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In January, OWC introduced their new Atlas S Professional V90 UHS-II SD Playing cards, out there in 32GB, 64GB, 128GB and 256GB capacities. They’re priced very competitively, too – that’s to say, they’re cheaper than lots of their V90 rivals however nonetheless slightly costlier than V60 UHS-II playing cards.As V90 playing cards, they assure sustained write speeds of not less than 90MB/sec. Based on OWC, real-world testing has offered write speeds of as much as 276MB/sec and skim speeds of as much as 290MB/sec. Such claims are simple sufficient to confirm – not less than, one would assume so – so when OWC supplied to ship us some to check out, we determined to place these speeds to the check ourselves.We’ve discovered up to now from some producers that completely different capacities of reminiscence playing cards, even from throughout the similar product line, can usually present completely different learn and write speeds, so we requested OWC to ship us certainly one of every capability to check and examine with one another.We’ve spent the final couple of weeks placing the playing cards via some real-world use inside precise cameras. Which means Nikons for stills and Panasonics for video. There’s not a lot to report on this facet. They behaved just about as one would count on. Buffers cleared rapidly when taking pictures stills and the playing cards had been by no means discovered to be too gradual with video for the sort of footage we had been taking pictures. Admittedly, we weren’t capable of max out the in-camera write speeds all that a lot as our output pace was restricted by the max 400Mbps footage on the Panasonic GH5. 400Mbps might be dealt with simply fantastic by V60 playing cards, so the OWC V90 playing cards additionally all dealt with it as simply with out breaking a sweat.In addition to the pace claims, OWC additionally boasts as much as 10x the endurance of competing playing cards, with as much as 10x as a lot whole knowledge written earlier than the playing cards die out. This explicit declare wasn’t actually potential to check with out killing a bunch of playing cards to see the place they fell over, so the long run sturdiness checks must wait. We’ll replace this put up if and when one dies. If we haven’t informed you that one’s died but by the point you’re studying this, then you may safely assume they’re all nonetheless working simply fantastic.The pace testsI’m utilizing the ProGrade Digital CompactFlash and UHS-II SD card reader for these checks for causes that can grow to be obvious in a future article. However the quick model is that on the subject of pace, the reminiscence card reader you select issues simply as a lot because the reminiscence card pace itself. And the ProGrade reader seems to be the quickest reader I’ve for these playing cards. I examined 5 completely different card readers from Lexar, SanDisk, Hoodman and even OWC’s personal UHS-II USB hub however the ProGrade reader got here up on high and probably the most constant speeds from one check to the subsequent with every card I attempted from various completely different manufacturers when plugged into the USB 3.2 Gen 2 Sort-C USB socket on my ASUS ZenBook Professional. So, that’s the one I used.As talked about, OWC despatched us all 4 capacities of Atlas S Professional V90 playing cards to check out in order that we will see if the pace is constant all through the vary. We’ve seen up to now that there might be some variability between completely different capacities in a product line, so we wished to see the outcomes first-hand. OWC does be aware some very slight variations on the packaging with their very own real-world checks displaying 290MB/sec learn pace throughout the board and between 275-277MB/sec for the write pace.For every card, we ran the pace check 5 occasions utilizing AJA System Check to offer us an concept of consistency and to offer an total common throughout a number of checks. This is similar course of we’ve used up to now with the SanDisk and Silicon Energy 1TB microSD playing cards because it tends to supply probably the most steady and dependable outcomes. I’ve added pictures of the packaging above every of the charts to point out the OWC’s personal marketed max pace check claims for every of the 4 capacities.32GB OWC Atlas S Professional V90 UHS-II SD CardThe 32GB OWC Atlas S Professional V90 UHS-II SD card introduced common learn and write speeds of 268.6MB/sec and 254.6MB/sec respectively.64GB OWC Atlas S Professional V90 UHS-II SD CardThe 64GB OWC Atlas S Professional V90 UHS-II SD card introduced common learn and write speeds of 267.4MB/sec and 246.4MB/sec respectively.128GB OWC Atlas S Professional V90 UHS-II SD CardThe 128GB OWC Atlas S Professional V90 UHS-II SD card introduced common learn and write speeds of 267MB/sec and 255.4MB/sec respectively.256GB OWC Atlas S Professional V90 UHS-II SD CardThe 256GB OWC Atlas S Professional V90 UHS-II SD card introduced common learn and write speeds of 266.8MB/sec and 255.8MB/sec respectively.Outcomes and conclusionsAs you may see, the outcomes don’t fairly meet the best pace claims of OWC, though they’re nonetheless very quick and much exceed the V90 specification. I wouldn’t hesitate to make use of these in any digital camera that required a V90 card, from a pace standpoint. So far as longevity and reliability… OWC says that they’ve very excessive endurance, with over 29,000 whole full-card write cycles, because of their use of pseudo-Single-Stage Cell (pSLC) expertise – which claims 10x larger endurance than customary SD playing cards. However, solely time will inform. All I can say for now’s that these have behaved completely for us within the time that we’ve been placing them via their paces to date.As a facet be aware, one factor I discovered fairly stunning whereas doing these checks was the pace variability of UHS-II reminiscence card readers. As talked about above, I attempted 5 completely different readers from well-known manufacturers in the course of the checks, with write pace outcomes as little as 185MB/sec and as excessive as 260MB/sec on the identical card relying on which reader I used to be utilizing. For that reason, I don’t assume we will actually blame OWC if our personal checks don’t fairly match up with OWC’s checks. The cardboard reader used positively comes into play and we don’t know which reader OWC was utilizing for their very own “real-world checks” – it will be good if reminiscence card producers may publish this info together with their pace claims in order that we will all profit from these speeds at dwelling and never be crippled by our card readers. I must do some extra testing with all of those readers and completely different playing cards, however count on a put up on this matter sooner or later!Whereas the entire playing cards carried out slightly under the marketed speeds printed on the packaging, all of them carried out fairly constantly, though there was a slight dip in write pace on the 64GB capability card for some cause. However a ~9MB/sec variance is just a few 3.6% deviation from the opposite three, which is fairly negligible at these speeds. Over an hour’s price of transfers, it’s about an additional two minutes.The common learn and write speeds of all 4 capacitiesNote: It’s additionally price stating presently that the 128GB ProGrade Digital V90 card in the identical reader on the identical USB 3.2 Gen 2 socket on the identical laptop gave common learn & write speeds of solely 248MB/sec and 220MB/sec respectively. That is considerably decrease than all 4 OWC playing cards on this evaluation, though additionally nicely above the V90 specification.For many people, that pace distinction between V60 and V90 won’t be necessary given the speeds that almost all of our cameras really require proper now. However with new cameras being launched that demand increasingly more pace – significantly for prime bitrate, excessive framerate video – V90 goes to be important for some. And even when your digital camera doesn’t want it proper now, unloading information from V90 playing cards to your laptop continues to be going to be quicker than unloading V60 playing cards. In case you’ve obtained 4 or 5 cameras going concurrently to cowl a number of angles of an occasion, that may be a giant time saver.UHS-II playing cards are nonetheless fairly costly in comparison with their UHS-I counterparts, however they’ve come down in value so much during the last couple of years. And whereas OWC’s UHS-II V90 playing cards may nonetheless appear slightly costly, sitting round $1 per gigabyte, in comparison with the UHS-II V60 playing cards out there available on the market right this moment, they’re on the decrease finish of the worth vary for UHS-II V90 playing cards with a lot of the competitors costing 10-50% extra for a similar capacities.In case you want (or just need) a V90 UHS-II card, the OWC playing cards are a stable contender. They simply meet and exceed the expectations required of the V90 specification, however do keep in mind that if you’d like these max marketed learn & write speeds if you’re utilizing them on the pc, it should rely closely in your card reader.The OWC Atlas S Professional UHS-II SD Playing cards are available for purchase now in 4 capacities of 32GB for $39, 64GB for $69, 128GB for $119 and 256GB for $249.
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