Perhaps the Last CompactFlash Card You'll Ever Need?

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...N82E16820211244' target='_blank'>http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...N82E16820211244</a><br /><br /></div><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/500/dht/auto/1201026981.usr1.jpg" alt="" /><br /><br />That's right kids - 32 GB of storage. The price? Only <a href="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820211244" target="_blank">$134.99 USD from NewEgg</a>. It might not be the fastest performing card in the world (I haven't tested one yet), but hey, that's 32 GB of storage - that's only $4.22 per GB! If CompactFlash continues to grow at this rate pretty soon we'll be doing data backups onto Flash memory cards...

[Vincent Ferrari]

The idea of putting that much data on one card terrifies me. :eek: I've had a CF card go bad on me and I've decided that, since then, I'd never use a card bigger than 4 gigs and even then, I still use mostly one and two gig cards with my Rebel.

[Dyvim]

I might be terrified to have that be my card for my digital camera and only download to computer once every say 2 years, but as long as the data on it is backed up elsewhere, what's not to love? e.g. if you have a PPC with a CF slot you can load this thing up with a ton of music and video- no longer will you have to choose (or at least not choose so much) what goes on your memory card you take with you.

I can see pairing one of these with the new iPAQ 210 (along with a 16 GB SDHC card)- that would be awesome.

I used the 16 GB version of this card to replace the hard drive in an iPod mini (http://forums.thoughtsmedia.com/showthread.php?t=31602) and it's been great. I'm thinking of replacing it with this 32 GB version and then taking the 16 GB card for use in my Toshiba e830 (currently using an 8 GB CF card there).

[djdj]

At the rate of growth of capacity and drop in price, how long will it be before CF starts to become a viable alternative to a hard drive in laptops, (like SSDs)?

[Dyvim]

how long will it be before CF starts to become a viable alternative to a hard drive in laptops, (like SSDs)?

I think it will be a while yet. The problem isn't so much the capacity as the write tolerance. An SSD needs to be able to handle many, many rewrites (think of all the constant writing Windows does to your hard drive) and so needs a much higher fault tolerance. That's one of the reasons a 32 GB SSD for your laptop is so much more expensive than this CF card. The other reason is speed- this CF card would be way too slow to serve as an SSD. You'd need something with the read/write speed of a San Disk Extreme III or IV I would think.

But I could see mounting one of these in a card reader to be a USB backup drive, esp. if it was hooked up to a NAS to hold an extra backup of your most critical data.

I can't wait for the inevitable 64 GB version.

[Vincent Ferrari]

I might be terrified to have that be my card for my digital camera and only download to computer once every say 2 years, but as long as the data on it is backed up elsewhere, what's not to love?

You're on vacation and you just take this card with you, thinking "What could go wrong?"

Only, something does go wrong and you lose the card (physically or you lose the data on the card). Now what do you do? Your whole vacation is lost on that card and even though I may not wait two years (come on man, really?) it still screws me out of a lot of pictures.

That's what's not to like about these huge cards, and not for nothing but this is an off-brand card on top of it. We're not talking about a high quality card, we're talking about a bulk storage card and things can go wrong. I'd rather not risk my photos on that. For other stuff? Different story.

[Vincent Ferrari]

At the rate of growth of capacity and drop in price, how long will it be before CF starts to become a viable alternative to a hard drive in laptops, (like SSDs)?

Possibly never.

SSD's have software integrated into the drive that scatters writes around the drive so that you aren't writing and re-writing the same segment of memory over and over again. They do this because flash memory has a specific tolerance for write and rewrite cycles.

As far as I know, Compact Flash doesn't have that sort of algorithm built into the spec, so unless the "reader" was designed to do it, you'd be SOL if you wrote to the drive too many times.

[Jason Dunn]

The idea of putting that much data on one card terrifies me.

Yeah, but no sane person would put 32 GB of unique data on it, would they? :confused: Let's be serious, your mom isn't going to buy a 32 GB card - the people buying these will know better. I think the idea here is to use it either for big DSLR shoots (like a whole vacation worth of photos) then offload it when you get back, or in a PDA/laptop and load it up with your content.

[Jason Dunn]

At the rate of growth of capacity and drop in price, how long will it be before CF starts to become a viable alternative to a hard drive in laptops, (like SSDs)?

As someone else pointed out, that won't happen - though it's certainly similar technology powering the memory in both CF and SSD. CF wasn't designed to run an OS off of. ;)

[Vincent Ferrari]

Yeah, but no sane person would put 32 GB of unique data on it, would they? :confused: Let's be serious, your mom isn't going to buy a 32 GB card - the people buying these will know better. I think the idea here is to use it either for big DSLR shoots (like a whole vacation worth of photos) then offload it when you get back

Oh no... The dreaded forum echo has returned... Just when I thought it was gone :-(

Seriously, though, that was my exact point and exactly what I wouldn't recommend doing.

[Jason Dunn]

Only, something does go wrong and you lose the card (physically or you lose the data on the card). Now what do you do? Your whole vacation is lost on that card and even though I may not wait two years (come on man, really?) it still screws me out of a lot of pictures.

But wait, what's your alternative scenario here? A bunch of 512 MB cards where someone takes a few of them on vacation and if they lose one, they only lose a part of their vacation? I don't know anyone that does that, except on RARE occasion (my friend borrowed four 2 GB SD cards from me when he went to Europe for a month with his wife). Most people are already keeping all their vacation photos on a single card while they're on vacation anyway...which can be corrupted or lost.

That's what's not to like about these huge cards, and not for nothing but this is an off-brand card on top of it.

Meh. I've only ever had one flash card go bad on me, and it was a Kingston card - which is a top-tier brand in terms of memory. You're certainly welcome to not trust a card like this, but I would. :D

[Jason Dunn]

Oh no... The dreaded forum echo has returned... Just when I thought it was gone

Umm...I'm afraid you've lost me here. :confused:

Seriously, though, that was my exact point and exactly what I wouldn't recommend doing.

Fair enough. But you're saying you wouldn't even use it to take pictures with, only load it up with music/videos that you have stored elsewhere - that's a lot of distrust for Flash memory my brother. ;)

[jdepew]

meh.... Pretec now has a 48GB. http://www.photographyblog.com/index.php/weblog/comments/pretec_48gb_compactflash_card/

Its easy to understand the need for increasingly larger media... I *just* bought a Canon SD870is and a 4GB card and within the first 24hours had it 1/4 filled. I'm already considering either 2 more 4GB cards or at a single 8GB card. Its so easy to fill up even 'large' memory cards with these increasingly pocketable high megapixel count shooters.

I'm sure in a year we're going to be talking about the 32GB SDHC card you can pick up at newegg for $40. I can't wait. Now if camera manufacturers would work on increasing image quality versus just the megapixel race.

[Vincent Ferrari]

But wait, what's your alternative scenario here? A bunch of 512 MB cards where someone takes a few of them on vacation and if they lose one, they only lose a part of their vacation? I don't know anyone that does that, except on RARE occasion (my friend borrowed four 2 GB SD cards from me when he went to Europe for a month with his wife). Most people are already keeping all their vacation photos on a single card while they're on vacation anyway...which can be corrupted or lost.

All it takes is losing one card for that to stop... I had it happen to me. Family party. Shot the whole place on a two gig card and lost the whole thing when that one card died. Now granted I still use cards that small because it's the smallest practical size I can use with an 8 Megapixel camera in RAW but I'll be damned if I'm going to trust my photos to a 32 gig card from anyone, and particularly not A-Data.

Incidentally, the card that croaked on me was a Lexar Pro card that cost me almost $190 when I bought it. It only has to happen once for you to stop using a single card for every shot.

[Jason Dunn]

meh.... Pretec now has a 48GB.

Heh. Sweet! I didn't notice that before...guess I'd better do up a front-page post about that. :D

[Vincent Ferrari]

meh.... Pretec now has a 48GB.

My heart just stopped :p

[Jason Dunn]

meh.... Pretec now has a 48GB...

Oh, I should point out that Pretec cards tend to be REALLY expensive on the high-end...so I'll be quite intrigued to see the price point for this 48 GB card. I wouldn't be surprised if you could buy three of the ADATA 32 GB cards for the price of one Pretec 48 GB.

[Dyvim]

You're on vacation and you just take this card with you, thinking "What could go wrong?"

Only, something does go wrong and you lose the card (physically or you lose the data on the card). Now what do you do? Your whole vacation is lost on that card and even though I may not wait two years (come on man, really?) it still screws me out of a lot of pictures.

I was being sarcastic in my post about the 2 years. The point being that if you download your images regularly you should be ok with any flash card.

Anyway, I was thinking more about using this as music and video storage on a PDA, so no unique data to lose if the card went sour.

BTW, last year my 4 GB SanDisk Ultra II card that holds thousands of pictures on my lowly Canon 4 MP point and shoot saved my bacon. I trashed a 250 GB LaCie external hard drive just hours before a backup 500 GB NAS was arriving by UPS (oh, cruel fate). Fortunately that CF card (which is probably comparable in size to using a 32 GB card in a high-end DSLR shooting in RAW in terms of # of photos that fit on the card when used with a 4 MP JPG shooter) had the last 6 months of photos (everything since I'd backed up photos to DVD or another external hard drive) on my CF card and was able to recover them from there. Anyway, I trust these flash cards way more than any hard drive (and now I have dual 500 GB NAS drives for data redundancy). I still haven't deleted any old photos off that card (so now I have almost 18 months of photos on that card and still thousands more will fit) even though I always download my latest pics to my computer (and those NAS drives) at the earliest opportunity. If my house burns down while I'm out with my camera, I'll still be able to recover my photos from that CF card.

[jdepew]

Oh, I should point out that Pretec cards tend to be REALLY expensive on the high-end...so I'll be quite intrigued to see the price point for this 48 GB card. I wouldn't be surprised if you could buy three of the ADATA 32 GB cards for the price of one Pretec 48 GB.

Oh, I wouldn't be surprised at all either; in fact, I would expect that or more.

[Macguy59]

Except that format seems to be used less and less in devices as they trend toward smaller. Nice for the larger bodied DSLR's though.

[Jason Dunn]

I had it happen to me. Family party. Shot the whole place on a two gig card and lost the whole thing when that one card died.

That sucks. It's a horrible feeling losing memories that you'll never get to capture again. :(

Now granted I still use cards that small because it's the smallest practical size I can use with an 8 Megapixel camera in RAW...

Right...and that's what I don't get about your point. You haven't changed anything. You're still shooting with a 2 GB card, and theoretically it COULD die again. Flash in general is very reliable and sturdy. But, heck, your camera could break! Anything can happen...but being afraid of it never helped anyone. ;)

...but I'll be damned if I'm going to trust my photos to a 32 gig card from anyone

Definitely do what's best for you, but I've never read anything about higher-capacity flash memory cards having higher failure rates. A few years from now when 2 GB cards aren't enough for more than a handful of photos on our 20 megapixel cameras, you'll still be faced with the same problem...

[Jason Dunn]

Except that format seems to be used less and less in devices as they trend toward smaller. Nice for the larger bodied DSLR's though.

Yup, CF cards are definitely less popular than before, but that's one of the reasons why we can get 32 GB of storage for under $150, so I say awesome! :D The whole SDHC transition has been bumpy for me - my still-feeling-new 24" Dell monitors don't have SDHC-compatible slots, so SDHC for me is still a big pain in the butt. I love that CF cards don't require special readers.