SanDisk Debuts Faster SD and CF Cards

Posted By: Ryan Friday, August 29, 2003 11:05:21 AM

SanDisk Corporation has introduced the SanDisk Ultra II line of CompactFlash and SD flash memory cards. Each card features a minimum write speed of 9 megabytes per second (MB/sec.) and a minimum read speed of 10MB/sec., making them some of the fastest performing flash memory cards in the world, the cards will be available in November.

The new card is targeted primarily at the professional digital camera and prosumer market where 4 megapixel or higher resolution digital cameras require significantly faster digital film cards. The announcement was made at the IFA consumer electronics trade show

The new SanDisk Ultra II CF card will initially be available in three capacities – 256MB, 512MB and 1 gigabyte (GB). The 256 and 512MB SanDisk Ultra II CF cards started shipping this month while the 1GB cards will be sent to retail outlets in the next thirty days. SanDisk Ultra II SD cards will be available in 256MB and 512MB capacities in October and November, respectively.

Pricing
Suggested retail prices for the three SanDisk Ultra II CF cards capacities—256MB, 512MB and 1GB—are $104.99 (about €95, excluding VAT), $209.99 (about €191, excluding VAT) and $429.99 (about €391, excluding VAT) respectively. The SanDisk Ultra II CF cards will replace the current Ultra CF line.

Suggested retail prices for the SanDisk Ultra II SD cards are $129.99 (about €118 excluding VAT) and $289.99 (about €264 excluding VAT) for the 256 and 512MB cards, respectively.

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Fast is good.

LiveFaith @ 8/29/2003 11:20:07 AM #
I know my current 64mb Sandisk SD card has some slow mice turning the wheels inside it.

Pat Horne; www.churchoflivingfaith.com
RE: Fast is good.
tvoung @ 8/29/2003 11:26:29 AM #
wow that comment was really worth your while.

~Tv~
RE: Fast is good.
Fammy @ 8/29/2003 12:27:57 PM #
Maybe now SanDisk cards will be as fast as the Panasonic ones.

-- Fammy
RE: Fast is good.
TTrules @ 8/29/2003 5:37:18 PM #
I have been annoyed by the slight delays on my sd that aren't there in ram. I hope these cards will help to fix that.

One palm to rule them all!

-Sniffer

Faster? That's nice but...

pdouglas12 @ 8/29/2003 11:45:15 AM #
I am glad that SD is making memory faster, but how about keeping their promise to get the Wi-Fi cards out for the Palm OS? The Tungsten T is a great device, but it needs the option to connect via 802.11. And no, I don't see the larger "C" as an alternative.

RE: Faster? That's nice but...
onestar @ 8/29/2003 11:54:13 AM #
It appears that SyChip's 802.11 SD card is available.

I found a couple links that might be helpful:

http://www.sychip.com/wlan-module.html


It says it will work on PalmOS4...has anyone tried this? Don't know if I wanna lay down $120 for this for my m130...but I'm tempted.

One by one, the penguins are stealing my sanity.

RE: Faster? That's nice but...
onestar @ 8/29/2003 11:56:25 AM #
The second link looks like it didn't work.

Try this one.

http://www.lacc.com/lacc/cnet.html?kw=WL6200480

One by one, the penguins are stealing my sanity.

RE: Faster? That's nice but...
indesman @ 8/29/2003 2:56:04 PM #
According to Ed Hardy at Brighthand the Socket SD Wi-Fi card will not work on PalmOS devices.

http://makeashorterlink.com/?O4FA12EB5

The SyChip silicon will work with PalmOS...if somebody makes an SD card with the chip in it. Perhaps the SanDisk Wi-Fi card uses SyChip guts but I can't find any reference to whose chip SanDisk will use.

It seems to me that someone on the PPC side got to the SD card producers and convinced them that PPC was the way to go. It's quite surprising that PalmOS is getting short shrift since it has a much larger installed base and a larger market share. I think part of the problem is Palm's artificial division of the market into 'personal' and 'professional' segments. Why in the world are the only Bluetooth choices either OS4 with the SD card and the T|T/T|T2? Why doesn't Palm release OS5 drivers for the SD card so it can be used in the T|C & Zire 71? Ridiculous.

RE: Faster? That's nice but...
bcombee @ 8/29/2003 6:33:10 PM #
In general, driver development for Palm OS 5 is much, much harder than development for Pocket PC, as Palm OS hasn't had a well-defined driver model, and the tricks used to hook into the OS on older versions of the OS aren't available in OS 5.

--
Ben Combee, CodeWarrior for Palm OS technical lead
Programming help at www.palmoswerks.com
RE: Faster? That's nice but...
devildoc @ 8/31/2003 6:24:40 PM #

A better comment would be "the card doesn't work with Palm branded PalmOS devices" It works with the HandEra 330. Of course why use an SD card when cheaper CF cards work just as well and are cheaper.

ok...but where is the wifi you promised us!!!!!!!!!!

dd61999 @ 8/29/2003 11:57:20 AM #
Everyone on this board should write an email to sandisk explaining their dissapointment that they discontinued the release of a wifi card for palm, maybe if they get a big enough response they will consider it again

RE: ok...but where is the wifi you promised us!!!!!!!!!!
Admin @ 8/29/2003 12:08:38 PM #
they just announced they would not support OS 4, a palm os 5 version is expected in the late fall

http://www.palminfocenter.com/view_story.asp?ID=5842

Faster, but not in the Palm Slot?

dkhaw @ 8/29/2003 12:25:46 PM #
My current Sandisk 256MB is slow in the Palm (Zire 71)but resonably fast using a USB reader. Now with these faster cards, does that mean they will perform better in the Palm slot, or does Palm still need to address their SD slot/sandisk issues?

RE: Faster, but not in the Palm Slot?
hkklife @ 8/29/2003 1:27:00 PM #
I think they're limited by the Palm's hardware...someone correct me if I am wrong.

On a related note, when will Palm see fit to make their cradles USB 2.0 compatible? It'd help matters somewhat and cannot cost more than mere pennies to implement (if that!). Heck, even a cool looking translucent firewire cradle would go over well with the Mac crowd. Companies like TDK have long been producing external CD burners in both Firewire/USB 1&2 flavors. I know that when I got a USB 2.0 PCI card and a high-speed card reader the amount of time to drop mp3s onto a 256mb SD card decreased significantly.


RE: Faster, but not in the Palm Slot?
Len DeJesus @ 8/29/2003 1:58:11 PM #
I actually have both a SanDisk 128 and Lexar 256, and the Sandisk is noticeably slower when using my external USB 2.0 reader (but then again, it happens to be a Lexar reader...)
RE: Faster, but not in the Palm Slot?
Gurn @ 8/29/2003 3:24:08 PM #
Isn't there a known issue with SanDisk cards and Palms? Something about a 12 bit controller vs. a 16 bit controller used by other SD manufacturers. If someone could explain that concept to me again, I'd appreciate it. Has SanDisk changed the controller in these new cards?

RE: Faster, but not in the Palm Slot?
cbowers @ 8/29/2003 3:46:11 PM #
Almost certainly there were be PalmOS hardware limitations. I'm not yet aware of any SD slots on our platform enabled for 4-wire mode, only 1-wire and SPI modes.

RE: Faster, but not in the Palm Slot?
Sho-Bud @ 8/29/2003 5:24:57 PM #
Strange thing is: hotsync to my 256 Mb SanDisk is slow, but using RealOne to transfer MP3's to the card is very fast.

How rapid is rapid, how quick is quick?
orb2069 @ 8/29/2003 5:27:03 PM #
If (Somehow) you could create the perfect card-reading subroutine, one that could read a byte of information off the card every processor cycle, a 16mhz palm would probably STILL get kicked to the curb by a 1,000mhz Intel machine that only read every other cycle.

Now factor in that (For reasons of cost, part count and power consumption) the Palm is probably handling the card more-or-less directly via the processor, and the desktop is probably using independant hardware (USB/device interface electronics) to handle most of the low-level card twiddling, and it only gets worse.

Sony

arielb @ 8/29/2003 6:57:18 PM #
I wonder how this compaes to Memory stick. Fortunately there are clies with both CF and MS slots. It will be up to tapwave to give us a dual slot with SD since Handera is gone

Compatibility

Haber @ 8/30/2003 9:15:14 AM #
Do these SD and CF cards work at the faster rate in current devices, or does new firmware have to be introduced into the devices to enable them to utilize the higher throughput?

RE: Compatibility
ganoe @ 8/30/2003 9:01:24 PM #
In the case of the Palm, and almost all other PDAs with SD slots, I'd suspect you need new hardware to take advantage of most of the speed increase. Though you would probably see some minor performance improvements on current devices.

I assume 9 MB/sec would require a 4 bit SD interface, and I don't know, do any current PDAs have that???

Card Benchmarks

Gepeto @ 9/2/2003 12:02:59 AM #
I just posted a few http://aliencow.com:81/blog/archives/000007.html">benchmarks
of 3 SD cards using a Palm Tungsten 2 on my blog...

Of course, I have a 16mb and a 8mb just because they came free with my camera. What I would love is if some of you guys would email me at gepeto@aliencow.com with some VFS mark results, including what kind of handheld, size and brand of card, so I could add them there ! (hint: export them to memo pad, sync, copy paste!)

RE: Card Benchmarks
Gepeto @ 9/2/2003 12:05:13 AM #
That's what I get for posting comments on Fark then not remembering stuff is auto-linked here...

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