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The new SDXC specification for faster, higher-capacity flash cards emerged in January, and Toshiba now promises the cards themselves will begin arriving about a year afterward.

Toshiba plans to sell its first SDXC cards in the spring of 2010, with a starting capacity of 64GB.

(Credit: Toshiba)

Toshiba said Monday it expects to be the first to bring SDXC cards to market, with testing samples of a 64GB version shipping in November and the real thing shipping in the spring of 2010. Those dates will be key moments in what doubtless will be a gradual transition away from the prevailing SDHC standard.

SDXC backers promise higher capacities and data transfer speeds for SDXC, which is important for devices such as video cameras that can produce lots of data at a sustained rate. But initially, a new generation of Toshiba's SDHC line will match the SDXC's maximum 60MBps data-reading speed, and maximum 35MBps data-writing speed, the company announced, using a new high-speed interface called UHS104.

The fast new SDHC cards, though, will only be available in 16GB and 32GB models. SDHC tops out at 32GB, but the SDXC specification extends to 2TB. In addition, through use of Microsoft's exFAT files system on SDXC cards, individual files can exceed 4GB, which is important for longer videos.

Capacity is undeniably important when it comes to carrying your video camera around for extended periods of time. But do you really need all that transfer speed? Leaving aside the confusing muddle of minimum vs. maximum transfer speeds and certification, even high-definition video only pushes the envelope so hard.

For example, Canon's high-end 5D Mark II SLR, which can record 1080p video at 30 frames per second, requires only a relatively modest 8MBps write speed for its CompactFlash card; high-end CompactFlash today can handle 45MBps.

Of course, there's also the matter of transferring photos and videos to computers, a tedious task at best that benefits from maximum speed. But that's often constrained, though, by the card reader and its interface to the computer.

No doubt those pipes will widen as time marches on, with SDXC and higher-speed SDHC helping to nudge things along on one end and higher-speed interfaces such as USB 3.0 and Firewire S1600 and S3200 on the other end. The SDXC specification calls for 104MBps speeds in 2009 and eventual speeds of 300MBps.

One interesting issue is whether SDXC will displace CompactFlash in high-end SLRs. SDHC is used in lower-end SLRs now, displacing CompactFlash, and is making its way into higher-end models including Nikon's D300s and Canon's 1D Mark III alongside CompactFlash.

SD and its successors have relegated rivals such as xD card from FujiFilm and Olympus and Memory Stick from Sony to product niches, new MacBook Pro laptops from Apple have built-in SD card slots, and Canon USA technical adviser Chuck Westfall had encouraging words for SDXC.

So SD has plenty of momentum, and the SDXC generation certainly has the potential to continue to outpace CompactFlash in price while also becoming competitive in capacity and data transfer speeds.

The diminutive size of SD compared to CompactFlash is an asset when trying to squeeze a slot into a computer or camera. But some serious and professional photographers have griped that the small cards are hard to handle and easy to lose.

(Credit: PhotoFast)

Admittedly, CompactFlash cards are no longer as popular as they were when digital photography first started. These days, most digicams use SD/SDHC media, while mobile phones mainly accept the physically smaller microSD format for storing data.

This is why I'm puzzled as to the reason PhotoFast has conceived the CR-7200, a CompactFlash card adapter capable of holding four microSD cards and combining their storage space. Given that the maximum a microSD card can now hold is 16GB, the CR-7200's capacity would be capped at 64GB.

Although manufacturers such as Pretec and Transcend have announced 64GB CompactFlash cards, they have yet to retail them. Hence, the PhotoFast adapter may be the only higher-capacity alternative for now. But these days, only higher-end dSLRs accept such flash media format so there are only limited uses for the CR-7200.

Though the PhotoFast adapter sports an "extremely high speed" label, it's not immediately clear how fast the card can read and write data. Often with flash memory, there's a tradeoff between high capacity and high speed.

According to Gizmodo, this adapter will be available for $30 in July.

(Source: Crave Asia)

The camera industry and photographers, having just gotten accustomed to the arrival of video in point-and-shoot cameras, just now are beginning to grapple with its arrival in the more serious SLR realm.

Chuck Westfall, technical adviser for Canon's professional products marketing division and a 26-year veteran at the Japanese company, is in the thick of it. Nikon was the first to market with a single-lens reflex camera equipped with video, the D90, but Canon offers video in two SLRs: the high-end EOS 5D Mark II, with a large sensor the size of a full frame of 35mm film, and the Rebel T1i, a more affordable, mainstream model.

Chuck Westfall

(Credit: Canon USA)

These cameras combine high-definition video--1900x1080 pixels at 30 frames per second in the case of the 5D Mark II--with SLRs' advantages when shooting in dim conditions and with a broad variety of lenses. But even though today's video SLR features offers hold some appeal to enthusiasts and professionals, they're something of an awkward afterthought. SLRs and those who use them that haven't yet had much time to adapt.

Welcome to the world of digital photography, where change is incessant. In an interview with CNET News, Westfall talked about not just video, but also OLED displays, the arrival of rival full-frame SLRs from Sony and Nikon, changing flash card and file format standards, wireless networking, and more.

Question: The age of the video SLR has begun. A lot of people in the high-end camera market are set in their ways, and video is a radical difference for a lot of them. How does that change the camera design, the marketing, and everything you have to do to sell a camera? ... Read more

LAS VEGAS--Lexar plans to introduce faster, higher-capacity CompactFlash cards using a new generation of the flash memory technology, a company executive said Wednesday.

Lexar's top-end 300X cards will be outpaced by new models shipping later this year.

(Credit: Lexar)

Lexar's current top-end 300X-rated CompactFlash cards use a standard called UDMA (Ultra Direct Memory Access) to transfer data at 45MB/second, and their capacity tops out at 16GB. But using a new generation of the standard, UDMA 6, Lexar will release cards that have significantly faster transfer speeds and larger capacity, Jeff Cable, director of marketing, said in an interview here at the Photo Marketing Association (PMA) show here.

Cable wouldn't be pinned down on precise details, but he said the new cards' capacity "probably" would be 32GB, and their transfer speeds likely would "pretty close to" UDMA 6's threshold of 100MB/sec, which is more than double that of today's UDMA.

Only newer SLR (single lens reflex) cameras support current UDMA technology, but it's spreading, and there are benefits. For example, cameras can take longer continuous bursts of photos, and photographers can zoom faster to check focus when reviewing shots on the camera LCD. Video, which is arriving in new SLRs, also can saturate data-transfer pathways.

Pretec, a maker of CompactFlash cards including very high-capacity ones, on Tuesday brought the speed of CF cards to a new high.

(Credit: Pretec)

The company unveiled what we believe to be the world's first CF that offers speed up to 666x, which translates to about 100MBps. This is about four times the speed of a typical CF card and getting close to the theoretical maximum speed of the CF specification, which is 133MBps.

(To further increase the maximum speed of CF cards, the CompactFlash Association has released the new generation of the CF specification, called CFast, which breaks the 133MBps speed limit by using SATA II architecture that allows for speeds of up to 3Gbps while keeping the small and popular original CF mechanical form factor.)

The new Pretec 666x CF card will come in metal housing with a ruggedized construction. Pretec says the new card can resist impact and shock and is at least 10 times more durable than a typical CF card.

The new CF card comes in capacities ranging from 4GB to 64GB and will be available in April. Currently its pricing is unclear.

(Credit: SanDisk)

Despite rumors of a buyout, it's memory business as usual for SanDisk, and that includes a new 32GB Extreme III CompactFlash card.

Like its 16GB sibling, the 32GB card is stuck in branding limbo: faster than the standard 20MB per second Extreme III flash and slower than the 40MB per second Extreme IV cards, the 30MB per second 16GB and 32GB cards suffer the ID indignity of needing the speed printed right on the label. The 32GB card will cost you $299 when it ships in October. Unfortunately, as SanDisk doesn't currently offer a 16GB or 32GB Extreme IV or slower Extreme III, I can't tell you whether it's worth the extra bucks.

(Credit: Lexar)

Photo enthusiasts take note. This morning Lexar announced that its Professional UDMA 300x CompactFlash Card will be available in late September in a 16GB version for $349.99 MSRP. By comparison, B&H has the 8GB card for $154.95 with an $80 mail-in rebate, which means buying two of those would be the better deal at this point. Of course, you can expect the 16GB card to street for less than its list price.

Here's what Lexar's marketing team has to say in its press release:

Designed for professional photographers and photo enthusiasts, this lightning-fast card is UDMA-enabled (Ultra Direct Memory Access), resulting in exceedingly fast performance. Speed-rated at 300x, which represents a minimum sustained write speed of 45MB per second, the new Lexar Professional UDMA 300x 16GB CF card dramatically reduces post-production time thanks to an improved card-to-computer transfer rate when working in conjunction with a UDMA-enabled device. In addition, the very high capacity of the card allows photographers to store more images and shoot for longer periods without interruption.

The release also adds:

When paired with a UDMA-enabled device, such as the Lexar Professional UDMA FireWire 800 Reader or the Lexar Professional UDMA Dual-Slot USB Reader, the Lexar Professional UDMA 300x 16GB CF card significantly improves the digital imaging workflow by accelerating the download of captured images to a destination computer.

The CR2T has the same form factor as a regular 2.5-inch SATA hard drive.

(Credit: Dong Ngo/CNET Networks)

No moving parts, shock resistant, and incredibly short seek time are some of many benefits you get from a solid-state hard drive. However, for now, the price for a SSD is so incredibly high that calling "insanely priced" might not be an over statement. It's hard to justify (or to afford for that matter) spending about $1,000 for only 64GB when you can pay about 10 percent of that cost for a regular 200GB laptop hard drive.

So how about making our own SSD?

Sans Digital just released the CR2T CompactFlash card enclosure that might make this possible. The enclosure has the same form factor and works the same as a regular 2.5-inch SATA hard drive. It can hold two CF cards and can even configure them in either RAID 1 (mirroring) or nRAID (spanning), where the two CF cards are combined into one.

The enclosure can take two CF cards in RAID 1 or nRAID configuration.

(Credit: Dong Ngo/CNET Networks)

The enclosure costs $99, and a 32GB CF card costs about $150 that would make your homemade SSD's price about $400, which is about half the price of regular 64GB SSD. Of course, you can choose to use smaller size CF cards for much cheaper.

However, there's a catch. Currently the fastest CF card only offers the speed of 40MB per second, which is very fast compared with ATA hard drives, but it is still slower than SATA SSDs (up to 100MB per second or more). So the CR2T is probably not a good choice to be the main hard drive for your laptop. However, it can make a great secondary hard drive or be turned into an external hard drive where data integrity is the main concern.

A speed-boosting overhaul of CompactFlash memory technology could start arriving in cameras next year, but it's incompatible with the version used in today's higher-end models

The new version, called CFast, has faster data-transfer speeds that could let photographers take more continuous shots without waiting for the camera to catch up, cut camera makers' costs for built-in buffer memory, and make it swifter to review photos on a camera or copy them to a computer.

This a closeup of the a CFast-era CompactFlash card. Note that it's got a slot instead of pins and that it's got different ridges called keys down the sides to prevent it from being used in today's style of CompactFlash slot.

(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET News.com)

"It's going to end up in the high-end cameras. The reason to move to it is purely for speed," said John Santoro, senior product marketing manager for Lexar, a flash card maker and Micron subsidiary. He predicts its arrival in 18 to 24 months. "It's my feeling the camera companies already have this on their road maps and want to start working on prototype samples as soon as the specification is finalized."

But as with many upgrades, the standard will break compatibility with today's technology. That means today's CompactFlash cards won't work in CFast slots, and CFast cards won't work in today's slots.

So the more certain you are that you'll buy a new high-end camera in the next couple years, the more cautious you should be before investing in an expensive collection of shiny new 32GB CompactFlash cards.

CFast spec almost done; prototypes to come
Last year, the CompactFlash Association began work on the new standard, and the specification is in its final stages, said Bill Frank, executive director of the CompactFlash Association.

"We expect the CFast specification to be published for distribution in the second quarter--hopefully in April or May," said Frank, who showed off CFast prototype cards and slots at the Photo Marketing Association trade show last month in Las Vegas.

Top-end CompactFlash today cards reach 45MB/sec, a speed rating also called 300x (1x is 150KB/sec). CFast, though, uses an interface called Serial ATA that today reaches about 375MB/sec.

In practice, today's cameras can't keep up with those speeds, and flash card readers struggle when transferring images to computers. But faster speeds are useful in cameras, as newer SLRs show: when data can be written to a flash card faster, it's easier to design faster burst-shooting modes into camera that otherwise must rely on more built-in conventional memory.

CFast cards have a different electronic signaling technology that requires a different physical interface, and cards and sockets are shaped differently to prevent people from mixing the older and newer cards. The new socket is tested for 10,000 insertions, just as with current CompactFlash, Frank said.

Camera adoption?
The next question is how CFast will arrive in cameras. CompactFlash today is used in higher-end SLRs from Nikon, Canon, Sony, and Olympus. But camera makers are reluctant to describe particular technology plans, and Nikon didn't even respond to a request for comment.

When I asked Chuck Westfall, technical adviser for Canon USA's professional products marketing division, whether CFast would catch on, he was equivocal. "It remains to be seen. What drives the market is cost and performance issues and availability," he said. Canon's caution, for example, meant it only moved its low-end Rebel SLR line to SD flash memory when the card format was very well established.

Richard Pelkowski, digital SLR product manager for Olympus America, also wouldn't commit, but he did acknowledge the general advantage of CFast. "Greater speed and greater capacity--we certainly realize the benefit of that," he said, adding that card speed not only lets images be written faster, but also lets photographers review them more easily and take advantage of features such as the side-by-side comparison in Olympus' new E-3 SLR.

SanDisk, another top flash card maker, was more circumspect than Lexar.

"At some point, the industry is going to have to transition to some other type of high-performance card," said Jonathan Hubert, SanDisk's director of strategic marketing for flash cards and accessories. CFast is one strong candidate, he said, but then suggested that the SD Card Association isn't resting on hits SDHC laurels.

Frank, perhaps unsurprisingly given his leadership at the CompactFlash Association, was the most bullish of all. He said that Canon and Nikon engineers are participating in the CFast specification development and that the first cards likely will hit the market in the second quarter of this year. "Since this affects the silicon (chips) in cameras, expect no less than a year for cameras to appear using CFast," he said.

Jump-starting the market
If it were up to the camera makers alone, CFast's future would be more uncertain. But there are industrial uses of CompactFlash, too, for computing devices embedded into all manner of things.

CompactFlash is used in routers, defibrillators, Apache attack helicopters, and General Electric locomotives, Frank said. Some slot machines have two--one for holding the operating system and another for logging transactions.

The CompactFlash future in some ways isn't hard to predict. The technology uses the same interfaces as conventional computer hard drives, and it's been following that road map with a few years' time lag.

Today's mainstream CompactFlash cards use an interface called IDE or parallel ATA, and a newer generation just arriving use a speed bump called Ultra Direct Memory Access (UDMA) that in practice tops out at about 80GB/sec. The CFast version uses Serial ATA technology, which was announced in 2001 and connects hard drives in virtually all PCs today.

Those industrial computing customers, who often don't suffer the power-consumption constraints of camera makers, are eager for the new technology, Frank said--indeed, they were the first to ask for it. Because they're using conventional SATA computer chips, it's not difficult to move to the new technology.

From there, it's a matter of jumping to the camera market, where Lexar focuses. "I think it's inevitable," Santoro said.