or very short ethernet runs to get above that.
spellstrike@reddit
lets be real, latency isn't a thing that is needed for writing a single file and read speeds don't matter for filming. From looking at what the sustained write speed the card looks to be lower than the burst. This isn't that far off of 10 g ethernet and that could plug into a enclosure for a SSD or a whole NAS that is much faster than a CF card.
Tricky12321@reddit
Not on a PC, but a highspeed camera really needs low latency. It might be a single file, but latency matters a lot when it is 10 gbit.
spez_is_cunt@reddit
Why?
airfryerfuntime@reddit
Because when you're shooting in RAW, every time you hit that button, you're instantly generating 80-100 megabyte files that need to go somewhere.
steik@reddit
DSLR's write to an internal memory buffer before transferring to a memory card. Example:
bhop_monsterjam@reddit
With super fast stacked and now global read out sensors becoming more mainstream, that 100 buffer can full quick, they have to be offloaded almost just as fast or else you'll just fill the buffer.
airfryerfuntime@reddit
Yes, and they don't stay on internal memory. Internal memory fills up almost instantly at an event like an airshow or something, so those files need to go on the card as fast as possible.
spez_is_cunt@reddit
Ah, that's a good point, when you're shooting in burst mode, you want the buffer to start clearing out ASAP!
FlarblesGarbles@reddit
40Gb is more than enough for almost all CFExpress use cases in cameras.
forgottenendeavours@reddit
Offloaded storage is actually already a thing. Cameras (at least at the prosumer / low-end professional) don't use ethernet, but for stills, many offer USB 3.0+ connectivity for tethering to a phone or laptop and can store shots directly to the host device, and for video, HDMI output to a capture box can actually be the best method, since it can be the only way to get full-res 10bit uncompressed feeds out of a camera.
HDMI output to mitigate overheating would probably be quite a decent countermeasure for exactly the reason you suggested. Not the most convenient, no, but when you're running into overheating issues, you're probably running into storage and power issues too, so you're pretty much bound to be rolling with an external support rig for your camera anyway, and adding an external box to that isn't really the end of the world.
Hunter_Holding@reddit
Where's this ethernet cable going when I'm \~90 miles out from where I started, a 10 mile hike in beyond that, and laying in a creek bed? :/
There's a reason my camera has two 2TB CFexpress cards in it, because I don't really have that option....
And I'm sometimes shooting 5.5K RAW 60fps video. Rarely, but even so, my full speed raw shooting of stills..... well, yea.
spellstrike@reddit
to a network attached storage in a backpack or secondary device that can be generic. full size enterprise ssds are much faster than a small card.
Hunter_Holding@reddit
Too much extra weight and power.
10G RJ45 interface takes about 4-5W of power to run continuously. And for anything beyond extremely short runs, requires really good cable for reliability.
Optical networking in a field camera is just begging for trouble, too. It's very fragile, you don't want it in anything constantly moving. Very easy to damage.
Extra battery/storage/etc? No thanks. I don't have any additional room as it is.
The enterprise SSDs really aren't faster but are more expensive and power hungry. (I work with a lot of "enterprise" gear, the benefits are in things like power-failure safety capacitors and wear resiliency, not performance)
For example, the maximum write speed spec of my card is about 27gbps - so 25gbit networking wouldn't be enough, so now we're looking at 50gbit networking.
The camera only needs 2600mbps / 2.6gbps maximum, so 5gbit networking, which is slightly more forgiving than 10gbit with cables, but not very much.
I also don't want ANY cables hanging off my gear, laying and rolling over, etc.
Nevermind factoring in the fact that I'm using water resistant (highly so) camera gear.
There's just no upside to your suggestion, but a hell of a lot of downside and extra cost.
I actively work to minimize gear, any suggestion that adds gear with no benefit is a complete non-starter.
steik@reddit
This idea is pretty stupid but you're massively overstating the cabling requirements for 10gbit ethernet:
You can get a 5 pack of Cat6a 20ft slimrun cables for $20 that are super flexible and thinner than probably any other cable you've connected to a computer in the last 20 years (30AWG is slimmer than a standard 3.5mm audio cable which usually don't go below 28AWG). They sell them as long as 50 feet and they'll do 10gbit all day long no problem. Off the spool Cat6a is required to guarantee 10gbit for 100 meters (328 feet).
I ran Cat5e in my house when I bought it in 2008 and I recently got a 10gbit switch and none of my runs are long enough that I'm not able to max out my 10gbit NICs/switch.
Hunter_Holding@reddit
I mean, I do a lot of 10G and higher all over the place, With the right interfaces and using enough power, a lot can be overcome.
Those slim cables I have a few hundred of here for short patches! not that exact one, but of similar thickness. The longer ones did exhibit increased error rates, though.
My qualification about 'really good cable' was more about the fact that half the 6A on the market is CCA shit-tier cable that can't meet spec. 'really good cable' in my book means it'll pass spec tests on a fluke analyzer when properly terminated.
But my main point there and what I started off with was really -
POWER. With power you can overcome a lot of defects and poorer quality. You're looking at about 5W per port on each side - so in this camera scenario, 5-10W total just for the two ports, not counting powering the larger more power hungry SSD itself.
Wheras with the CFexpress card, you're looking at maybe 3W total under load and around 2-50mW while idle.
-----
I'm actually doing some rework right now on my home stuff and my leased rack in a datacenter, so we're both getting a hardware refresh, got three 100gbit switches (cisco C3232C) behind me and two 40gbit switches (Arista DCS-7050QX-32-R) waiting for setup too. :D 2 of the ciscos and one of the aristas are going out west to upgrade my kit so I can get some faster uplinks, and one of the ciscos is going in the basement as the core, and the arista in the rack for now (I got a really good deal on all of 'em) even though my desktop and servers have 100G nics in 'em, rather strengthen up the core (and offload a ton of routing) first and build out the edges later.
steik@reddit
Nice. You clearly know your stuff. I just see a lot of misinformation about the cabling requirements for 10gbit ethernet being thrown around in general on reddit and I sometimes like to nitpick at it.
Jealous of your setup btw, I bought a mikrotik CCR2004-1G-12S+2XS with 2x 25gbit interfaces about a year ago but I still haven't taken the plunge on upgrading the NICs on my servers to accommodate it. Moving to a new house in a couple months though, going to redo a lot of things at that point.
Hunter_Holding@reddit
Bah, the C3434C's are pretty cheap on ebay.
Home router is just an SRX320 (so is the abused core out in that rack in cali..... it was a time crunch scenario).
I actually intend to move some of the routing in the HE datacenter rack down to the 3434C's for some networks that only need default route handling, but I'm also looking at bringing in 10 and 40G uplinks (there's a decent amount of machines in there filled with SSDs and 768GB ram each sitting criminally underutilized... )
$home is a different story, i'm using a lot of hackjob stuff, most of my runs are OM3 i did many years ago with media converters, though, so that'll be easy to upgrade links, lol. I got a lot of it for a steal at a hamfest, basically. 3750X's abound, cuz i got them many years ago for like $10 each. I stacked two in my basement just to increase the 10G port count to 4. Fortunately I have more stacking cables than I know what to do with...
Hell, i'm finally gonna be able to use all these useless SR optics I have on those servers out in cali, i bought a bunch of 2 port 10gig intel nics at one hamfest like 6 or 7 years ago for $5/ea that came with two SFPs taped to the box, in the 'real world' to talk to other providers/racks/etc LR/LRM is more preferred...
Fun times all around. I do a bit of a 'everything' type consulting/development side business outside of my day job to pay for my toys, basically (and fund some vacations and whatnot). Hell, I'll even upgrade your WinCE based oscilloscope to a newer WinCE release so it can speak IPv6. (And even sell you the legitimate license for that upgraded version, too! .... I have \~30 or so WinCE licenses sitting on my desk .... )
For NICs, I've been a big fan of the ebay value of ConnectX-5 based cards. Just know they're almost often, if unused, preconfigured in infiniband mode if they're dual IB/Eth cards, and you don't want to be me.
I spent an hour trying all kinds of switch config on the other end of the 100G link trying to figure out why nothing's working when you just need to use the mellanox utility to change the port's configuration on the desktop side....
I think I paid somewhere in the neighborhood of \~$150 per 2-port 100G NIC. Looks like they can be had (HP 872726-B21) for about $200-250 right now.
I see some ConnectX-5 100Gbe NICs single port for $150 or less though, hell, there's a dual port for $129! ConnectX-4 would be even cheaper and still have 100GbE options available though. I see a single port dell for $69.99
100 can play nicely with 25, so no worries there (100 is just 4 lanes of 25).
spellstrike@reddit
we wouldn't be having this conversation if the existing solution didn't have problems. There's plenty of people showing products of external storage that exist in real products of the past. Perhaps it's not ethernet that is the winner here but usb or some other interface could solve the heat issues on a high resolution camera. Not every camera needs to be within the footprint of what can be held in the hand. cell phones certainly would cover most uses cases if that were true.
Hunter_Holding@reddit
But ... it doesn't have problems?
I've been using my rig for 3 years now without issue.
It's a non-issue.
Having anything externally connected to a weather-resistant/water-resistant/dust-resistant camera though, is not going to fly, nor is adding any extra gear and weight.
My camera isn't "what can be held in a hand" - I use the L series 100-400 and 70-300 lenses on an EOS 1D X Mk III. That's not exactly a 'small handheld' 'cellphone' sized rig.
It's more along the lines of this: https://phototrend.fr/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/phototrend-canon-eos-1d-x-mark-iii-2082-940x627.jpg
But I'm carrying that on a neck strap, sometimes laying down, moving all over the place, holding it at odd angles, getting wet (under a waterfall was fun!), climbing, etc.
ANY cables coming off of it are a damage risk and liability.
ANY extra gear is weight that isn't needed, and power that must be supplied to it.
spellstrike@reddit
Your use constraints don't necessarily mean it should apply to a 100 dollar or 10 million dollar camera.
Hunter_Holding@reddit
No, but they're common usage scenarios for these types of cameras (canon 5 and 1 series) that use these cards normally.
For those 100 dollar cameras, other types of memory are sufficient.
But anyway, as I pointed out to someone else just now, a remote system means POWER consumption. I'm not gonna spend 5-10W PLUS powering the larger more power hungry SSD when the current solution uses 2 to 50mW idle and 3W under load.
ClickClick_Boom@reddit
I really don't understand why you think people want their cameras to be more bulky.
DuhPai@reddit
Welcome back Sony Portapak. What's old is new again I guess.
Adam_The_Impaler@reddit
Similar premise (external storage) exists for some cameras but not using ethernet. Some cameras allow you to use external SSDs via USB C. Theoretically you could satisfy the bandwidth requirements of CF Express 4 with USB 4 or USB 4 version 2.0. Ive been out of the camera game too long to know if the external SSD thing caught on to most manufacturers but I know BlackMagic supported it as of a few years ago
MediocreAd8440@reddit
CFExpress uses PCIe - so super low latency, and super fast writes. Ethernet as a protocol has too much overhead as a protocol compared to what would be needed to offload data from fast buffers in real time.
spellstrike@reddit
disagree that it's not fast enough. The real question is if that generates more heat than local storage to support the networking interface.
MediocreAd8440@reddit
Oh It's fast alright, in sheer bandwidth, but not low latency in the RAM (Buffer)->Local NVME storage (CFE) sense. and 10GBE and above controllers, which are what you'd need to rival a CFE card do need some sort of passive heatsink so might not be the most efficient use of space either. Some numbers about latency if you're interested - https://simplyblock.io/glossary/nvme-tcp-vs-local-nvme/#:\~:text=workload%20and%20team.-,Latency:%20Local%20NVMe%20vs.%20NVMe/TCP%20vs.%20NVMe,)%2C%20which%20adds%20infrastructure%20complexity.
StarbeamII@reddit
Turns out doing a 2-4GB/s transfer rate will generate more heat than 300MB/s.
kinkycarbon@reddit
Makes you wonder why it’s used in DSLRs.
StrategyEven3974@reddit
The data rate is worth the heat tradeoff every time.
When shooting photos you're never going to overheat your DSLR (mirrorless).
krystof24@reddit
Yeah but when shooting video many overheat regularly
StrategyEven3974@reddit
That's largely been solved. Every cinema camera won't overheat because it has active cooling. Even the Canon R5 mkii has largely solved the overheating issue from the original R5.
krystof24@reddit
I'm definitely not a camera nerd. I was thinking more about general purpose mirrorless cameras people use for YouTube and such
StrategyEven3974@reddit
CFexpress is the line in the sand. If your camera is entry level, it won't have a CFexpress slot. If it's more pro, it will. They won't build a camera with a CF Express slot that can't handle the heat.
airmantharp@reddit
That’s what all of those are
ashyjay@reddit
I’d say so, it’s usually only video or offloading photos where the memory cards gets hot, but they get scoldingly hot.
the__storm@reddit
The write speeds are very beneficial for shooting RAW, plus reliability is probably a factor.
FatalCakeIncident@reddit
That and read speeds. SD typically reads at about 80MB/s, CFexB at 800MB/s. If you've got large volumes of data (and for me, I'm normally around 500-1000GB per trip across all of my cameras), that makes a huge difference.
qtx@reddit
DSLRs aren't a thing anymore. There is only one company left (Pentax) that still makes DSLRs, everyone else went mirrorless years ago.
f1rstx@reddit
SD card drives me mad with my Canon R6II - it’s painfully slow when you shoot even not that huge amount of RAW photos. Only because of CFe i want to upgrade it to R6III
antifocus@reddit
Pretty simple, burst shots for professionals, high quality video for content creators, and faster file transfer for processing.
hi_im_bored13@reddit
One benefit is CFexpress monitors health whereas SD cards aren't require to communicate any health info to the host. They will silently slow & eventually silently fail
wickedplayer494@reddit (OP)
I have to wonder how SD Express fares in comparison. Nintendo has basically already singlehandedly assured the success of microSD Express, but progress on its full-size companion has been scant in comparison, aside from ADATA saying that they were planning on shoving a card or three out at some point.
MediocreAd8440@reddit
I highly doubt there'd be any advantage to SDE in thermal terms as both CF and SDE cards use PCIe/NVME under the hood, and the grade of flash required would largely be the same too. Same Flash+Similar or same controllers, same thermal footprint?
PastaPandaSimon@reddit
A different controller and thermal management can change a lot. Not that I believe so much progress has happened in such a short time span, but let's see first.
alexforencich@reddit
Probably even worse since it's basically the same thing but an even smaller package.
kuddlesworth9419@reddit
I've never needed the speeds of a CFexpress card. SD cards always seemed fast enough for me and they are cheaper for double the capacity.
KommandoKodiak@reddit
a poptop/cassete type loader for the flashcart that then sandwiches it FIRMLY against a thermal pad thats linked to a heat/pipe/sink
StrategyEven3974@reddit
Transfer Speed = Heat
Nobody can hide from the laws of thermodynamics
spellstrike@reddit
Make the heat somewhere else is about all we can do if you're going to generate the heat at all.
FlarblesGarbles@reddit
Why did we need Lexar to confirm that PCIE based high speed flash drives that often need heatsink when they're in a PC run hotter than an SD card?
hackenclaw@reddit
because may be thats how they trying to answer the tech illiterate people.
lintstah1337@reddit
not all PCIe based storage runs hot.
Most 2280 NVMe runs hot because the manufacturers push it for maximum performance instead of efficiency and the controller is manufactured on older node.
SMI SM2504XT, Phison E37T is manufactured on TSMC 6N and focuses on efficiency.
Samsung PM9E1 is manufactured on Samsung 5nm and focuses on efficiency.
FlarblesGarbles@reddit
Compared to SD cards though?
lintstah1337@reddit
Samsung PM9C1a is also available in 2230 and is Gen4 and the controller is manufactured on Samsung 5nm
Kioxia BG6 is also available in 2230 and is Gen4 and is optimized for low power.
FlarblesGarbles@reddit
But like I said before, compare to SD cards? They're cool and low power compared to other NVME drives.