CF Express card

[Paliswe]

Hi, I watched Youtube channel "ShutterSpeak" with Joe Nuzzo, talking about making your own CF express card for half the price, just by mounting two pieces together. So I went on to Amazon and bough one Zitay CF Express Type B Card to NVME M.2 2230 SSD Adapter, compatible with Nikon Z6, and one Sabrent Rocket 2230 NVMe 4.0 512 GB High Performance PCIe 4.0 M.2 2230 SSD. It was some struggle with the deliveries but finally it arrived and I mounted the two pieces with some heat dissipation cream between the SSD and the adapter.
In the camera, I formatted the new card (full formatting) and started taking photos! No problem! Really fast card, taking 20 pictures per sec "for ever" was no problem.
But when I connected the camera to my Mac Mini M1 (IOS 15.6.1) the camera went into transfer mode but was not detected by my computer. So I bought a SanDisk CFexpress card reader but still no card. Even tried an old PC laptop, to no avail.
The SanDisk reader lights up a little white diode when attached, the USB hub did the same, but not a sign from my computer.
As a last try I started the formatting tool in my mac, but it could not detect the card.
Are there any problems doing a initial (full) formatting of a CF Express card in the camera?
I have no other CF Express card previously, just two XQD so I have never tried this combination before.

 

[BF Hammer]

I will attempt to sum this up. Joe Nuzzo made a video of a DIY hack making a homemade CF Express card. He got his clicks and revenue, offers no guarantee on the hack. Now when you tried this, it writes files but won't read to your Mac.

Joe Nuzzo owes you money for damages. Lawsuit.

 

[Paliswe]

Sorry, I live in the wrong country for that.
It does what he promised, saves the pictures on the card, but I cannot transfer them anywhere. They are stuck in the camera. There's room for some 10k pictures so I can have a look at them there (*joke*)

 

[Patrick M]

There’s nothing new really in what Nuzzo showed. I’ve seen similar videos now for a couple of years, Get an enclosure, stick in a suitable SSD with some heat gel and bob’s your uncle.
Whats different is that the components are very much cheaper now. I just bought a Delkin Black CFX 512Gb for £190 while my original DB with 325Gb cost £525 in June 2023!
tech is moving fast.
i wait until the manufacturers like Delkin actually make them for you.

 

[Clovishound]

I can be a bit of a cheapskate, but I try not to skimp on cards. If I do, I skimp on capacity. If I have enough capacity to shoot the most images in a day, even if I have to switch to a second card on rare occasions, I consider this OK. I got a 128 GB card for my Z8 and that's plenty big enough for my longest shooting day, and that's with the larger files from the 46 MB sensor. Your files should be half the size from a 24 MB sensor. I have a backup card in the Z7ii spare camera I normally carry with me.

I spent the money on a decent quality San Disc card. They aren't cheap, but I got mine on a good sale when I bought the camera and it was less than $100. Pricey cards are just a fact of life for the newer cameras with fast frame rates. I got a cheap CF Express card reader, and it works fine so far. If it fails, I'm not out any files, just what I paid for the reader.