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"Sharding" Mode wit...
 
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"Sharding" Mode with Dual Memory Cards for 2x throughput

 
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Last Post by Aaron_Feldman 2 years ago
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 Aaron_Feldman
(@aaron_feldman)
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Topic starter May 8, 2023 9:57 pm  

Camera makers have gone to great lengths to deliver high performance camera storage. But I'm not aware of any cameras that utilize a seemingly simple technique that would improve write performance: Sharding. More specifically, a stream of photos could be split across dual memory cards, odd-numbered files to one card and even-numbered files to the other, to achieve double the total bandwidth of a single card. Why not use this technique? Could we dream of receiving this capability in a firmware update? Do any cameras have it already?

Better write performance would be particularly useful for high-speed cameras that aren't blessed with CFExpress cards or deep buffers. The Canon R7 shooting ~40 megabyte full raw files at 30 FPS has a few seconds of buffer at best. After that, it's bottlenecked by the ~300MB/s max throughput of a UHS-II card, equating to perhaps 7 or 8 FPS, back of the envelope. Sharding across two UHS-II cards could give it 15 FPS with a full buffer (assuming we shoot RAW only, no jpegs).

From a hardware perspective, the only bottleneck I can think of would be between the data buffer and the card bus controller. Even that link can surely handle more throughput than a single memory card, if the camera can already write RAW+Fine jpeg streams to dual cards at the same rate that it can write RAW to a single card.


   
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