World's Fastest Flash Memory Card? 311
ResQuad writes "Digital Photography Review has an article about what is claimed as the fastest MMC Memory Flash Card. Not only is this new card 200% faster than any current SD card (rating it at about 22.5MB/s read), its also 2GB. Does anyone need 2GB of memory for their PDA?"
Media Playing (Score:4, Insightful)
Music? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Music? (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course, I'd assume it will play Ogg Vorbis, right?
Re:Music? (Score:3, Insightful)
How can a flash card possibly be more inconvenient than a hard drive based player? Is drawing more power and breaking after a fairly minor fall now convenient?
Are you referring to the need to insert the card after you buy it as opposed to the iPod where it comes with the hard drive already installed? If so, how can the ability to easily upgrade the storage compare to the minimal effort of putting the card in
Re:Music? (Score:3, Interesting)
Th
Re:Music? (Score:3, Insightful)
Twice that? I'm pushing 70 GB now, too big for even an ipod. Choosing what to convert to my 256MB SD-card is a major pain!!
Of course, I only carry one device with me, that acts as a PDA, organiser, mobile phone and internet device. Despite being a complete gadget geek, I like to travel light and combining everything into my phone, which I've carried everywhere for 10 years anyway, makes perfect sense.
I genuinely
Re:Music? (Score:3, Interesting)
I actually play music on my Zaurus (it's mostly ogg), since my computer (though a laptop) is VERY noisy. I only have a 128MB card though, so I make a playlist (using Gjay) every night and have a script copy the files to the card. It works nicely (though the opie media player is buggy, notably it has what is probably a nasty memory leak, and is always killed when I turn the thing back on the next day. Also when it has a problem with a file, it stops inste
Re:Music? (Score:2)
I use xmms on my Zaurus, mostly because the whole display isn't the damned buttons -- I can actually see a decent ten lines of the playlist.
xmms version 0.00005pre1 (yes, it's ridiculous to use ten-thousandths in versioning) works on the 5600 Sharp ROMs, but wi
Re:Music? (Score:2, Informative)
Depends on the application. I think the not-so-free version of PocketMusic will play Ogg Vorbis files.
PocketMVP will definitely play them (I'm listening to one right now)
Music is just the beginning (Score:4, Insightful)
I would love to put a few more CDs on the card. Actually, even 2G seems a bit small and I hope they bump it up to 4G in a year or so. That would start to be a serious library of music.
Flash storage is a synergistic part of a PDA and can grow arbitrarily large as you think of more ways to virtualize your life onto the card. For example, physicians are already loading upwards of a dozen large medical references and databases. Lawyers are carrying electronic law libraries around, and I could see real estate agents putting hundreds of houses with images and stats into a nice handheld database that they sync with a desktop every day.
Now combine this monster with an email-enabled phone and you have an all purpose personal information device. Bring it on!
Re Windows media player? (Score:3, Funny)
You must be new here :)
Re:Music? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Music? (Score:3, Insightful)
Research and development into Compact Flash cards is already kicking any other flash format's butt, with low-cost, under-$200 4GB cards on the shelves today via the Muvo 2, and the recently announced 12GB compact-flash card that's finished testing and will move into the market by late 2004. That's 4
lets a smart phone be an iPod free of carriers (Score:2, Interesting)
Indeed. I don't want to carry a phone and an iPod because I don't have three ears for two headsets. But I'd happily pay the money to put some decent storage on my next smartphone so I can listen to music on its hands-free headset.
The division between a high-end phone and a smartphone/PDA is becoming one of expandability. My spouse's excellent Sanyo VM 4500 plays sounds, pictures, and videos, but has no expandability: Sprint doesn't support the phone's built-in Java and PC docking capability because t
Re:Media Playing (Score:2)
Good News... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Good News... (or not) (Score:3, Interesting)
I think that's what is holding back adoption of flash based PCs. Screw the expense, if the thing can't have a drive failure, some industries will buy it.
Flash wear leveling (Score:5, Informative)
Aren't there a set number of accesses that a flash memory device can handle before they're toast?
Isn't there a set number of revolutions that a hard drive's bearings can take before it's toast?
An individual sector on a quality flash card will last for 100,000 writes. The competing "multi-level" flash technology, while slightly leading binary flash in capacity, lasts only about 10,000 writes. If you're curious, here's the difference [samsung.com]. Don't worry too much: CompactFlash cards perform wear leveling, which uses some spare sectors to make sure that no single sector gets overwritten overly often.
Re:Flash wear leveling (Score:2, Funny)
(nice answer)
Re:Flash wear leveling (Score:3, Informative)
-Erwos
Re:Flash wear leveling (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Flash wear leveling (Score:2)
Re:Good News... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Good News... (Score:3, Informative)
Flash Memory (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Flash Memory (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Flash Memory (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Flash Memory (Score:2)
Re:Flash Memory (Score:2)
Assuming 5 seconds (which is faster than I'd expect to get in real conditions) and shooting without pause, it would take about an hour for the camera to shoot that many RAW files. I know photographers that shoot action sports with a 10D, they don't shoot RAW because the camera just can't keep up.
Something just doesn't add up.
Re:Flash Memory (Score:2)
Re:Flash Memory (Score:4, Insightful)
Much better to spend those 15 minutes working out which 6 photos to take, then taking a small burst of each than to simply walk around being Miss Snap Happy.
Portrait shoots are similar - spend a bit of time working out what your going to aim for - and then take aim. Don't just shoot until you explode.
The Austin Powers piss-take of David Bailey isn't too far off the mark - apart from he misses the part where Bailey interviews and observes his subject for an hour before his 5 minute burst of 'yeah baby yeah'.
Re:Flash Memory (Score:3, Interesting)
She should get the 40 GB iPod and one of the Belkin accessories that allow you to transfer photos to an iPod without a computer. There's a media reader [belkin.com] and one that connects through USB [belkin.com].
This
Re:Flash Memory (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Slightly OT: RAW image cameras (Score:3, Informative)
Some may shoot TIFF, but that's less common.
You'd be better off... (Score:3, Informative)
What's interesting... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:What's interesting... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:What's interesting... (Score:2)
Re:What's interesting... (Score:4, Insightful)
Honestly, this is why I stick to CF. Recently bought a new digital camera and my method of picking the camera out was to just walk in to circuit city and eliminate all the non-CF cameras. Ended up with the Canon Powershot G5. My very old 1 megapixel camera takes CF and it has no problem seeing any CF cards I have, even the brand new ones. Isn't the pin-out for CF the same as IDE, and the file system just a basic FAT16? Sure it might run into a limit at 2.1G if the device doesn't support FAT32, but I think most CF devices will use FAT32.
Re:What's interesting... (Score:2)
Whats stupid about it when I have a stack of CF cards, CF readers, and use CF like large floppy disks? I didn't just randomly pick from the CF cameras, but I didn't even consider any non-CF ones.
DNA (Score:2, Funny)
Re:DNA (Score:5, Insightful)
i would love 2 GB (Score:4, Interesting)
Having 2 gigs available to store packages, not to mention music and even movies would be fantastic, especially for long trips.
Re:i would love 2 GB (Score:2)
Can you point me to a good summary of the status of Linux on iPAQ? WiFi support, all that? I'm drooling over a Linux PDA, but iPAQ hardware is more available - and I'll be damned if I use WinCE under any circumstances.
I am an embedded linux developer, so am not afraid of hacking, just want a decent base to work from. Have one kernel port [uq.edu.au] up my sleeve, not ready to start another one yet! :-)
Travelling to USA in just over a week will be a good opportunity to pick up a g
Re:i would love 2 GB (Score:2)
Sure, check out the FAQ's [handhelds.org] on handhelds.org. There's plenty of good [linuxdevices.com] sites [handhelds.org] out there to keep you reading.
About WiFi support, I've had good success using a compact flash prism2-based 802.11b card. One of my roommates uses an orinoco gold pc card for wifi on his linux ipaq.
Re:Pfft. (Score:2)
Re:Pfft. (Score:2)
Can't wait to metamod this one. Someone needs his modding privileges revoked.
memory drives (Score:2)
Does anyone need 2GB of memory for their PDA? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Does anyone need 2GB of memory for their PDA? (Score:2, Informative)
So can buy a $400 mp3 player, for the $500+ hd for your DSLR, and then ebay off the mp3 shell for $50.
If somebody has figured out how to rewire the iPod, it hasnt been on any of the photo forums, unlike the muvo guides.
Yes. (Score:2)
PDAs are no longer just about taking notes (and, indeed, haven't been for some time). They're general purpose computers.
ALso note that you can now get 12 GB GF cards.
Re:Yes. (Score:2)
More tech info needed (Score:5, Insightful)
fast, large flash cards (Score:2)
Large, fast flash cards like this are good for high-quality (no lossy compression) portable audio recording too. Right now the larger capacity devices are PCMCIA hard drives, but they have a larger form factor and are less convenient and probably more subject to mechanical shock too.
Audio needs only "fast" (Score:3, Interesting)
Large, fast flash cards like this are good for high-quality (no lossy compression) portable audio recording too.
Even at 24/96 stereo, live audio needs less than 600 KB/s sustained write speed. Recording in 3D Ambisonic surround [ambisonic.net] takes only double that. This page [robgalbraith.com] claims that a CF-compatible Microdrive cartridge can write at over 4 MB/s, so it should have no problem with data rates typical of live audio capture.
You do still have a point about durability [fredmiranda.com] however.
Re:Audio needs only "fast" (Score:2)
It's true that for audio we don't need speed this high, but the large size is handy. If you're recording hours of audio it adds up.
"Does anyone need 2GB of memory for their PDA?" (Score:2)
That way I could happily carry around over 500 high-quality oggs wherever I go, as opposed to the 60 or so I get with my current 256MB card.
Great for those long car rides.
Oh yes, I want it (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't need, but i want it.
Since my Archos broke down, and the "repair shop" "fixed" it -- "fixed" it so it will never work again -- I've been using my Zaurus PDA as an MP3 player.
I can get about six or seven albums*, in MP3 format, on the 512 MB SD card, so the 2 GB would give me room for about 24 albums.
And I see that this new card is faster, which will be nice: getting all those MP3s on the card does take a while.
Any idea how much the 2GB card will retail for?
Re:Oh yes, I want it (Score:2)
Probably more than a replacement Archos.
Re:12GB Compact Flash card (Score:3, Funny)
Zaurus takes SD or MMC (and can't use the SD "security features" anyway); I got the (slower) SD card because I was in a hurry, as I wanted to have my music along on a ski vacation.
Not only is 15 grand way out of my price range, I use the Zaurus's CF slot for the WiFi card anyway. But since I have a lot of fans on Slashdot, I'd put the 12GB CF
one giant leap for PDA media (Score:5, Insightful)
As things stand, it frustrates me that I can only store approximately one movie trailer on my PDA. This is just the expected step forward. There will be more to come; I anticipate it all with great anticipation.
That's a silly argument (Score:3, Insightful)
see you can't say "we will need it one day therefore we need it now." That's bullshit because the economics don't come out right. 2GB card costs a (hefty) premium today, and there are not so many conveniences that justifies this premium. After all, if the darn thing was free then we'll all stock up with hundreds! "What would I need this for" is
quick cards (Score:5, Insightful)
Think about sports photographers. They definitely need quick cards to save the last picture and be ready for the next play. Never underestimate the importance of timing in digital photography.
FPS doesn't just mean 'first person shooter' (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:FPS doesn't just mean 'first person shooter' (Score:2, Funny)
May I ask you to avoid words like the censored ones above in the future? My eyes are bleeding.
They need write speed, not read speed (Score:2)
Re:quick cards (Score:2)
Re:quick cards (Score:2)
Re:quick cards (Score:5, Informative)
http://web.canon.jp/Imaging/eos1dm2/html/specif
Re:quick cards (Score:2, Insightful)
Having a big cache is nice, but it's not a substitute for fast write speed. Your picture taking speed is ultimately limited to how fast you can write the pictures to your memory card. If it takes 2 seconds to write one picture, your average speed can't be faster than 30 pictures per minute. A cache might let you take those 30 pictures in a single 4 second burst, but then you'll have to wait to write the cache out to your memory card before you can take another one. Fast write speed is still very importa
Memory card as computer storage (Score:4, Insightful)
However, after further investigation, and the stats from this article, memory card is still too slow for day-to-day computing usage.
USB2.0 is about 480mbps (~60MB/s), so the bottleneck is now with the memory card.
So I guess the fastest is still not fast enough.
Ext3 journal (Score:2)
That thing's almost as fast as a hard drive. I wonder if it would be possible to use it to store the journal file for ext3, to avoid writing data out to the hard drive twice. Or maybe it could be used to hold the swap partition (no seek time == fast page faults), though buying more ram would no doubt be cheaper.
-jim
Re:Ext3 journal (Score:2)
The poster isn't very creative... (Score:2)
- Digital movies / replacement iPod
- Complete Linux system for the iPaq or any other linux-capable handheld, including bunch of window managers, web browsers, the full deal...
- uh... pictures?
- Very detailed handheld games
- Portable databases needed for business and whatnot
The list goes on.
The problem... (Score:2)
Re:The problem... (Score:2)
I've got an HP IPAQ 2215 (Score:2, Insightful)
i had planned to get the 4 gig microdrive for storage of media files (maybe a couple gigs of MP3s, a few hundred megs of ebooks and a few movies) and a SDIO wifi card for wlan. I hadn't thought of movie files, but you can get a 256meg rip of a dvd with stereo soun
Consumer Unawareness? (Score:4, Funny)
Navigation (Score:3, Interesting)
One more use, beside the many already mentioned, would be storing maps for satellite navigation devices such as the many Pocket PC / TomTom combo's, or my Garmin iQue [garmin.com]. 2 GB would allow me store the whole of Europe (at street level, with points of interest) on it.
MMC vs. SD vs. etc. (Score:2)
And yet, SD is mentioned here, but I'd like more facts and evidence as to the supposed speed increase, because I was under the impression that SD was supposed to be superior to others in all ways (size, storage space, speed...but not $$$).
Now that you mention it... (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, yes, as a matter of fact I do.
I use my PDA (a Zire 71) as a portable music device. I do not like moving parts in standard players when I am also in motion. I'd love to be able to have 2 gig of tunes in my pocket with no hard drive or CD required.
I wonder... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:I wonder... (Score:2)
Re:I wonder... (Score:2)
Question? (Score:5, Funny)
Muahahahahahaaaa
You're new here at
absolutely! (Score:2)
No, but I need it for my iPOD (Score:3, Interesting)
2G??? (Score:2)
I can't imagine why anyone would need more than 640k!?!
Re:2G??? (Score:2)
MMC vs SD cards (Score:2)
Go flash memory! (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm yearning for the absence of all of the moving parts in my machine except for possibly CD/DVD drives. I can't bear the fact that my hard disk has spinning platters and incredibly fine-precision moving heads which could fail at any time (I leave my machine on all the time and consequently I'm now terrified to turn it off in case it'll fail when I power it up again). I want peltier coolers instead of fans, and I want solid state memory instead of hard disks. Once this happens, not only will my machine be ultra-silent, it'll also be much more robust.
It's a shame flash memory still costs so much, but the prices are pretty much where similar sized hard disks were several years ago, so I'm confident that we'll get 40gb flash memory in the next four or five years. God knows where hard disks will be then.
The world really needs a new storage paradigm. Mechanical magnetic storage is the oldest concept still alive in home computing, and is as archaic as the system BIOS. Intel are busy with getting rid of the currently outdated and rubbish BIOS and replacing it with something fancy and new, I just ooze over the same thing happening to data storage. For gods sake, the HDD is the biggest bottleneck in any modern home computer.
CF is not PDA/DigiCam only. I use it as IDE device (Score:4, Interesting)
No, since I don't have one.
But CF is not a PDA/DigiCam only storage.
I use it as IDE harddisk on generic ATX motherboards for both my media- and lan-server.
For the media-server (512MB Kingston CF) it stores, read-only, all the system and applications. This means, that when I listen to internet-radio, CD, watch a movie (TV or DVD) I do not need to spin up the storage disks. Similar for my 24/ server (also 512MB Kingston), which only spins up the disks, when some action happens (fetchmail, logfile). When I am abroad the system is mostly idle, except for the fetchmail every six hours and my own SSH access.
Pocket Digital Library, Read or Die! (Score:3, Informative)
Please Stop (Score:5, Funny)
Please stop asking this question. The answer is yes. Until I can carry every version of every document/song/movie/computer program ever made in the history of mankind in my pocket, in lossless formats, no amount of storage on any device will ever be too much.
And even then, I want a larger one to come out so the prices will come down.
-Esme
I require more (Score:3, Funny)
Indeed. I require a device so small it will fit between the molecular strands of my spinal column near the base of my skull, and be able to make the world's knowledge (as well as natural language skills, mathematical intuition, and the aggregate creativity of humankind) available in response to a singl
2Gigs of Memory for my PDA. (Score:2, Interesting)
There is nothing quite so useful as the Sharp Zaurus PDA's, well set up, well configured, and running in your pocket.
Having a complete Linux install, source and all, wherever I go, for any particular practical reason I have it, gives me what I've wanted since the day I unwrapped my first MIPS Magnum pizzabox and plonked it on my desktop: a portable, power Linux workstation.
So yeah, please. I'll be getting a 2GIG
Yes, absolutely (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, absolutely.
This weekend I was at Hershey Park, and practically filled a 4GB flash drive with photos from my Nikon D100 (photos in raw mode, shooting 3 a second of some action shots eats storage space fast).
With my current camera, 16GB would be comfortable.
I can remember, the year was 1984, and I was walking down a hallway in high school talking to a friend of mine about 'Apple's new Macintosh', which came in two flavors - 128k and the 512k 'Fat Mac'. I remeber, clear as anything, saying "Why would you need 512k? You can only fit 400k on one of its floppies...". I will never, ever make that mistake again. I can remember staring, dropjaw, at the first 400Mhz Pentium II we got in my office, thinking it was amazing. No matter how high I (realistically at the time) raise my expectations, they are always beaten.
2GB = a good start (Score:3, Interesting)
A truly silly question on
Re:Wonder how much it costs (Score:5, Funny)
What kind of question is that?
Re:of corse not (Score:2)
However, 64k is the limit of addressable memory with 16 address lines. (Without brain-damaged crufty segmentation a la 286 (and some earlier x86))