A9 networking details

[Chrissie]

A few sobering facts on the much touted networking capabilities of the A9:

WLAN:

Its wireless connectivity is specified by Sony as "Wi-Fi Compatible, IEEE 802.11b/g/n(2.4GHz band)".

 

According to this source, this translates to a maximum net transfer rate (802.11n) of 30 Mbit/s, which is close to the maximum rate of 3.5 MByte/s I was able to achieve during my tests.

 

In practical terms: transferring one single uncompressed raw image at maximum resulution (~50MB) takes around 14 seconds.
At that speed, transferring the contents of a full 16 GB memory card requires 75 minutes. Let that sink in. 

 

LAN:

In the marketing section of the A9's feature description, it boldly claims:

 

"A wired LAN connection gives you the highest possible transfer speeds for large image files".

 

Don't get all too excited about that either.

It's already quite telling, that in Sony's Interface Specification the "LAN Terminal" is merely specified as "existing" (Yes).

In repeated batch transfers of 100 files (3.5 GB in total) to an FTP server running on my iMac, I was unable to achieve beyond 10.3 MB/s sustained data transfer rate via LAN cable.
That equates to a 100 Base-T connection on the A9 side, as both my iMac's LAN terminal and the network cable are Gigabit capable.

At that speed, transferring the contents of a full 16 GB memory card still requires 26 minutes.

But not all is lost. Although not networking in its strict sense, data can get extracted from the camera at higher rates:

 

USB:
Transferring via USB cable gives a sustained data transfer rate of 35 MB/s, which brings the transfer time of 16 GB down to 7.6 minutes.

 

Direct read from memory card:

Taking the memory card out of the A9 and putting it directly into the iMacs memory card reader slot gives a sustained data transfer rate of 74 MB/s, which brings the transfer time of 16 GB down to 3.6 minutes.

 

Before you ask: memory card is a  300MBs SD: Sony 128GB SF-G SDXC UHS-II.

 

[Guest Jaf-Photo]

Thank you for these real world examples. In my view the ability to do a network transfer is there for situations where you really need it. Normally, it would be to transfer jpeg files while on assignment. I don't think it's meant to be the main method for transferring raw files to your computer.

 

On another note, I don't know if you really want to quote WvB in your signature? It made me wonder.

[Chrissie]

On another note, I don't know if you really want to quote WvB in your signature? It made me wonder.

 

Thanks for your feedback.

Personally, I don't think the quote gets tainted, just because it's from WvB. And I didn't want to decorate myself with somebody elses merits. That's why I gave the author, too. I'll think about it. Probably there are lots more people who have said the same thing too.

[Guest Jaf-Photo]

There are many clean scientists who promoted experiments. I'm sure you'll find a good quote from them.