Fast Secure Digital cards?? **Updated 7/21** Got a Transcend 45x and it SMOKES!!!

[NFS4]

I had a Panasonic SD card, but my iPAQ kept corrupting it and Panasonic would never get back to me with tech support for the darn thing, so I said *&@# 'em.

So I picked up a Kingston 512MB SD card from ZipZoomFly for about $65 after rebate. The bastard is slow as hell. Seems even slower than Sandisk. It took over twice as long to backup 12MB of data on my iPAQ and about three times as long to transfer 300MB of data to it from my desktop PC to the card via my internal USB 2.0 reader.

So my question is, does anyone know of a site that has read/write comparisons of current SD cards (I know that DPreview has done CF cards, but I don't see anything for Secure Digital), or do you know of any others that are pretty quick? I hear the Lexar is pretty fast and I'll stay away from Sandisk like the plague.

 

[Ionizer86]

This is just personal experience, but my PNY 256 is really slow, like 1/3 the speed of my previous Memorex 128. The Memorex 128 was slightly faster than my Memorex 128 CF, so that makes it about the same speed as my dad's 256 Kingston CF.

I should make some benchmarking graphs from my previous write-a-10MB-file tests

 

[NFS4]

I'm thinking of just biting the bullet and getting this 512MB Lexar SD card from ZipZoomFly. I had a 256MB Lexar card over a year ago, and it seemed pretty damned quick (at the time).

 

[L00PY]

Not sure if it answers your questions, but I know Sandra lets you benchmark your own cards. And Newegg lists read/write speeds in their description for their cards.

So I guess you should be able to benchmark your cards, see the speed difference, and pick out a faster one from Newegg.

 

[sharkeeper]

I have a PNY 512MB and it does seem quite slow at 1.3 MB/S. That was using a PCMCIA adapter on a notebook too!

Cheers!

 

[NFS4]

Originally posted by: L00PY
Not sure if it answers your questions, but I know Sandra lets you benchmark your own cards. And Newegg lists read/write speeds in their description for their cards.

So I guess you should be able to benchmark your cards, see the speed difference, and pick out a faster one from Newegg.

It looks as though my Kingston card is putting around at 2MB/sec according to NewEgg.
My Panasonic was rated at 10MB/sec

I could try the Dane-Elec for $94 or the Transcend for $99

I just wish there was a way to see what the real-world performance is of these cards

 

[NFS4]

This is so confusing. Dane-Elec's website says:

Their rate of data-transfer varies between 2 and 4 MB per second

Yet the PDF spec sheet says:

Maximum 10MB/sec in read/write mode (4 data lines)

Why the big difference?

Grrrr, what to do

It appears that the Transcend has more "real-world" specs:

Read 7.7 MB/sec (Max.), Write 6.8 MB/sec (Max.)

I guess I'll go with that one

 

[Elcs]

Originally posted by: NFS4
This is so confusing. Dane-Elec's website says:

Their rate of data-transfer varies between 2 and 4 MB per second

Yet the PDF spec sheet says:

Maximum 10MB/sec in read/write mode (4 data lines)

Why the big difference?

Perhaps the 10 MB/s is the maximum possible but the 2-4 MB/s is a realistic view of the transfer speeds achievable.

 

[AndyHui]

The Panasonic 256MB+ cards, SanDisk Ultra II and Kingston Elite Pro cards are the only cards on the market which do the 10MB (claimed) transfer rates. Every other card on the market is using the standard 2MB transfer rate.

 

[NFS4]

Originally posted by: AndyHui
The Panasonic 256MB+ cards, SanDisk Ultra II and Kingston Elite Pro cards are the only cards on the market which do the 10MB (claimed) transfer rates. Every other card on the market is using the standard 2MB transfer rate.

What about the Lexar 32x models?

 

[NFS4]

I picked up the Transcend 512MB SD card from NewEgg. It arrived today and it whips the ass of that piece of %*$@ Kingston card.

 

[NFS4]

HOLY CRAP!! It kicks the living PISS out of the Kingston card AND my Panasonic 512MB SD card doing backups from my iPAQ to my SD card. It would take my Pansonic card over a minute to backup the same amount of data. The Trascend simply smoked through my backup test:

Kingston 512MB SD backing up 12.3MB of data: 2:42 @ 71 KB/sec
Trascend 45x 512MB SD backing up 12.9MB of data: 0:50 @ 253 KB/sec

 

[AndyHui]

I'm wondering if you got a fake Panasonic card? There was a big run a little while ago of dodgy manufacturers producing fake Panasonic SD cards that underperformed and caused all sorts of problems.

 

[NFS4]

Originally posted by: AndyHui
I'm wondering if you got a fake Panasonic card? There was a big run a little while ago of dodgy manufacturers producing fake Panasonic SD cards that underperformed and caused all sorts of problems.

I got it from Outpost.com over a year ago. It was always fast, but I never had problems with it corrupting data until I got my iPAQ 4150. I put up with it until now when I finally couldn't take it anymore.

This Transcend card is a BEAST though. Super fast. Glad I made the right choice

 

[Alterac000]

I'm reviving this post because the last message was posted over a month ago. So now it's my turn to ask, does anyone know what the best companies are for secure digital flash memory cards? I'm looking for a 512 to stick in my new Axim X30, newegg's website has several to choose from with various speed ratings but I can never tell if any of them are accurate. Any suggestions?

 

[Kaido]

I just got a Kingston 256mb SD card off Newegg for like $18 AR. Works fine so far. I'm using it with my Dell Axim X5...I'm planning on buying Pocketmap and using it mainly for storing GPS maps.

Edit: haha I meant Newegg, not ebay...d'oh!

 

[Anubis]

Originally posted by: NFS4
HOLY CRAP!! It kicks the living PISS out of the Kingston card AND my Panasonic 512MB SD card doing backups from my iPAQ to my SD card. It would take my Pansonic card over a minute to backup the same amount of data. The Trascend simply smoked through my backup test:

Kingston 512MB SD backing up 12.3MB of data: 2:42 @ 71 KB/sec
Trascend 45x 512MB SD backing up 12.9MB of data: 0:50 @ 253 KB/sec

yea the Transecnd card is nice I have 2 of them for my D70 but my Sandisk ultra II is even faster got it for 62$ ar from Zipzoom

 

[Alterac000]

What about companies like Dane-Elec or Kingmax? They are rated for high speeds (60x) or something there, but I have no idea if that's accurate / theoretical / peak speeds. Is it worth it to pay more for the Sandisk Ultra II's? Am i going to notice a difference when running programs on my X30?

 

[Anubis]

Originally posted by: Alterac000
What about companies like Dane-Elec or Kingmax? They are rated for high speeds (60x) or something there, but I have no idea if that's accurate / theoretical / peak speeds. Is it worth it to pay more for the Sandisk Ultra II's? Am i going to notice a difference when running programs on my X30?

i dont know about your X30 but it sure as hell makes a big difference in a high end didgital camera the write/read speed is uber fast

 

[toneman]

Okay, so the Transcend has great write speeds; how good is its read speed? This is more important to me as far as my particular application is concerned, as I have an iQue 3600; the map data (tons of it) is stored on the SD card.

 

[Alterac000]

Okay so I finally decided to go with the KingMax after reading up all over the internet for the past 2 days. It seems that the 60X ratings are fairly accurate, however many times the read/write speeds are limited to the device that you happen to be using, in my case the X30. It appears that the rated theoretical speeds are much more important for devices like high megapixel cameras, where writing time after taking pictures makes a big difference.

Newegg has the kingmax 512 (60x) card for like 56 + 1.50 shipping so I jumped on it. Thanks for all your help so far.