High-Speed Memory Cards
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When is enough space, enough? When this question relates to data storage, then the answer could well be never. No matter how much space we have, or think we have, there will come a time when it will be used up as data grows at a prodigious rate. By some strange co-incidence, this will generally happen when we have an urgent need to store a file that is of vital importance to us whether for business or personal reasons. As a result we are always on the look-out for greater capacity with the various types of storage devices that are available.
To help in this respect, Just Ram Plc has released two new digital memory products that combine high speed and increased storage capacity. These products are the Integral 80x high-speed Secure Digital SD card and the Integral 100x high-speed CompactFlash (CF) card. Both of these cards are compatible with an appropriate compliant device such as digital cameras, MP3 players and PDAs and are available in a range of capacity sizes. The CF card comes in 512MB, 1GB, 2 GB and 4GB flavours while the SD card can be purchased in 256MB, 512MB, 1GB and 2GB versions. I have been testing the 512MB version of both cards.
These two types of card make use of an advanced high-speed controller. This feature helps reduce the wait time between shots when used with a digital camera capable of high mega pixel captures or when capturing fast moving scenes is a requirement. The CF card also incorporates a sleep mode to help save on battery power on devices that support such a feature.
When used with an appropriate digital camera, the CF card is capable of a write speed of 15MB/s and a read speed of 17MB/s. The SD card is rated slightly slower at 12MB/s for write and 15MB/s for read. These figures indicate that either card would be eminently suitable for use with a digital camera. However memory cards can be used with other types of devices.
Surprisingly when other speed tests were carried out, the SD card out-performed the CF card. Using a card reader attached to a computer running Windows XP via a USB 2.0 connection, 477MB of data, made up of 118 files spread over 8 folders, was copied to each of the two cards. The SD card took 2 minutes 20 seconds, which works out at 3.9MB/s, while the CF card required 3 minutes 58 seconds and only managed 2.0MB/s. The test also revealed that the actual capacity of the SD card was just 492MB and the CF card had 491MB of space once formatting had been implemented.
Although you could use these cards for transferring data from one location to another, their prime use is for storage images on a digital camera. Drivers are provided for both Windows and Mac platforms. These cards will be available for various IT resellers and have been priced at £49.99 for CF 512MB card and £34.99 for 512MB SD card.
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