Macbook Pro/Go Pro SD Card Transfer Test

I was curious as to which method was the fastest for transferring files from my GoPro Hero 3+ Black Edition to my Macbook Pro (mid-2012). To test I connected the SD card (SanDisk Extreme Plus 16GB) to the Macbook Pro using different methods and ran this command:

time cp /Volumes/NO\ NAME/DCIM/999GOPRO/GOPR9537.MP4 /dev/null

The file was 683.2 MB. Copying the file from to /dev/null keeps the Macbook's hard drive from influencing the results.

These are the results:

GoPro connected to the Macbook Pro using a USB cable:

real 0m51.893s

MicroSD card in SanDisk MicroSD adapter plugged into the Macbook Pro's SD card port:

real 0m7.846s

MicroSD card plugged into SanDisk MobileMate SD+ USB 2.0 card reader plugged into USB port:

real 0m32.763s

MicroSD card plugged into Transcend USB 3.0 Card Reader plugged into USB port:

real 0m7.789s

This is an informal test and I only ran each test once. There were also a number of applications open at the time but none were doing any extensive processing. According to these test results, plugging into the SD card reader in the Mac or using a USB 3.0 card reader are the best options. Plugging the GoPro directly into the Mac is very slow.

If you would like to see some videos I shot with my GoPro, visit my YouTube channel and look for the water park videos among others. https://www.youtube.com/user/ricksite