SD cards and data transfer speed

[stoney.]

I'm new to handhelds and memorycards and need some advice:

Can my new TX benefit from a more expensive SD card, labelled 60x or 150x ? Is it really the card that is the limiting factor for reading or writing to an SD card? ..or is it a maximum speed depending on the hardware of the TX?

(Meaning that buying a 150x would be just a waste of money compared to a 60x or a SD card without speed labeling)

[Marcus L]

Hi Ted.

It's whatever's the weakest link in the chain. A 150x with a slow card reader (PC peripheral) will still be "slow." I would venture that you could save money, allowing for possibly SLIGHTLY more read/write time on a PC Card reader if you transfer files that way. I don't think the TX's read/write ability would be affected adversely by saving $$ on a 60x. I'm still using a Panasonic 256MB (God knows how slow) about a year old - and it's quick enough for me. I'm always wary about errors caused by fast transfer rates, anyway.

After 2 bad SanDisk "adventures," I will ONLY use Panasonic - I'd buy the non-labelled/slower version from them and you'll have more $$ and be happy and have something reliable, long term.

[kathychz]

To add to what Paul stated:

If you use the same card in a T3 vs. a TX - the T3 will read it faster because of the processor speed of the T3.....400mhz vs 200mhz.

The T3 will load the same amount of data faster via hot sync compared to the TX because of the same reason. And go shoot yourself if you plan on using a 1GB card and loading it via Hotsync - it will take about 45Minutes regardless of the speed of the card because write speed and read speeds are different.....go get a card reader/writer.

Now if you plan on watching videos it might make a small difference but it's probably not worth the 2X price. If you are going to store photos - nearly no difference. And if your going to store text based or excel based DTG files - definitely no difference.

[pender]

I had a Kingston (Toshiba) 512MB SD card in my Zodiac. Using LauncherX, I put a few of the bigger ePocrates databases on the card and created shortcuts in RAM so those databases would sync during an AutoUpdate. With that card, the "write" speed was apparently slow enough that the updated databases ended up in RAM instead of on the card. I copied everything back to my Lexar (SMI) "32x" 256MB card and, after about a week, tried again--this time, the updated databases were properly written to the card.

[TLC fan #1]

That may not be true. It depends on the speed of the card. (Remember the weakest link?) If you are transferring data to/from the card at its max rate with a 200mhz processor, a 400mhz processor won't do it any faster. You'd probably have to run VFSMark to know for sure. Maybe we could get some people to publish their VFSMark figures to give ted a more accurate answer. Get free VFSMark here.