Kenyatta

I have an iPAQ 4155 and would like your opinion of which 512 SD Memory card to purchase and why? Additionally, what are the benefits of faster read speeds of 10 MB/s? …and finally why do I not see anyone mentioning the manufactures of PC memory i.e.…Viking or Kingston?

viodea

I have a Kingston 512MB card and a Laxor 256MB card. The Laxor feels faster. I don't know it's due to the size different or quality. When I save a note on 512MB card it takes some time and the wait icon shows up but it never happens on the 256MB card.

Aquatic

Check the listings of a "techie" retail site... www.newegg.com comes to mind. They often list the "specs" of the cards in their descriptions.

Sometimes memory choices are like video card/PDA choices--everyone has had different experiences--so often we don't talk about specific brand name ( many are the same underneath the label anyway).

Read/write speeds are the measure of how "fast" the memory can perform an action. if the speed is, relatively speaking, slower, then if you use a program that does a lot of I/O to the card (e.g. some sort of Database or similar) then you should expect slower overall performance using say a 2 MB/s card over a 10 MB/s one. Remember too, the READ speed doesn't imply that the write speed is the same--many time they are not.

If you are just using the card for program storage/data storage, and not really dealing with a lot I/O in your programs, a slower card would likely work for you--and you get the added bonus of saving a couple of bucks.

Personally, I have the "slow" Sandisk 256, and it does what I need it to do, so I'm quite happy with it. I'd imagine that if I picked up one of their "Ultra" cards that I MIGHT notice a bit of a difference (especially since I store all my programs on the SD card, not internally) but so far, so good.

Good Luck!

Oh, one last thing, "cross posting" or putting the same/similar messages in more than one forum is usually considered a "bad thing" to do. Just pick the most appropriate forum and post it once there. Many of us hit the "view new posts" search anyway and scan the topics in all the forums to see if anything jumps out.

whitelyt

IMO, the Lexar cards seem to be the best available. However, you need to evaluate what particular functions you will be doing with the card. Whether it be gaming, video or just plain file storage, better performance can be obtained depending on how you format the card. I can't seem to find it just yet but there is some information about what format perimeters to use (FAT16, FAT32, etc.) for certain functions.

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Chinoz

Are there any reliable benchmarks to test the speeds of SD cards? I have a high speed Panasonic 256mb sd card and a 256mb pretec one which i don't know the speed, and would like to see the difference between the 2 of them.

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JNGold

Quote:

can't seem to find it just yet but there is some information about what format perimeters to use (FAT16, FAT32, etc.) for certain functions.

Straight from Anton..... HTH!

Quote:

Indeed, FAT type and cluster size make a difference when speaking of file system speed. FAT16 uses 16bit entries for each cluster and FAT32 uses 32bit ones. When reading the FAT to determine the clusters in a file chain FAT16 is virtually twice as fast as FAT32 because a single FAT16 sector contains twice the allocation entries of a FAT32 sector. The cluster size also matters. The bigger the cluster size the less clusters in a file chain. For example if the cluster size is 512 bytes a 10K file will have 20 clusters and if the cluster size is 16K the same file will only have two clusters. Having less clusters in a chain minimizes the accesses to the FAT tables and therefore improves performance. FAT16 and larger cluster size is not very effective if you store a lot of files because the "slack" (wasted space) will be very high. In such case FAT32 should be used. For example, a 64MB card formatted with FAT16/8K cluster that contains 1000 files 100 bytes each will report 7.8MB used space (instead of 0.09MB) because one 8K cluster will be allocated for each file (8K * 1000 = 7.8MB). To summarize: FAT16 + larger cluster size = better performance (use if you will store a few large files on the volume to avoid large "slack"). FAT16 should also be used if the card will be used in a digital camera. Most digital cameras only support FAT16. FAT32 + smaller cluster size = better space allocation (less "slack") - use for cards larger than 64-128MB and when storing a lot of small files. To check the existing FAT type and cluster size, use Pocket Mechanic. Either go to the Card Information module or run the Logical Format module and select the card without formatting it - the program will fill the FAT type and cluster size combos with the current card FAT type and cluster size.

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