Next Generation SD Card Standard Should Triple Speeds by 2012
Next Generation SD Card Standard Should Triple Speeds by 2012
Posted 09/05/2010 at 7:52am
| by Justin Kerr
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SD memory cards are the format of choice for mobile devices, but as megapixels continue to rise and HD video recording becomes the norm, flash memory speeds will become an increasingly important bottleneck. SDHC cards are cutting it for now, but according to CNET the SD Card association isn’t resting on its laurels and is hard at work on the next generation of flash designs.
Modern high-speed SD cards have data-transfer buses with a maximum theoretical speed of about 104MB per second, but in reality most cards are yielding speeds much slower than this. The new standard called SD 4.0 will increase the theoretical maximum speed to 300MB per second, and the association believes this will give them the headroom they need to build faster cards. The higher speeds are accomplished by adding an additional set of pins to the bottom face of the card, but the dimensions and backwards compatibility will be maintained.
The specification is expected to be completed by Q1 2011 meaning we could see products with the new standard by the end of 2011 or early 2012.
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Eoraptor
September 05, 2010 at 2:51pm
Well I'm glad they will be backwards compatible, because I already half four readers plus the slot in my main laptop, and would NOT look forward to replacing all those.
SD cards between 4 and 8 gigs have already largely replaced optical disks for me in day to day operation. Load an ISO onto one, or back info off to one (Heck, I havbe three different live CD images on some of em now, Mint, Chromium, and BackTrack41) and I definitely appreciate faster speeds... because frankly, the current generation of el cheapo class 2 and 4 cards are frustratingly slow at times. I wish that manufacturers would work on bringing those costs down in current SDHC cards first when, as listed, we've not even really tapped the potential of SDHC (or the upcoming XC). I mean, I love the one Class 10 SD card I have as my readyboost/junk box drive... but I'm not in a place I can justify throwing down 40 bucks on another one when I can get a sandisk class 2 for ten bucks.
Keith E. Whisman
September 05, 2010 at 12:57pm
That sounds great. These things are the Hard Drives of our smart phones and now tablets, so I'm glad we are seeing innovation in this segment. Awesome.
With speeds such as these, perhaps we can expect to see PCIExpress cards loaded up with 4 to 8 SD Cards in a su-do raid array. Perhaps you can get enough storage for your music collection or something like that. I've got 120Gigs of music and it would be awesome to take them off my small 320Gig Laptop HDD and put them on a large and speedy SD card or an array of SD cards. And SD Cards would be perfect for storing entertainment files because you usually only write them to the card once but you read them a lot. Because you wont be writing all that often to these cards, they should stay speedy and last a very very long time.
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