SanDisk Introduces 1 Gigabyte And 512 Megabyte SD Cards

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.sandisk.com/pressrelease/031303_sd512mb_1gb.htm' target='_blank'>http://www.sandisk.com/pressrelease...sd512mb_1gb.htm</a><br /><br /></div>"SanDisk Corporation (NASDAQ:SNDK) today introduced 1 gigabyte (GB) and 512 megabyte (MB) SD Cards, postage stamp-sized flash memory cards capable of storing large amounts of data, audio and video. The 1GB SD card quadruples the current capacity of SanDisk SD cards. With the 1GB SD card, consumers can store up to 30 hours of digitally compressed music, more than 320 minutes of MPEG-4 compressed video or more than 1000 high-resolution digital images....The 512MB and 1GB SanDisk SD cards use one gigabit NAND flash memory chips, based on patented multi-level cell (MLC) technology pioneered by SanDisk. MLC allows two bits of data to be stored in one memory cell, doubling memory capacity."<br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/web/sd512mb_1gb.jpg" /> <br /><br />"SanDisk is currently shipping 16, 32, 64, 128, and 256MB SD cards. The 512MB and 1GB SanDisk SD cards have suggested retail prices of $169.99 and $329.99 respectively. The 512MB SD card is expected to be available in the second quarter while the 1GB SD card is expected to be available in the third quarter."<br /><br />$329.99 US MSRP for a 1 gig SD card isn't bad at all! You can bet they'll be $299 in a flash (no pun intended), and that will drive the price of the 512 MB cards down as well. $169 for 512 MB SD...tasty!

[shawnc]

I'm going to try very hard NOT to buy one of these :evil: . $329 for a 1G SD card is about $200 LESS than I expected the release price to be. I've got 3 Sandisk cards as it is and not a bit of trouble with any of them.

[bdegroodt]

Is it too early to start a Christmas list? :D

[Paul]

That's not too bad, finally SD hits the 1GB mark.

[Janak Parekh]

Is it too early to start a Christmas list? :D
Nope. And the 1GB hits in the 3rd quarter, just in time.

What's scary is that I no longer consider 1GB to be "a lot". Now I want a 2GB SD. More! More! More! :D

--janak

[jet8810]

Can you say a 2gb Toshiba e740? 1 GB CF and SD! Now just to justify the price...:).

[ipaq38vette]

Wow.
Last July when I bought a 128mb sd I thought that was soooo much space. I could have a max of 5gb of space by the end of the year with only the CF expansion.(1gb sd and 4gb microdrive)

[R K]

The 512MB and 1GB SanDisk SD cards use one gigabit NAND flash memory chips, based on patented multi-level cell (MLC) technology pioneered by SanDisk. MLC allows two bits of data to be stored in one memory cell, doubling memory capacity

NAND Flash as always been a bad phrase for the PPC crowd, let's hope Sandisk doesn't add to the legend. Anyway, the NAND Flash is probably the reason they're so cheap.
If current SD Cards don't use NAND Flash, I don't think the price will go down too drastically for them.

[paris]

damn i just bought a Lexar 512Mb SD for $280

[jizmo]

I've got a 256mb SD card and every time I hold it in my hand, it's size and weight never seize to amaze me. 1gb on a similar chip sounds just unbelievable.

In the year 2003 1 gram of plastic equals to over 700 floppy disks, media that I used just few years ago. Phew .. If this isn't sci-fi, then what is?

/jizmo

[Cracknell]

Pre-alpha version 0.0.1 christmast list:

-Toshiba E750
-6GB CF card
-1GB SD card

:idea:

[Crystal Eitle]

1st reaction: I want one!!!!
2nd: But wait, this is SanDisk. I've heard lots of bad things about SanDisk.
3rd: Whoa. The 1 gig card costs more than I spent on my Pocket PC! 8O

I just got a 256MB SD card and I too am amazed at how tiny these things are.

(I've also had it for less than two weeks and already have it more than three-quarters full! Yowza!)

[thanos255]

I still have over 150mgs left on my 512 Lexar SD card...I have had Sandisk in the past, and ever since I went to a Lexar...I am not going back.

Thanks
Thanos

[jizmo]

I have Sandisk 256mb card and the Cruzer USB memory from the same manufacturer and I've never encountered any problems with using the card in e310 / desktop computer(s) / digicamera(s).

/jizmo

[PetiteFlower]

For nearly half the price at the 512m size as other brands, I'll take my chances on Sandisk. Hell I took my chances on them for my 256m card for a savings of only about $20, and it works like a charm for me.

And I'm glad I'm not the only one who can't stop marvelling at the size :)

[bdegroodt]

For nearly half the price at the 512m size as other brands, I'll take my chances on Sandisk. Hell I took my chances on them for my 256m card for a savings of only about $20, and it works like a charm for me.

And I'm glad I'm not the only one who can't stop marvelling at the size :)

I'll third that. I've had no problems with a fleet of Sandisk cards.

I marvel at the size as well. That's why I can't even begin to understand the mini-SD. If it gets much smaller it may just have to be built into the device.

[ricksfiona]

1GB SD would be SOOO cool. I'm trying not to go with 1GB CF, so hurry up Sandisk! Plus, I won't buy 1GB SD until it's in the sub-$200 range.

I just don't think flash memory should be so expensive. When you can get an 80GB hard disk for $100, it's just to hard to justify. New technology is usually expensive, but there are NO moving parts and once the machines start making them, the manufacturers can make a profit quite easily even with a more reasonable price point.

[Janak Parekh]

I just don't think flash memory should be so expensive. When you can get an 80GB hard disk for $100, it's just to hard to justify.
However, you're comparing apples to oranges. Magnetic media are very, very cheap to produce; that's why we've been using them for years. Flash, on the other hand, is astoundingly expensive to produce. It's a miracle that we're going to see 1GB for less than $400, and that CF 1GB is already less than $200. You won't see flash catching up with magnetic media any time soon.

--janak

[bendigo]

I also heard that the Sandisk SD cards was not as fast as the Lexar SD cards....

Anyone else have any similar experiences

[PetiteFlower]

Well, keep in mind that you're not just paying for the manufacturing, you're paying for the research/engineering that goes into developing cards of this size. That's why things are more expensive when they are new, because the company fronted a lot of money to pay people to develop the product and they need to make the money back. Hard drives may be PHSYICALLY more complex, but there hasn't been any real innovation in them in a long time; companies don't have to put a lot of time into hard-core R&D for bigger hard drives because well, there just isn't the same demand for a hard drive that's bigger then 80 gigs, as there is for an SD card that's just 1 gig. I remember when hard drives first started getting into the multi-gig range, it was big news, but now it's like 80 gig? So what?

Besides just because there are no MOVING parts doesn't mean these things are necessarily easy to make. There are probably a lot of very tiny, very sensitive pieces in there that take some skill to get together without frying it.

[Pony99CA]

Can you say a 2gb Toshiba e740? 1 GB CF and SD! Now just to justify the price...:).
Pffft, that's nothing. With my iPAQ 3870 and its dual PC Card sleeve, I can get 11 GB -- two 5 GB hard disks and a 1 GB SD card. :-D (That's of course assuming I wanted to pay for them. :lol:)

When the 6 GB CF cards come out, I can have 13 GB. A gigabyte here, a gigabyte there, pretty soon we're talking real storage. :-)

Steve

[Pony99CA]

Hard drives may be PHSYICALLY more complex, but there hasn't been any real innovation in them in a long time; companies don't have to put a lot of time into hard-core R&D for bigger hard drives because well, there just isn't the same demand for a hard drive that's bigger then 80 gigs, as there is for an SD card that's just 1 gig. I remember when hard drives first started getting into the multi-gig range, it was big news, but now it's like 80 gig? So what?

First, there's plenty of R&D going into hard drives. I don't know what you consider "innovation", of course, but I think that the technology that gave us 200 GB hard drives would count. I think the technology that gave us MicroDrives would count. I think the technology that gave us 20 GB drives in the iPOD would count.

If you don't consider those innovations, I wouldn't call increasing the storage capacity in a flash card to be real innovation -- it's expected.

Second, I think there's more demand for large hard disks than for large storage cards (although maybe not here :-)). There are a lot more people with PCs than with PDAs, and people want to put more and more on those PCs -- video, MP3s, etc.

Third, 80 GB is old school; there are 200 GB drives (http://www.maxstore.com/product.asp?sku=2257820) for PCs now. :-D

Steve

[ghostppc]

Third, 80 GB is old school; there are 200 GB drives (http://www.maxstore.com/product.asp?sku=2257820) for PCs now. :-D

Steve


I got that drive last weekend at CompUSA for $200.00 with a rebate! Sweet! But my pc only recognizes 137gig even with the included adapter card. :(

[PetiteFlower]

Guess I'm WAY old school then...my last PC(bought circa 1997, P2 300) had a 6 gig hard drive that I only ever filled halfway. My new PC(bought circa last December, P4 2.4G) has a 30 gig hard drive and currently has 12 gig used, and I can't imagine that I'll ever manage to use all of the 16 that remain.

Maybe it's because I'm on dialup and I can't download massive quanities of illegal media :)

But really I was just talking about the general media excitement....I don't follow the PC community all that horrifically closely but I do read a couple of sites regularly, and I haven't heard anything that was at the level of amazement I remember when I bought my first computer and hard drives had just recently started to be measured in gigs instead of megs. Now it's just like, oh, hard drives doubled in size again whoopee. Maybe I'm not moving in the right circles but speaking from the mainstream, that's what I see :)

[Pony99CA]

Guess I'm WAY old school then...my last PC(bought circa 1997, P2 300) had a 6 gig hard drive that I only ever filled halfway. My new PC(bought circa last December, P4 2.4G) has a 30 gig hard drive and currently has 12 gig used, and I can't imagine that I'll ever manage to use all of the 16 that remain.

I'm more old school than you, I think. The last PC I got for my use was my laptop in 2000. It has a 20 GB hard drive, and I only have 2-3 GB left. I bought an 80 GB Firewire drive to avoid filling my laptop's drive up.

Maybe it's because I'm on dialup and I can't download massive quanities of illegal media :)
Hey, I don't download that much. :-) Most of my MP3s are ripped from CDs that I bought.

I do agree that media is a big space hog. However, before I got my iPAQ, I didn't have much use for MP3 files. My laptop speakers suck and I don't take it everywhere with me anyway, so what was the point?

Now that I have my iPAQ, I rip CD images to my 80 GB drive and MP3s to my laptop drive. The MP3s get copied to my iPAQ and the CD images are used to burn copies for my car.

A 1 GB SD card might allow me to put all of my MP3s on that and only use my 512 MB CF card for GPS maps. That would rock.

Steve

[Phoenix]

Very nice 8) , but the question to me is, what speed will these SanDisk cards run at? I mean, how will they compare speed-wise to the soon-to-be-released 256 MB and 512 MB Lexar cards that are supposed to run at 4.8x speeds? And how much does it truly matter? Is this whole "speed issue" just more of a marketing gimmick? I wonder... :?:

[jayman]

Sony have developed a 32gb memory stick for use in their new tapeless camcorders due out next year.

read it in T3 which is usually accurate.

If the clies move that far ahead I'm switching.

[JvanEkris]

What's scary is that I no longer consider 1GB to be "a lot".

Janak, like everybody else on this board you start thinking, now i can fit about 40% of my WMA's on one card ! Next step a 100% of my WMA's. Step after that, all my family photo's fit as well. After that, a street-level map of the world as well.

We probaly keep putting more and more data we wanted all along on that disk, until eventually your entire life (music, photo's notes, documents etc) on it. You can always have your data with you. Now we have to priorotize, and that prioritizing becoes less and less.

Scary thought, what if you lose that one (say 8 Gb) card containing every piece of music and photo you owned....

Jaap

[rlobrecht]

My new PC(bought circa last December, P4 2.4G) has a 30 gig hard drive and currently has 12 gig used, and I can't imagine that I'll ever manage to use all of the 16 that remain.

Buy a digital video camera. That 16 GB will dissappear overnight. :D

[don dre]

Wow!! That's half the price I figured 1 GB SD card would go for. I'd pay $300 for that, so small and spacious.....drool. The 5450 seems enough sleeveless now.

[vetteguy]

Be careful about talking about Sandisk cards...seems there are a lot of people in the Sandisk haters club. I recently bought a 256MB Sandisk SD card (my first dedicated memory card ever) and was talking about it over at Brighthand. You'd think I had insulted their families. People telling me how much Sandisk sucks and Lexar rules. About how much faster Lexar is and how unreliable Sandisk is. No matter what point I made (that I only will use it casually, don't need a lot of speed, got it cheap, will probably get something bigger/better in the near future anyway) they were relentless about how bad of a purchase I had made. I guess sometimes you can't please anybody.

At any rate, I've had my card for about 4 days now, and haven't had any problems with it. Speed seems fine (transferred a 40MB file in 90 seconds, although someone on that board told me how his Lexar did it in 45, so I guess he showed me). My point is if you're happy with the product and the price you paid, don't let other people make you feel bad about your purchase. Not to mention that Sandisk has been around for a long time, obviously has a large customer base if they continue to bring new products to the market at reasonable prices, and I don't see a 1GB Lexar anywhere. :roll:

[Kati Compton]

I got that drive last weekend at CompUSA for $200.00 with a rebate! Sweet! But my pc only recognizes 137gig even with the included adapter card. :(

That's probably marketing capacity vs. real capacity again.

[Janak Parekh]

I got that drive last weekend at CompUSA for $200.00 with a rebate! Sweet! But my pc only recognizes 137gig even with the included adapter card. :(
That's probably marketing capacity vs. real capacity again.
Nope. 137*(1024^3) = 147,102,629,888 bytes. This is almost definitely a BIOS limiation.

If the manufacturer thinks 200GB = 200 billion bytes, that translates to 186.2 "real" GB.

GHOSTPPC, try going to the manufacturer's website and downloading special hard drive preparation software -- those usually break the BIOS limit. A BIOS upgrade might also do the trick.

--janak

[Jason Dunn]

I got that drive last weekend at CompUSA for $200.00 with a rebate! Sweet! But my pc only recognizes 137gig even with the included adapter card. :(

That's probably marketing capacity vs. real capacity again.

No, that's a limitation of the system BIOS I believe...if you do a bit of reseach you'll find the solution, or even read the docs that came with the drive (I'm sure they address this issue). Something to do with bit addressing and all the good stuff...

[vetteguy]

I got that drive last weekend at CompUSA for $200.00 with a rebate! Sweet! But my pc only recognizes 137gig even with the included adapter card. :(

That's probably marketing capacity vs. real capacity again.

No, that's a limitation of the system BIOS I believe...if you do a bit of reseach you'll find the solution, or even read the docs that came with the drive (I'm sure they address this issue). Something to do with bit addressing and all the good stuff...
You are correct...the motherboard BIOS must be able to support 48-bit addressing in order to recognize drives >137GB. Usually an ATA133 adapter will take care of this problem if you don't want to upgrade the mainboard.

[ctmagnus]

Speed seems fine (transferred a 40MB file in 90 seconds, although someone on that board told me how his Lexar did it in 45

The writer could come into play also.

[KiltOtter]

1GB... sigh - a dream for me - you will have to make that about $800 Aussie, about 1/2 the intial price of the iPAQ3970 on release... I'm gonna just have to get smaller cards to justify costs... even a 128MB is about $200 AU :(

Sigh
:cry:

[Pony99CA]

Sony have developed a 32gb memory stick for use in their new tapeless camcorders due out next year.

read it in T3 which is usually accurate.

If the clies move that far ahead I'm switching.
What is "T3", and can you provide a link for that? I suspect that they're talking about the Memory Stick Pro and its theoretical maximum capacity. See the Sony Memory Stick Web site (http://www.memorystick.com/en/pro_info/panel_pro2.html) for details. 1 GB is the currently announced maximum.

Prove me wrong, and maybe I won't think so badly of Memory Stick. :-D

Steve

[Kati Compton]

That's probably marketing capacity vs. real capacity again.
Nope. 137*(1024^3) = 147,102,629,888 bytes. This is almost definitely a BIOS limiation.

If the manufacturer thinks 200GB = 200 billion bytes, that translates to 186.2 "real" GB.


And that's what I get for being too lazy to check the math. ;)

[Pony99CA]

1GB... sigh - a dream for me - you will have to make that about $800 Aussie, about 1/2 the intial price of the iPAQ3970 on release... I'm gonna just have to get smaller cards to justify costs... even a 128MB is about $200 AU :(

Has the Aussie dollar gone up? When I was there (June 2001), the Aussie dollar was worth US $0.50 to $0.60. US $400 to $480 for a 3970 when it came out would be a decent deal; they were $750 here.

Steve

[ctmagnus]

What is "T3", and can you provide a link for that?

Tomorrow's Tech Today, a magazine. I forget the link tho.

Edit: The url is http://www.t3.co.uk/. Watch out though, I got hit with a semi-translucent pop-up that covered the entire main window.

[Janak Parekh]

Edit: The url is http://www.t3.co.uk/. Watch out though, I got hit with a semi-translucent pop-up that covered the entire main window.
From what I've heard, T3 also tends to be a bit of a cross between a pinup and a technology magazine; take a look at the wallpapers if you want to know what I mean.

Re 32GB: I'd be extremely surprised if Sony is actually releasing this anytime soon, as much larger form factors (CF) barely hit 6GB now. I'm pretty sure that's the theoretical limit or thereabouts.

--janak