512 MB CompactFlash Type 1 for $149.99!

[Jason Dunn]

<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00005MIS8/jasondunn-20">http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00005MIS8/jasondunn-20</a><br /><br /><img src="http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B00005MIS8.01.MZZZZZZZ.jpg" /><br /><br />My fellow MVP Todd Ogasawara found this deal on Amazon, and even with as many CF cards as I have, this one got me excited - 512 MB of data storage in CF format for $149.99 after a $50 rebate, with free shipping to boot? Smokin' - I haven't seen a price that good on a 512 MB anywhere. I bought a 512 MB card about six months ago and paid twice that much! Affiliate link, as always, so your purchases help support the site. Thanks!

[st63z]

Man, I just don't know. My real-world SanDisk SD experience is so slow, not what I'd expected, I really miss the old CF speed. But I bought the industry's SD vision hook line and sinker, and have planned my gadget purchases around this strategy. So it's gonna be awkward going back. Currently I plan to try some other brand SD cards to see if they'll be better, and hope it won't be too long before SD slot speeds in devices become faster as well. But the CF is still so tempting...

I've never tried MS, I wonder if its speed falls closer to (SanDisk) SD or CF?

[marlof]

hope it won't be too long before SD slot speeds in devices become faster as well

if for instance you'd compare a 3800 series iPAQ with a 3900 series iPAQ, you'd notice quite a difference in speed between the two. The SD speed, especially for the larger cards, is quite good enough.

[Teddy]

WOW!!! what a price!!! It's a pity that it can't be shipped outside USA... :(

[Pony99CA]

Man, I just don't know. My real-world SanDisk SD experience is so slow, not what I'd expected, I really miss the old CF speed. But I bought the industry's SD vision hook line and sinker, and have planned my gadget purchases around this strategy. So it's gonna be awkward going back. Currently I plan to try some other brand SD cards to see if they'll be better, and hope it won't be too long before SD slot speeds in devices become faster as well. But the CF is still so tempting...

My understanding is that CF will always be faster than SD because it has more bandwidth. Of course, some Pocket PCs have made the issue worse with MultiMedia Card compatability. :-(

And speed isn't the only issue -- the price of of SD is still higher than CF. Amazon is currently selling a SanDisk 128 MB SD card for $64.88, while the SanDisk 128 MB CF card goes for $46.31.

Steve

[nobody]

I need a 512 MB SD card!

[bblock]

Me, too. What's the deal with projected and available SD sizes, anyway?

[yada88]

Both 256mb, and 512mb SD cards are now commercially available from a number of venders. 256 almost now commonplace, but you still have to look hard for a 512mb sd card, but if you need one, and are willing to spend the money, they are available. As for projections, there aren't any =-).

[Kirk Stephens]

$149 for 512MB?? 8O Jeeez, prices are falling rapidly...I remember when I bought a 64MB CF card for my old school cassiopeia, it cost me $169 and it was a good price back then in the PDA stone age :P

[st63z]

hope it won't be too long before SD slot speeds in devices become faster as well

if for instance you'd compare a 3800 series iPAQ with a 3900 series iPAQ, you'd notice quite a difference in speed between the two. The SD speed, especially for the larger cards, is quite good enough.

That's nice to hear... But the SanDisk SD card speed itself on a USB desktop reader is soo slow, each file takes a good amount of time to copy/delete, no matter how small it is. As an exercise, try copying your IE Favorites folder to and from an SD and a CF card. I didn't really notice it on the smaller SD cards, but the 256MB SD is very noticeably slow.

[Jonathon Watkins]

But the SanDisk SD card speed itself on a USB desktop reader is soo slow, each file takes a good amount of time to copy/delete, no matter how small it is. As an exercise, try copying your IE Favorites folder to and from an SD and a CF card. I didn't really notice it on the smaller SD cards, but the 256MB SD is very noticeably slow.

The solution to that would a USB 2 card reader. Where are they? We have been waiting a while for them.

[st63z]

But the SanDisk SD card speed itself on a USB desktop reader is soo slow, each file takes a good amount of time to copy/delete, no matter how small it is. As an exercise, try copying your IE Favorites folder to and from an SD and a CF card. I didn't really notice it on the smaller SD cards, but the 256MB SD is very noticeably slow.

The solution to that would a USB 2 card reader. Where are they? We have been waiting a while for them.

I wasn't being clear, the bottleneck I'm talking about isn't the USB1. My suggested exercise was to show how the CF is much, much faster in that instance. Say you copy a Favorites folder w/ a thousand links, real size is probably ~200KB or so (not factoring in size of disk clusters) since each URL file is probably only 100-200 bytes. Copying that folder to a network HDD is probably gonna take a few secs at most, right? Copying that to a CF card via USB1 (or copying it back from CF) isn't gonna take that much longer, if I remember correctly. But copying to/from my SanDisk 256MB SD card via USB1 takes forever, something like over an hour (I forget). The best way to describe it is "floppy speed" since watching each file, no matter how small, take half a sec to copy, reminds me of watching file copy to a floppy disk.

And cluster size when formatting the SD card makes a noticeable difference. Larger clusters have faster speed (on file xfers and on my digicam), but in regards to the Favorites folder, takes up a lot more space.

P.S. Incidentally, Addonics now has a USB2/FireWire combo reader added to their growing collection of flash readers, called Pocket UDD (Ultra DigiDrive). It's not particularly small (like their Mini DigiDrive), and no quad-slot -- it uses one PC Card slot that you use with their 4-in-1 PC Card adapter or CF/PC Card adapter, or just any PC Card flash disk (so I'm thinking the interface bottleneck is probably the 16-bit PC Card interface). The Pocket UDD is the external version of their IDE Ultra DigiDrive (not to be confused with the newest IDE DigiDrive that has 4 slots but only 1 drive icon). OK, I better stop, lest people think I really do work for Addonics...

[Dave Beauvais]

Just wanted to let anyone who cares know that my 512 MB CF card arrived today. I wasn't expecting it for at least another week or so. The Amazon Web site said that estimated delivery was "October 3 - October 11." When it arrived today I was caught off-guard a bit. About five hours later, I got an e-mail from Amazon saying my order had shipped and should arrive within five to seven days. (Wow, you don't say...)

Anyway, the card is great. Plenty of room for videos and music! Go order one now (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00005MIS8/jasondunn-20) if you haven't yet! :)

--Dave

[Jason Dunn]

Go order one now (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00005MIS8/jasondunn-20) if you haven't yet!

Wow - you even used our affiliate link. Bless your heart! &lt;sniff sniff> :D

[Dave Beauvais]

Go order one now (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00005MIS8/jasondunn-20) if you haven't yet!Wow - you even used our affiliate link. Bless your heart! &lt;sniff sniff> :DI help when and where I can. :) --Dave