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Whats the difference memory like SD, xD, MMC, etc.?

M

mike455

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Joined
Mar 4, 2003
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61
Whats the difference between CF, SD, xD, MMC and Smart Media memory? Why is xD only limited to 512MB?
 
well, the big one is the physical size/interface.

xD is limited for now because its so small they can only use one chip? And 512 is probably the largest individual chip. I'm probably wrong.

CF is nice because its ATA(IDE) compatible, and its bigger so they can stuff a couple chips in, so its cheaper for big capacity.

SD/MMC are pretty much the same, SD is faster than mmc for some reason. the 'secure' part apparently doesnt mean a whole lot for end users. (i think they are interchangeable as far as devices are concerned, but again i could be wrong).

Smart Media is crap, and its old. It's very limited in size, and each device has a different max size smart media it can handle. my friends camera is limited to 32mb or something tiny.

Sony has their memory sticks.

A lot of it is a big pissing match between the companies. Sony wants you locked into their format, olympus wants you locked into xd, etc.

CF is fairly standard, but its kinda big, so some stuff is shifting to Sd/mmc.
 
Compact flash is considered to be the best. Its the fastest, cheapest, and can hold the most. It is also the most compatable.

Canon said they would have put 2 compact flash cards in their EOS-1D Mark II, but they only had room for 1 CF slot and 1 SD slot.

I'm not saying the other formats are horrible, but CF and SD in a distant second are the only formats I ever see going anywhere.
 
CF and SD are the standards. And therefore they are the cheapest and most widely aviable. They also have the largest available capacities.




Memory Stick and XD are propreitary formats. Thus they are both expensive. Memory stick has the "advantage" of being penetrated into all of Sony's electronics line (TVs, Computers, Laptops, Camcorders etc.) so it is cheaper than SD. Another reason it's cheaper is it's been around for much longer than XD. However both formats are expensive compared to CF and SD. XD is probably the most useless format of them all. It's main claim for existence is that it's a smaller format (they claim other advantages too, IMO all marketing). However Olympus and Fuji could have just switched over to SD, and made the world a better place.
 
Originally posted by agentzero9
However Olympus and Fuji could have just switched over to SD, and made the world a better place.
Click to expand...
But what would you have to complain about then? :rolleyes:
 
SmartMedia is limited to 128MB, and obviously phased out, but as a plus if your camera takes it, its dead cheap, and a cheap SM reader gives you a usb pendrive without the stupidly expensive premium :)
 
xD is actually a rather good format, but the problem is the size limit, who the hell is going to use 512mb of pics anytime soon? i got over 760 shots, at 2048, in HQ mode before i ran out of room, that was on a 2week vacation...

not to mention, xD is uber tiny compared to other formats
 
i have a 1gb cf card for my digital rebel, and if you throw any RAW pictures on it, 1gb still isnt quite enough (raw is ~10mb). Even jpegs can be a couple megs from it.

Its pretty easy to take 300+ shots on the rebel, since the batteries last forever, and it can take a couple frames a second shots.
 
ambientZ said:
i have a 1gb cf card for my digital rebel, and if you throw any RAW pictures on it, 1gb still isnt quite enough (raw is ~10mb). Even jpegs can be a couple megs from it.

Its pretty easy to take 300+ shots on the rebel, since the batteries last forever, and it can take a couple frames a second shots.
Click to expand...

x2

Always running out of CF space with my Digital Rebel.
 
Alright, after all the tests I've seen, it seems like SD is the fastest card, and that maybe in the future it will replace CF but not too soon.
 
512 gives me 80~82 pics on my 10D in raw... definately not big enough... i filled two 512mb cards in one day of shooting
 
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