Sony 256GB XQD Card Tests Good Twice with diglloydTools DiskTester, Puts Suspicion of Data Loss Bug Squarely on Panasonic S1R
Related: 2017 iMac 5K, 4K and 5K display, camera cards, CFExpress camera storage card, computer display, diglloydTools, DiskTester, iMac, iMac 5K, Panasonic, Panasonic Lumix DC-S1R, Panasonic mirrorless, USB, XQD camera storage cards
Update April 23: although verification of the Sony 256GB XQD Card (remainder of post below) was compelling evidence that the card was good and the Panasonic S1R was/is at fault, I swapped cards to a Lexar 128GB XQD card. The first day shooting with the Lexar card, the S1R alerted me to write errors 5 or 6 times over 3 hours.
In other words, the Panasonic S1R looks to have a very serious problem, failing to work correctly with two different XQD cards of two different brands.
Loss of images is the kiss of death for any camera, and the S1R has destroyed about 20 images now. For what I’ve been shooting, I can shoot the frame again, but that’s not the case for many types of photography.
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About two weeks ago in Panasonic S1R: Data Loss with Sony XQD Card, I reported card errors but I wasn’t sure of the cause—camera or card. Since then I had card write errors 2 or 3 more times. I give credit to the Panasonic S1R for reporting the errors instead of silently failing. The card has been formatted many times in the camera, but the problem recurs.
I should have done this sooner, but I today tested the card in an XQD card reader using the fill-volume command of my software diglloydTools DiskTester (see also IntegrityChecker) The fill-volume command (which I use frequently for testing hard drives and SSDs) writes to 99% of the card capacity and then reads it back and verifies it byte-for-byte.
The tests ran to completion, and showed no errors. While not an absolute proof (could be a compatibility issue?), the rock-solid reliability of this exact-same card over the past year in the Nikon D850 and Nikon Z7 implicates the Panasonic S1R as the root cause.
Reader James K (NYC pro photog) writes:
This kind of problem is to be expected on a new top to the line system. Probably caused by not enough company testing under real world conditions. Not only could this affect you reputation but also your pocket book. If models are involved on a commercial advertising shoot you might be responsible for model fees and production costs. A pro would have to have at least two and possibly three bodies to feel halfway secure on a big money shoot. It also means that there are probably other hidden problems that will take 6 months of continuous use to uncover. Your readers should thank you for finding these significant errors. “Abandon all hope ye who enter here."
Lloyd you are really something. Why don’t the high end camera companies hire you to test their products BEFORE they unleash them on consumers? No one tests equipment like you, no one.
DIGLLOYD: one camera and one card do not make a pattern, but it is worrisome.
Test results from fill-volume command of diglloydTools DiskTester
Speed using a USB port on the 2018 Mac mini is rocking fast! Zero errors.
llcMini:DIGLLOYD lloyd$ disktester fill-volume SonyXQD DiskTester 2.2.14 64-bit, diglloydTools 2.2.15, 2017-12-24 18:12 Copyright 2006-2017 DIGLLOYD INC. All Rights Reserved Use of this software requires a license. See https://macperformanceguide.com/Software-License.html
OS X 10.14.4, 6 CPU cores @ 3000 MHz, 8192 MiB memory Thursday, April 18, 2019 at 09:28:12 Pacific Daylight Time
Volume: SonyXQD Num files: 1000 Space to fill: 232.4 GiB File size: 237 MiB Transfer size: 131072 KiB Fill with: "0x0000000000000000" Free space to remain: 1.40 GiB = 0.60%
Creating up to 1000 files of size 237 MiB on volume "SonyXQD" Speed shown includes file system create/open/allocate/write-- real world time. TARGET FOLDER: "/Volumes/SonyXQD/disktester-blobs"
Elapsed File# Qty 2sec 5sec 15sec 1min 2min 5min 15min 30min 60min 2s:15s 1m:5m ClockAvg 5s 4 1.05 GiB 226 219 219 219 219 219 219 219 219 1.03 1.00 212 10s 9 2.21 GiB 230 230 225 225 225 225 225 225 225 1.02 1.00 221 15s 14 3.37 GiB 232 231 227 227 227 227 227 227 227 1.02 1.00 224 20s 19 4.52 GiB 229 230 230 228 228 228 228 228 228 0.99 1.00 226 ......................... 754s 994 230.2 GiB 317 315 316 314 313 315 312 312 312 1.00 1.01 312
1000 files of size 237 MiB created in /Volumes/SonyXQD/disktester-blobs Total data written: 231.4 GiB Slowest write speed: 175 MiB/sec Average write speed: 312 MiB/sec Fastest write speed: 325 MiB/sec Average write time per file: 758.50 milliseconds .........................
Read 1000 files totaling 231.4 GiB in 681.08 seconds @ 348 MiB/sec MiB/sec write/read for fill-volume on SonyXQD Mean: 312 MiB/sec 348 MiB/sec StdDev: 17.2 MiB/sec 2.90 MiB/sec
unknown camera, unknown lens
[low-res image for bot]
On the 2017 iMac 5K
Speed on a USB 3.1 port through a hub on the 2017 iMac 5K is severely impaired, but no errors.
# using SonyXQD card reader on 2017 iMac 5K, USB 3.1 gen 1 diglloyd-iMac:DIGLLOYD lloyd$ disktester fill-volume SonyXQD DiskTester 2.2.15b 64-bit, diglloydTools 2.2.16 beta, 2018-01-24 07:42 Copyright 2006-2019 DIGLLOYD INC. All Rights Reserved Use of this software requires a license. See https://macperformanceguide.com/Software-License.html
OS X 10.13.6, 8 CPU cores @ 4200 MHz, 65536 MiB memory 2019-04-17 at 22:24:31
Volume: SonyXQD Num files: 1000 Space to fill: 232.4 GiB File size: 237 MiB Transfer size: 131072 KiB Fill with: "0x0000000000000000" Free space to remain: 1.40 GiB = 0.60%
Creating up to 1000 files of size 237 MiB on volume "SonyXQD" Speed shown includes file system create/open/allocate/write-- real world time. TARGET FOLDER: "/Volumes/SonyXQD/disktester-blobs"
Elapsed File# Qty 2sec 5sec 15sec 1min 2min 5min 15min 30min 60min 2s:15s 1m:5m ClockAvg 5s 0 128 MiB nan nan nan nan nan nan nan nan nan nan nan 25.1 13s 1 365 MiB nan 25.7 25.5 25.5 25.5 25.5 25.5 25.5 25.5 nan 1.00 27.9 20s 2 602 MiB nan 35.9 31.4 29.5 29.5 29.5 29.5 29.5 29.5 nan 1.00 29.6 ........................ 6734s 995 230.4 GiB nan 35.6 35.6 35.6 35.6 35.6 32.6 34.1 34.8 nan 1.01 35.0 6740s 996 230.6 GiB nan 35.7 35.6 35.6 35.6 35.6 32.6 34.1 34.8 nan 1.01 35.0 6747s 997 230.9 GiB nan 35.7 35.6 35.6 35.6 35.6 32.6 34.1 34.8 nan 1.01 35.0 6754s 998 231.1 GiB nan 35.7 35.6 35.6 35.6 35.6 32.6 34.1 34.8 nan 1.01 35.0 6760s 999 231.3 GiB nan 35.7 35.6 35.6 35.6 35.6 32.6 34.1 34.8 nan 1.01 35.0
1000 files of size 237 MiB created in /Volumes/SonyXQD/disktester-blobs Total data written: 231.4 GiB Slowest write speed: 21.3 MiB/sec Average write speed: 35.0 MiB/sec Fastest write speed: 37.2 MiB/sec Average write time per file: 6.76 seconds
........................
Read 1000 files totaling 231.4 GiB in 6411.88 seconds of clock time @ 37.0 MiB/sec MiB/sec write/read for fill-volume on SonyXQD
Mean: 35.0 MiB/sec 37.0 MiB/sec StdDev: 1.89 MiB/sec 0.67 MiB/sec
File# Write Read 1 25.5 36.6 2 35.0 36.9 ............ elided ............ 997 35.5 37.0 998 35.6 37.0 999 35.6 37.0 1000 35.6 37.0
Wrote results summary to: /Volumes/Boot/Users/lloyd/Documents/diglloydTools/2019-04-17_22.24.31.80671633-fill-volume-SonyXQD.txt /Volumes/SonyXQD/2019-04-17_22.24.31.80671633-fill-volume-SonyXQD.txt
Command "fill-volume" executed in 13175.78 seconds on 2019-04-18 at 02:04:07
