Sandisk Ultra II 4gb SDHC Card Announced
At the Photokina 2006 show in Cologne, Germany, SanDisk announced an Ultra II version of their new 4gb SD High Capacity (SDHC) format memory card.
While currently limited to 4gb, 8gb and larger sizes are on the horizon. A 4gb SDHC card can store over than 2,000 high resolution digital camera images or up to 8 hours of MPEG 4 video. The SDHC format, co-developed by Matsushita, Toshiba, and Sandisk, offers write speeds of 9MB/sec and read speeds of 10MB/sec on compatible devices.
Palm has yet to offer any opion, future support promises, or even mention their stance on their devices' compatibility with the new SDHC format. All Palm devices have used standard SD removable flash memory cards since the launch of the m500 line in 2001, with recent Palm handhelds and smartphones moving to a FAT32 filesystem to enable unofficial support of 2gb and the non-spec 4gb SD cards.
Due to numerous incompatabilities with older SD-enabled devices and card readers, SanDisk is generously bundling their MicroMate USB 2.0 SDHC/SD reader with all flavors of SDHC cards. The Ultra II cards will be available in October for an MSRP of $220. Sandisk's standard blue SDHC cards currently have spotty availability at retail outlets.
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RE: Official Support. of 2 GB
Interesting how they arrive at that particular list of devices:
Apparently the Treo 650, 600, T5 and Zire 72 support 2gb SD cards via FAT16 (its maximum volume size for all practical purposes).
Then the newer LifeDrive, TX and Treo 700 series support 2gb by way of a FAT32 driver which just so happens to enable unofficial support for 4gb. I doubt we'll ever see Palm officially support 4gb SD 1.1 cards since the SD Consortium doesn't even officially acknowledge these cards. Basically, if Sandisk or Pansonic do not produce a card in a particular capacity like 4gb or 1.5gb, then I wouldn't really consider it a legitimate or widely-supported variant. The SD market is already fragmented enough as it is.
Pilot 1000-->Pilot 5000-->PalmPilot Pro-->IIIe-->Vx-->m505-->T|T-->T|T2-->T|C-->T|T3-->T|T5-->TX-->Treo 700P
4Gb Sd card for what?
What would you use this 4 gig card with today? Can your digital camera address that much memory? Comments?
RE: 4Gb Sd card for what?
I also have a cheap no-name (but new) internal SD card reader in my PC that's supposedly capable of SD 2.0 which is another moniker for SDHC. It handles 2gb and 4gb vanilla SD cards so I'll take that as a good sign.
The E2 was released in Spring '05 and the Z22 and TX in Oct '05, so technically those two are the final Palm PDAs produced.
Right now the LifeDrive, TX, Treo 700P and 700w/wx all officially support a FAT32 filesystem so you can use the non-spec 4gb SD cards on them.
To the best of my knowledge, I think FrankenGarnet is limited to only recognize drive volumes of 4gb or less. So that could be yet another reason an 8gb LD2 was never produced by Palm as rumored.
IIRC, FAT32 itself permits volumes up to 32gb but I think that was a Microsoft restriction and not an absolute limitation. At any rate, I suppose SDHC will be viable through 8gb and probably up to the teens--I doubt SDHC will reach 32gb in its current iteration.
128mb of program memory is definitely a limitation of FrankenGarnet, as evidenced by the Zodiac 2 and TX. That's PLENTY for my needs....128mb of program memory and a 4gb SD card makes for a nice combination. 128mb internal + 2gb internal flash (ala T5) + a 4gb SD card would be fantastic. With the plummeting flash prices nowdays, Palm could release a TX/T5 hybrid with a glammed-up version of TCMP in ROM and market it as a PMP PDP or as a Nano alternative.
Pilot 1000-->Pilot 5000-->PalmPilot Pro-->IIIe-->Vx-->m505-->T|T-->T|T2-->T|C-->T|T3-->T|T5-->TX-->Treo 700P
RE: 4Gb Sd card for what?
IIRC, FAT32 itself permits volumes up to 32gb but I think that was a Microsoft restriction and not an absolute limitation.
According to this Microsoft page (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/184006/), the maximum size of the FAT32 partition is 8 TB, unless under a 16-bit operating system then it is only 127.53 GB. Now, Windows 2000 would not format a volume greater than 32 GB, but it could still use such a volume. I do not know if this restriction changed in XP.
RE: 4Gb Sd card for what?
According to this Microsoft page (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/184006/), the maximum size of the FAT32 partition is 8 TB, unless under a 16-bit operating system then it is only 127.53 GB.
I just reread the reference. It actually appears that the old 16-bit Windows did support the full 8 TB, however the ScanDisk program under Windows 95 and 98 could not handle anything above 127.53 GB. The Windows XP page (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314463/EN-US/) actually suggests booting from 98 or Me to setup FAT32 volumes greater than 32 GB.
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Official Support. of 2 GB
According to Palm's Support Knowledge Library Solution ID: 34080 (http://tinyurl.com/8soq3), Palm officially supports 2 GB SD cards on the Treo 700p, 650, 600 Tungsten T5, Zire 72, LifeDrive and newer devices. Support for larger than 2 GB is still unofficial.