difference in memory cards?

[rein]

OK, forgive me if this is a stupid question. Is SD faster than CF, or CF faster than SD? What I am wanting to know, if I plan on using a wifi card, would I better off with a CD wifi and SD memory or the other way around? Also, will programs run from both SD and CF cards? Thanks for helping a newbie. :roll:

[Janak Parekh]

The performance of the two are similar. Right now, since CF WiFi is available and SD is not, you'd be better off using the latter for memory. Moreover, since the Axim doesn't support SDIO, you don't really have a choice. :)

Programs can run from CF or SD cards, albeit a little slower.

--janak

[Pony99CA]

OK, forgive me if this is a stupid question. Is SD faster than CF, or CF faster than SD? What I am wanting to know, if I plan on using a wifi card, would I better off with a CD wifi and SD memory or the other way around? Also, will programs run from both SD and CF cards? Thanks for helping a newbie. :roll:
Right now, I believe CF memory is still faster than SD memory. Also, CF memory is cheaper than SD memory. Finally, CF is readily available in larger sizes than SD memory (you can get up to 1 GB in CF right now, but only 512 MB in SD, I think).

And, as Janak said, I don't think there is an SDIO WiFi card out yet, even if the Dell could support it, so you'd be better off with CF WiFi and CF memory. :-)

Unforunately, that's not an option on any Pocket PC (unless you get a sleeve), so you'll have to choose CF for peripherals and SD for memory expansion. (Forunately, on my iPAQ 3870, I can use my 512 MB CF memory and my PCMCIA WiFi cards, as I have a dual PCMCIA sleeve. I also have a 128 MB SD memory card just for fun.)

Steve

[Janak Parekh]

Right now, I believe CF memory is still faster than SD memory.
Just a FYI on this - while that may be true, the speed difference is less than we think. The 3870 that you and I have is unbelievably slow in SD performance. I just bought an Exilim (small 2MP camera with SD slot), and my Sandisk 128MB card, which is so slow in my PPC, is blazingly fast on the Exilim. I can't tell the performance difference between it and my friend's CF-based camera.

--janak

[Pony99CA]

Right now, I believe CF memory is still faster than SD memory.
Just a FYI on this - while that may be true, the speed difference is less than we think. The 3870 that you and I have is unbelievably slow in SD performance. I just bought an Exilim (small 2MP camera with SD slot), and my Sandisk 128MB card, which is so slow in my PPC, is blazingly fast on the Exilim. I can't tell the performance difference between it and my friend's CF-based camera.

Yes, I'm aware of the iPAQ's implementation of SD using MMC-compatibility mode. But I was referring to the native speed of the memory.

I think SD has the following speeds:

* 128 MB and less: 2 MBbps
* 256/512 MB: 10 MBps
* 1 GB and more: 20 MBps

I thought CF was faster than that, and it certainly is for cards 128 MB and less. Here's a review of CF cards from Digital Photography Review (http://www.dpreview.com/articles/mediacompare/default.asp). (NOTE: This is a new review, not the old one cited previously.) All reviewed cards had real-world read speeds above 2 MBps in a memory card reader.

Here's a comparison of various media using a common reader on Steve's Digicams (http://www.steves-digicams.com/2002_reviews/sandisk_6in1.html). Unfortunately, they didn't test any SD cards other than a 128 MB one.

Steve