High-Capacity Secure Digital Card (SDHC) Headaches

[Jason Dunn]

For those that haven't been keeping track of SD card memory, here's the current state of affairs: in order to break the 2 GB barrier, SD cards transitioned to a new format called SDHC (Secure Digital High Capacity). Ignoring the fact that there are some 4 GB SD cards out there today that are not SDHC, this is the new format that allows 4 GB, 8 GB, and higher capacity cards. There's always a catch, right? The catch this time is that while this new format is physically the same size as the old SD format, meaning it will fit in the same slots, the new SDHC cards are not compatible with the old SD card readers. I knew all of this in abstract, and knew it would be a hassle, but it wasn't until I purchased my first SDHC card that I realized exactly <i>how</i> frustrating it was going to be.<br /><br />With flash memory prices being what they are now, it's hard to not snap up a few high-capacity cards: I had a friend pick up four 2 GB SD cards, and a single SDHC 4 GB card. I popped it in my camera (the Canon SD800) and it recognized it as I knew it would, and at 7 megpixels and Fine quality JPEGs, I can capture 2009 images. I can't imagine ever needing that many images, but it does mean I can take longer videos without worrying about running out of space. I took a few dozen photos, and without thinking, put the SDHC card into my laptop's SD card slot. It took me a minute to realize why it wasn't working, but it actually ended up "crashing" the SD slot interface and regular SD cards were unreadable until I rebooted. I then tried the memory card slots on my Dell 24" LCD monitors, and much to my surprise they aren't SDHC-compatible either.<!><br /><br />I have no memory card reader capable of reading SDHC cards. What a pain - what's worse, it's a pain I should have been more aware of. I toyed with the idea of buying a new memory card reader, but seeing as I already have non-SDHC memory card readers in all three of my Dell monitors, it's a bit of a waste. I also thought about just sticking to the 2 GB SD cards, but that would be wasting the new 4 GB card I just bought.<br /><br />What I did instead was order two of these <a href="http://www.sandisk.com/Products/ProductInfo.aspx?ID=2018">SanDisk MicroMates</a>, which are essentially small SDHC memory card readers that connect directly to a USB port. I'll keep one handy in my office, and one in my camera bag, and that solution should allow me to access content on the 4 GB card quickly enough. In the meantime, I connected my SD800 directly to my PC and pulled the images off that way. It's great how the SD800 connects to Vista without any drivers and allows you to access the memory card as if it were a local storage drive.<br /><br />SDHC cards are definitely the future of SD storage, but until the rest of the memory card reader ecosystem (laptops, monitors, devices) catch up, it will be a painful couple of years.<br /><br /><i>Jason Dunn owns and operates <a href="http://www.thoughtsmedia.com">Thoughts Media Inc.</a>, a company dedicated to creating the best in online communities. He enjoys mobile devices, digital media content creation/editing, and pretty much all technology. He lives in Calgary, Alberta, Canada with his lovely wife, and his sometimes obedient dog. He collects memory cards.</i>

[Don Tolson]

I know there's probably very good technical reasons why they couldn't (or possibly it was merely marketing/sales), but I just wish they'd found a way to make them more compatible with each other.

On phones, for example, more and more of them are relying on microSD cards to provide the storage users need for music, applications, video, etc. With the current 2GB limit on microSD, it puts a severe crimp on the total amount of space available. And I don't really feel like keeping a bunch of microSD cards around and flipping them in and out of the phone for various features I want to play with -- they're just too small and delicate.

I heard somewhere (maybe xda-developers?) that the existing slots may be able to read the SDHC format, but it would also require a firmware update by the vendors. If only it were that simple. Keeping my fingers crossed...

[myrampar]

Jason-

I recently purchased the same camera you have (800IS) and knew it was compatible with SDHC cards, so I purchased the Sandisk 4GB SDHC card which included the Micromate USB reader at my local Best Buy a few weeks ago for $54.99.

What I was unsure about was whether the 5 in 1 reader on my new HP DV200T would be compatible. I had contacted HP technical support and they didn't know. So imagine my surprise when I popped the card in after taking a few pictures/videos and it recognized the full capacity of the card and allowed me to transfter the files to the lappie!

I guess maybe I was thinking that the newer SDHC cards also had better read/write speeds, but that wasn't true in practice. It seemed that copying the images/videos to the laptop was fairly slow but when I used the MicroMate reader, it was much quicker. I had a few Sandisk UltraII 2GB cards and those transferred images quicker in both my built-in media card reader and the Micromate, so with this SDHC card it has the benefit of additional storage, but in my experience the read/write speeds seem to be the same as the 'high-speed' cards.

In the end, I returned the SDHC card and kept my 2GB Ultra II's as I don't really need that much storage on my camera at the moment.

There are a few other things I should mention. I'm running Vista Ultimate Edition on the laptop, and because of this I am constantly checking the HP site for updated drivers/software. Not long ago, there was an updated driver for my card reader. This may have helped with it recognizing the SDHC card.

Also, I installed an update from Microsoft on June 15th that addressed issues with SD cards on Vista. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/936825

If you haven't already installed this update, give it a try as it may solve some issues or add functionality to your card readers.

Cheers!

[Jason Dunn]

It seemed that copying the images/videos to the laptop was fairly slow but when I used the MicroMate reader, it was much quicker.

Yes, copying files over USB 2.0 is much faster than the built-in card readers...I'm not sure why, but it seems as though they tie it to the system bus, and perhaps a legacy one at that. I've just never seen a built-in memory card slot that's worth a damn in the speed department. It's so frustrating when you have to copy a lot of files over!

If you haven't already installed this update, give it a try as it may solve some issues or add functionality to your card readers.

Unfortunately, SDHC support is a hardware issue, not a software one, so that Microsoft update won't make any of my memory card readers work with SDHC cards.

[Lee Yuan Sheng]

I'm surprised the SDHC card didn't come with a card reader. They usually do, for the reasons you listed above.

That said, it is rather annoying to see that all your internal SD card readers not work with the new standard.

The notebook card readers are usually on a 16-bit bus. That's why they tend to be slow. It's the same as using a cheap Cardbus adaptor.

[Damion Chaplin]

Glad to hear it at least works in your camera. That's more than I can say for my camera...