SanDisk Announces 2GB High Performance SD Card

Posted By: Ryan Thursday, September 30, 2004 11:46:11 AM

SanDisk announced today that is has quadrupled the capacity of its high-speed SanDisk Ultra II line of flash memory cards that includes the development of a new 8GB CompactFlash Type I card. The top end SanDisk Ultra II Memory Stick PRO and SD cards now offer 4GB and 2GB of capacity respectively.

SanDisk Ultra II SD, MS PRO and CF cards Each SanDisk Ultra II card features a minimum write speed of 9 megabytes per second (MB/sec.) and a minimum read speed of 10MB/sec.* (Results based on testing with the popular HDBENCH benchmark software; actual results in digital cameras will vary by camera model.) The Ultra II cards are primarily targeted at serious photographers with 4-megapixel or higher resolution digital cameras that require fast, high capacity digital film cards to quickly shoot many high resolution images but can also be used in mostly any SD or MS Pro device.

SanDisk's Utlra II 256MB - 512MB SD cards now range from $65 - $90 USD, while the 1 and 2GB models range from $119 - $239 USD. The 2 - 4 GB Memory stick pro cards range from $479 - $959 for the top of the line card, while the 4GB Compact Flash card goes for $479, and the 8 GB CF card tops out at $959. The higher capacity cards are expected to be widely available in November.

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Wow

a_nonamiss @ 9/30/2004 2:49:43 PM #

That's one heck of a lot of palm apps. I can remember when I couldn't fill up 2 MB on my Palm III. So much for progress...

Arthur

Palm Pilot 1000 > Palm Pilot Professional > Palm III > Palm M100 > Sony Clié PEG-T415 > Palm T|T3

CompactFlash vs. Memory Stick vs. SD

The_Voice_of_Reason @ 9/30/2004 4:18:17 PM #

But now we're carrying hundreds of MB of MP3, video files, photos, Word documents, etc. Some of us with CLIEs can even record TV shows direct to Memory Stick. It all adds up.

The best news is that this should drive prices down even more. Funny how SD seems to be te worst choice if you want a lot of storage, while good old CompactFlash is the best. The more things change...

******************************************************************
Sony CLIE UX100: 128 MB real RAM, OLED screen. All the PDA anyone really ever wanted.

RE: Wow

Altema @ 9/30/2004 11:22:45 PM #

"I can remember when I couldn't fill up 2 MB on my Palm III. So much for progress..."

I was not so fortunate. My first device was a Palm IIIe with 2MB, which gave me my first out of memory message the second week I had it. From there I went to the 8MB IIIc but still bordered on being full all the time (thanks to the novelty of color games). The 8MB M505 gave me my first taste of storage and I could breathe a little easier, but RAM stayed relatively full due to the difference in launching apps from the card. The 16MB M515 was a sweetie; twice the RAM, same expansion, and about 2.7MB of ROM I could steal. The T|T was a step forward in performance and features, but a step backward in RAM; only 14MB available RAM, and there was no extra ROM to borrow. I skipped the T|T2, despite it being a good one, and went for the first device to remove my memory shortages, the T3. After almost a year of extreme use, I still average about 23MB of free RAM.

As it relates to this article, I no longer have any issues with enough RAM, but find myself looking for more card space with music and movies. I currently keep only one movie on the card along with about 3 music albums, but a 2GB card would sure come in handy and take care of the remaining storage issues. Well, at least for a few months!

RE: Wow

A9700rO @ 10/1/2004 2:29:54 PM #

Well, if you buy these cards just so you can play MP3 or some other external media, note that the palm handheld for example, won't last twenty hours of playback. I have a 512 Megabyte Memory Stick, and the Clie won't even get to finish playing all the music before it starts to whine about low battery, and disable the use of MS slot, and the backlight.

Clie-SJ22>>Tungsten | E >>> Clie-NX60>>Zire 73

Keep Going

Rhauer @ 9/30/2004 3:18:24 PM #

You can always use more for music, a little bigger and we can bag the i-pod.

RE: Keep Going

LiveFaith @ 9/30/2004 3:43:56 PM #

Awesome. Now I can finally begin to add more entries to my Contacts list.

Pat Horne; www.churchoflivingfaith.com

RE: Keep Going

CaptMyCapt @ 9/30/2004 4:58:51 PM #

Exactly! Now I can carry more than just one movie on my T3 along with my many other apps and MP3s without having to switch out cards. This is great.

I, Captain

"You will never make progress trying to sail into the wind - chart your course!"

RE: Keep Going

Calroth @ 9/30/2004 9:20:10 PM #

The thing about the iPod is, the 4GB iPod Mini costs $249... whereas the 4GB CF card costs $479.

So we're still a factor of 2 out, but you can be sure that as soon as it becomes economic, we'll start seeing tiny MP3 flash players with these cards.

RE: Keep Going

JonathanChoo @ 10/2/2004 8:53:39 AM #

Why get an overprice and overhyped iPod Mini when you can have the excellent 5Gb Rio Carbon for the same price (or less).

Generic PDA > 5mx > Vx > m505 > N770C > T625C > NR70V > e310 > m550 > h2210 > T/T3 & h4150
StarTac > T28m > T39m > T68m > T610 > T630 > K700i

From SanDisk?

mikecane @ 9/30/2004 6:22:57 PM #

Is anyone here really going to buy SanDisk after all the sturm and drang over them? Or has that bit passed?

RE: From SanDisk?

Patrick @ 9/30/2004 6:45:47 PM #

I have a number of SanDisk cards for which I've had zero problems. They were very cost effective. I think they've really gotten their act together recently. If the specs for the new cards prove to be attractive now, it would be silly to shoot myself in the foot to not consider one of the major players in a very competitive market.

RE: From SanDisk?

sremick @ 9/30/2004 8:11:31 PM #

I'd consider this for the shear capacity factor, but SanDisk's reputation would force me to wait until some other people braved it first and posted reviews, benchmarks, etc.

RE: From SanDisk?

JonathanChoo @ 10/1/2004 5:08:47 AM #

I have a 512Mb Ultra II SD card and it is fast. Real world usage is just as fast as my 256Mb Panasonic SD card. So no complains here.

RE: From SanDisk?

jasondeno @ 10/1/2004 11:08:32 AM #

I have an Ultra II SD 256MB card. I've had it since last October and use it in my Treo 600. I find it to be very fast and work flawlessly.

However, this is my second card. My first one died while I was formatting it in my computer. This was during my second week with the card. Bad media or an ID10T error? Who knows. But they quickly replaced it and its been fine every since. My Treo auto backs up all my programs in RAM to it once per day and udring every synch. I've watched movies off of it and routinley listen to MP3s on it.

So that's my experience. Its fairly positive, but not without problems. Hope that helps.

RE: From SanDisk?

Frank Wilkinson @ 10/3/2004 11:45:37 AM #

SanDisk are a major player. If you buy a digital camera from Nikon, Canon, Sony, Olympus etc., the manufacturer's own-brand card will almost certainly be made by SanDisk. I cannot believe that prestigious companies such as these would use an inferior product.

I have just returned from Photokina in Cologne, Germany (the world's largest photograph equipment exhibition and my supplier of Sandisk cards tells me that I can expect 4MB SD cards in a few weeks.

I am a retailer of photographic equipment with several stores in Northern England and sell thousands of Sandisk cards every year. Our failure rate is almost zero, and many of the tiny number that we do get a complaint about are probably user error, such as removing the card before it's finished writing.

Frank Wilkinson U.K.