SanDisk is going faster than fast with their new Memory Stick PRO-HG Duo product. This new Memory Stick line from SanDisk is the fastest format of it’s kind. So what kind of speed are we talking about? How about 30MBs per second. Yep, MBs not Mbts per second. The sustained transfer speed for both reading and writing is static at 30MBs and it’ll be interesting to see if the spec is the same as the street [experience].
To put this figure in perspective, the non-HG Extreme III Memory Stick from SanDisk is only able to achieve an 18MBps transfer speed. This new memory card represents an increase of over 50%.
If you want to put that into perspective, check out a dated benchmark from a couple years ago. Boy how times have changed.
The SanDisk Sony Memory Stick PRO-HG Duo is expected to become available late next month with 4GB and 8GB sizes at prices between $90 and $150 respectively.
Source:Â MobileMag.com.
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Ya, that’s right…sometimes you need to crack your own flash memory. In this case, what if you have a password protected SD card? Well, the crafty fellows at USBFever have a solution which requires a USB port and a card reader adapter.
The USB Fever memory card unlocker is designed to crack your code and get back that flash memory you’ve been locked out from. The draw back, which I believe is appropriate punishment on forgetting your password, is the unlocker wipes your card clean of any data. If the data is that important you can send the flash card out to be serviced – but are pictures of your mother-in-law that important? Doubt it.
USB Fever memory card unlocker product page.
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I wrote about the differences of xD cards a while back, and today I found the end-all, be-all xD chart of compatibility. I wanted to pass this along as it seems many have questions about:
“What is the difference of xD cards?”
“What is Type M and Type H xD cards?”
Well, aside from my previous article, you can cross reference what xD card you’d like to buy with the camera you have to make sure there is 100% compatibility. Book mark the chart page (or book mark my page with the link) so you have a quick reference on xD card sizes and their difference.
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GFM posted about the Open Source Openmoko NEO phone which created a lot of buzz with our readers. Today I received an email stating you can now download the CAD files for the NEO phone industrial design.
What does this mean? Industrial design artists now have the same freedeom as software engineers in developing this great product. Now, by publishing mechanical CAD files, Openmoko frees industrial designers to fundamentally redesign
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While forecasting strong sales and profitability in 2008, Silicon Motion projects that demand for low-density NAND flash will beat that for the high-density segment, driven by demand for microSD cards and embedded memory, said company president and CEO Wallace Kou.
Silicon Motion guides that annual sales will grow by 25-35% on year with gross margins to stay in the range of 52-53% in 2008. Although memory makers strive to migrate NAND flash applications to higher density under sales and profitability concerns, that makes no difference for controller makers, Kou said. For a controller IC design house, he stressed that memory density has no relationship on controller sales, given that any NAND flash application (such as USB drive or memory card) only requires one controller, regardless of memory density.
In light of global economic trends, Kou said demand for low-density NAND flash products should be better, partially due to sales spurred by the bundling of memory cards with handsets. Demand for microSD cards will continue to expand in 2008, Kuo said. Out of the 96.3 million units of controllers shipped in the fourth quarter, 89.3 million were for memory cards and USB drives, he detailed.
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Sans Digital is delivering a dual Compact Flash design that might rival some solid state drives at half the cost and with significant benefits. What Sans Digital has come up with is putting two Compact Flash cards into a 2.5″ enclosure to make it look and feel like a SSD drive. Using two 16GB cards and some RAID configuration the dual flash memory becomes a 32GB hard drive. Although this isn’t the biggest drive size, it does rival entry level SSD storage devices.
So here’s the kicker; putting two high performance Sandisk Extreme III Compact Flash cards together would only cost a user about $360. Compare that cost outlay with a $860 SSD drive [of about the same storage size] and you’ve got yourself a clear winner on what direction to take.
“Unlike existing RAID units that employs hard drives for storage space, the CompactSTOR CS1T utilizes pocket-sized lightweight Compact Flash cards as storage memory for data safekeeping. Designed with the same size and connectors as a 2.5†SATA hard drive, the CS1T is compatible with the hard drive slot of laptops, industrial PCs (IPC), small form factor computers, and 2.5†hard drive enclosures.”
In addition, the Compact Flash configuration has lower power consumption and less noise and heat output. The only issue we see is the performance difference between the two. The entry level SSD storage units average [according to spec] about 90Mbytes/s write whereby the Sans Digital solution is about a 3rd less at 30Mbytes/s write speed.
The Sans Digital product is called the CompactSTOR and retails for about $45 for the dual bay Compact Flash base and enclosure, memory, of course, is sold seperately.
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Yes, you read it correctly. Ricky Martin and Kingston Technology have teamed together to bring one of the first music albums to the microSD format.
The Ricky Martin microSD card comes with exclusive preloaded music is a 1GB size that features 2 free songs, a video clip and photos from Ricky Martin’s Black & White tour.
The microSD card includes a USB reader so users can instantly access the card from a host computer or laptop, or connect the microSD card directly into their MP3 compatible phone or PDA.
Comment from Ricky Martin:
“I am very excited by the new avenues for sharing music that technology continues to provide,†said Ricky Martin. “I enthusiastically embrace these new formats. They mean global growth for not only my music — but for all music — and that’s why I’m very happy to form this alliance with Kingston.â€
Comment from Kingston rep:
“The microSD Ricky Martin Live Card from Kingston is an innovative way for savvy consumers to enjoy Ricky Martin’s music,†said Seth A. Schachner, Vice President, Digital Business Latin America, Sony BMG Music Entertainment. “It’s also a terrific, versatile product to boot.â€
Transcend continues their effort into the embedded systems applications with their most recent announcement of the SATA Flash Module. The high-speed SATA flash modules specifically designed for use in thin clients, blade servers, ultra-compact sub-notebooks and space-limited industrial installations allows Transcend to offer up their lightweight and compact SATA flash memory modules.
With solid-state flash memory being non-volatile and more robust than spinning hard disk solutions, it makes the SATA flash module ideal for harsher environments with more demanding applications, such as embedded systems, medial instruments, factory automation equipment, network infrastructure and other industrial equipment.
What I like most about flash memory modules is the low power consumption, shock and vibration resistance, longer data retention durability and instant access time (no spin up or seek times we traditionally see in HHDs).
Transcend’s SATA flash modules are offered in 1GB and 2GB capacities, in both vertical and horizontal versions to satisfy industrial application requirements.
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I have my reasons for watching the flash memory market. One of the key elements I look for is falling flash memory prices. For me, dropping memory prices’ is an indicator other activities I’m in will continue to grow. Today I read an interesting article which gave some great detail about the continued drop of flash memory.
I’ll start off with a quote to the article, then you can click through for more:
Prices of NAND flash memory could plummet this year because of weak demand and an oversupply of NAND flash in the market, analysts said on Wednesday.
If concerns about the U.S. economy deepen, consumers may reduce spending on the phones and other devices that use NAND flash, weakening demand for the chips and depressing prices, said Nam Hyung Kim, director and chief memory analyst for iSuppli. He predicted that prices could fall by as much as 55 percent this year.
Up to 90 percent of NAND flash is sold as storage for MP3 players and cell phones, or as cards such as the MicroSD that are slotted into digital cameras and other devices.
The reduced price for flash could lead to cheaper products for consumers. Apple already dropped the price of its 1G-byte iPod Shuffle this week, to US$49 from $79, partly because of the falling prices of flash memory, said Shaw Wu, an analyst with American Technology Research.
The list is log on how many people have expressed interest in a CompactFlash down loading device for bulk data transfer (not!). But despite whatever circle I run in, Delkin came out with a 4 unit CompactFlash ImageRouter for concurrent transfer of data off CF to HHD.
I would imagine this product is geared towards the professional photographer who quickly fills CF media with high-res images and needs a clean off-loading device. The Delkin ImageRouter is UDMA and once four (or less) CF cards are loaded you start the process and walk away. With USB connectivity you can expect data transfer rates of 19MB/s and incase 4 ports isn’t enough, you can daisy chain the ImageRouter together for 8 port download. The built-in USB hub handles the rest.
ImageRouter can be purchased separately or with BackupandBurn software. BackupandBurn automatically renames files based on user-set parameters. Users can specify how the files are re-named and re-numbered and even have Jpeg and RAW files automatically sent to different folders. Images can also be copied to multiple locations and automatically burned to a CD or DVD.
