32 GB SD card is coming!

32 GB SD card is coming!

Toshiba announced it in August 2007 last year and they indicated that
it will be ready for January 2008. Panasonic has just introduced it
recently for market use in the latest CES convention. It heard that it
costs about $700 in Japan.
Some questions to ponder:

1. I wonder about a physical limit in storage for the current size of
an SD card. How far do you thing that they can squeeze in the amount
of memory in that size of card? Could it become a 50, 100, 200 GB SD
card in the future. Why do they multiply in the order of
1,2,4,8,16,32, etc. Why not in nice number like 5, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50
GB, etc (metric)?

2. On the back of my regular SD card, there are approx. 9 contact
areas which connect into the terminal. Are all those 9 contacts
currently utilized for a typical usage in a digital camera? Or perhaps
that they only use 2-3 contacts and the others are just reserves for
future use? I noticed similar thing for a telephone jack. There are
those phone cables with only 2 connection wires inside (cheaper), and
there are with more wires (which is perhaps capable for faster
connection or other accessories in a phone - just guessing). Is there
a technical discussion in the internet about these contacts and/or the
details inside an SD card?

3. They said about 32GB SD card. What about the Compact Flash card?
What is the largest size available currently for CF? Is CF, xD and
Sony stick will eventually be abandoned in favour of SD cards? (just
like the wars of betamax vs VHS, and recently between blue ray and HD
DVD). I believe that SD card was pioneered by Toshiba.

4. For an average usage in a digital camera, how useful is a 32 GB
card? Would you prefer to carry 4x8 GB SD card or one 32GB card? Is
an 8GB card more than enough for a digital camera? Is the increase of
GB in storage will be matched with higher and higher MP cameras? Will
the future commercial digital cameras in the market ever reach, say 32
or 64 MP cameras? I assume current RAW files are now about the size of
25MB each. Do professional cameras produce larger size RAW files? I
know that there are 30 MP or perhaps even more MP in current
professional cameras ( 6x4.5 of 6x7 size cameras).

5. Is the new 32 GB SD card compatible for all current digital
cameras, regardless of features and prices? It was mentioned
something about High density SDHC usage, and I wonder if my cheap $100
camera, or my 4 years old camera (3MP) can handle it. Or is this for
high end cost, latest model, and high MP cameras' usage only?

Thanks for the input and discussion

Re: 32 GB SD card is coming!

Hi
Without doubt the smaller cards are safer, consider the pain if a 32gb
card goes down after shooting a wedding

aniramca@gmail,com wrote:
> Toshiba announced it in August 2007 last year and they indicated that
> it will be ready for January 2008. Panasonic has just introduced it
> recently for market use in the latest CES convention. It heard that it
> costs about $700 in Japan.
> Some questions to ponder:
>
> 1. I wonder about a physical limit in storage for the current size of
> an SD card. How far do you thing that they can squeeze in the amount
> of memory in that size of card? Could it become a 50, 100, 200 GB SD
> card in the future. Why do they multiply in the order of
> 1,2,4,8,16,32, etc. Why not in nice number like 5, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50
> GB, etc (metric)?
>
> 2. On the back of my regular SD card, there are approx. 9 contact
> areas which connect into the terminal. Are all those 9 contacts
> currently utilized for a typical usage in a digital camera? Or perhaps
> that they only use 2-3 contacts and the others are just reserves for
> future use? I noticed similar thing for a telephone jack. There are
> those phone cables with only 2 connection wires inside (cheaper), and
> there are with more wires (which is perhaps capable for faster
> connection or other accessories in a phone - just guessing). Is there
> a technical discussion in the internet about these contacts and/or the
> details inside an SD card?
>
> 3. They said about 32GB SD card. What about the Compact Flash card?
> What is the largest size available currently for CF? Is CF, xD and
> Sony stick will eventually be abandoned in favour of SD cards? (just
> like the wars of betamax vs VHS, and recently between blue ray and HD
> DVD). I believe that SD card was pioneered by Toshiba.
>
> 4. For an average usage in a digital camera, how useful is a 32 GB
> card? Would you prefer to carry 4x8 GB SD card or one 32GB card? Is
> an 8GB card more than enough for a digital camera? Is the increase of
> GB in storage will be matched with higher and higher MP cameras? Will
> the future commercial digital cameras in the market ever reach, say 32
> or 64 MP cameras? I assume current RAW files are now about the size of
> 25MB each. Do professional cameras produce larger size RAW files? I
> know that there are 30 MP or perhaps even more MP in current
> professional cameras ( 6x4.5 of 6x7 size cameras).
>
> 5. Is the new 32 GB SD card compatible for all current digital
> cameras, regardless of features and prices? It was mentioned
> something about High density SDHC usage, and I wonder if my cheap $100
> camera, or my 4 years old camera (3MP) can handle it. Or is this for
> high end cost, latest model, and high MP cameras' usage only?
>
> Thanks for the input and discussion

Re: 32 GB SD card is coming!

"sonsdad" <sonsdad@ntlworld,com > wrote in message
news:pkrij.7600$g%2.3622@newsfe4-gui.ntli,net ...
> Hi
> Without doubt the smaller cards are safer, consider the pain if a 32gb
> card goes down after shooting a wedding
>


It's not the capacity of the card in bytes that matters, it's the number of
photos on the card. As the photo files get larger the capacity has to
increase. Imagine if we still had 8MB cards?

Re: 32 GB SD card is coming!

aniramca@gmail,com wrote:
[SD cards]
>1. Why do they multiply in the order of
>1,2,4,8,16,32, etc. Why not in nice number like 5, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50
>GB, etc (metric)?

Because the native language of the computers we have today is binary, not
decimal.
BTW: metric is something different.

>2. On the back of my regular SD card, there are approx. 9 contact
>areas which connect into the terminal. Are all those 9 contacts
>currently utilized for a typical usage in a digital camera?

See e.g. http :// pinouts.ru/Memory/sdcard_pinout.shtml

>Or perhaps
>that they only use 2-3 contacts and the others are just reserves for
>future use? I noticed similar thing for a telephone jack. There are
>those phone cables with only 2 connection wires inside (cheaper), and
>there are with more wires (which is perhaps capable for faster
>connection or other accessories in a phone - just guessing). Is there
>a technical discussion in the internet about these contacts and/or the
>details inside an SD card?

See http :// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Digital_card for a phletora of more
links.

>3. They said about 32GB SD card. What about the Compact Flash card?

Usually CF is about half a year ahead of the other formats and 32GB CF are
indeed availaible today, although still a bit hard to find.

>What is the largest size available currently for CF? Is CF, xD and
>Sony stick will eventually be abandoned in favour of SD cards? (just
>like the wars of betamax vs VHS, and recently between blue ray and HD
>DVD). I believe that SD card was pioneered by Toshiba.

The CF interface which is the same as PCMCIA just in a different form factor
has too many technical advantages over SD, whereas SD is often more liked
because the cards are smaller and the connectors less fragile. Those two
will be sticking around for a long time. The other formats are too
proprietary and IMO will die slowly just like the other extinct custom
formats.

>4. For an average usage in a digital camera, how useful is a 32 GB
>card? Would you prefer to carry 4x8 GB SD card or one 32GB card?

Please see the previous heated discussions on that topic, no need to beat a
dead horse all over again.

>the future commercial digital cameras in the market ever reach, say 32
>or 64 MP cameras? I assume current RAW files are now about the size of
>25MB each.

"Predictions are difficult, in particular when they are about the future."
But if history is any indication, then yes, sensor sizes will increase,
although today's cameras already have more resolution than 95% of all
photographers ever need. Just consider, how many people are happy with those
crappy pictures from cell phones.

>Do professional cameras produce larger size RAW files? I

Please define professional.
Aside of that, the size of a RAW file depends on the size of the sensor and
if used somewhat on the compression algorithm.

>5. Is the new 32 GB SD card compatible for all current digital
>cameras, regardless of features and prices?

Of course not. The original SD as defined in 2000 is suffering from the
infamous 2GB limit. Therefore after only 6 years the SDA had to create a new
standard SDHC. See the previously mentioned Wikipedia article, sections "5.1
Compatibility issues with 2 GB and larger cards" and "6.1 SD and SDHC
compatibility issues" for details.
In addition to that there is also the question if your camera can handle a
file system, that supports more than 2GB or if it is limited to FAT16 only.

>something about High density SDHC usage, and I wonder if my cheap $100
>camera, or my 4 years old camera (3MP) can handle it. Or is this for
>high end cost, latest model, and high MP cameras' usage only?

Cameras before 2006 cannot possibly support SDHC because SDHC wasn't defined
until then. As for the file system: depends how forward thinking the
firmware designers were and if they included support for other filesystems
beside FAT16.
While file system support is purely a software issue and could be added by a
firmware update if the manufacturer is inclined to to so, I am not sure
about SDHC. I think SDHC requires new hardware circuits, but I am not
certain.

jue

Re: 32 GB SD card is coming!



Jürgen Exner wrote:
> aniramca@gmail,com wrote:
> [SD cards]
> >1. Why do they multiply in the order of
> >1,2,4,8,16,32, etc. Why not in nice number like 5, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50
> >GB, etc (metric)?
>
> Because the native language of the computers we have today is binary, not
> decimal.
> BTW: metric is something different.

Hard drives come in non-binary sizes, and sometimes oddball ones at
that. In fact, published capacity is in decimal megabytes, and users
complain that their systems (which state binary megabytes) show less.
My 40GB HD says it has a 34.9GB capacity.

In my line of work, we've used custom non-binary memory sizes.
However - there is an advantage to a binary memory size when it comes
to maximizing the amount that can be squeezed in a typical rectangular
die.

Re: 32 GB SD card is coming!

y p w <y p w@hotmail,com > wrote:
>Jürgen Exner wrote:
>> aniramca@gmail,com wrote:
>> [SD cards]
>> >1. Why do they multiply in the order of
>> >1,2,4,8,16,32, etc. Why not in nice number like 5, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50
>> >GB, etc (metric)?
>>
>> Because the native language of the computers we have today is binary, not
>> decimal.
>
>Hard drives come in non-binary sizes, and sometimes oddball ones at
>that.

Apples and oranges. There is quite some difference between the internal
workings of a HD and a memory chip. For a harddrive the numbers of heads,
tracks, sectors, and disks introduce factors, that are determined by
physical characteristics, not logical considerations.
On a memory chip to supply 10x still requries 16x of items of whatever you
are looking at. So why waste waste the remaining 6 items?

> In fact, published capacity is in decimal megabytes, and users
>complain that their systems (which state binary megabytes) show less.
>My 40GB HD says it has a 34.9GB capacity.

Old news.

jue

Re: 32 GB SD card is coming!

On Jan 14, 8:02 pm, Jürgen Exner <jurge...@hotmail,com > wrote:
> y p w<y ...@hotmail,com > wrote:
> >Jürgen Exner wrote:
> >> anira...@gmail,com wrote:
> >> [SD cards]
> >> >1. Why do they multiply in the order of
> >> >1,2,4,8,16,32, etc. Why not in nice number like 5, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50
> >> >GB, etc (metric)?
>
> >> Because the native language of the computers we have today is binary, not
> >> decimal.
>
> >Hard drives come in non-binary sizes, and sometimes oddball ones at
> >that.
>
> Apples and oranges. There is quite some difference between the internal
> workings of a HD and a memory chip. For a harddrive the numbers of heads,
> tracks, sectors, and disks introduce factors, that are determined by
> physical characteristics, not logical considerations.
> On a memory chip to supply 10x still requries 16x of items of whatever you
> are looking at. So why waste waste the remaining 6 items?

I'm not sure exactly what you're getting at.

It would still be possible to make a non base 2 number of rows or
columns and get the whole thing to work. it's generally a lot easier
to do the math (addressing) since most arithmetic is done in base 2.

In certain embedded memory applications, you might want to squeeze
some sort of oddball array size in there. I've done that at my jobs.
The layout tools can accomplish pretty much anything. Sometimes
unique considerations mean dropping in three base 2 memory arrays.

Re: 32 GB SD card is coming!




On 1/13/08 9:56 AM, in article
dac3e17d-ded3-4080-9b8a-65bedec69c8a@c4g2000hsg.googlegroups,com ,
"aniramca@gmail,com " <aniramca@gmail,com > wrote:


>
> 1. I wonder about a physical limit in storage for the current size of
> an SD card. How far do you thing that they can squeeze in the amount
> of memory in that size of card? Could it become a 50, 100, 200 GB SD
> card in the future. Why do they multiply in the order of
> 1,2,4,8,16,32, etc. Why not in nice number like 5, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50
> GB, etc (metric)?
>
Because they were invented by cartoon characters who have only three fingers
and a thumb. Simple.

Re: 32 GB SD card is coming!


"George Kerby" <ghost_topper@hotmail,com > a écrit dans le message de news:
C3AFBF2D.41E61%ghost_topper@hotmail,com ...
>
>
>
> On 1/13/08 9:56 AM, in article
> dac3e17d-ded3-4080-9b8a-65bedec69c8a@c4g2000hsg.googlegroups,com ,
> "aniramca@gmail,com " <aniramca@gmail,com > wrote:
>
>
>>
>> 1. I wonder about a physical limit in storage for the current size of
>> an SD card. How far do you thing that they can squeeze in the amount
>> of memory in that size of card? Could it become a 50, 100, 200 GB SD
>> card in the future. Why do they multiply in the order of
>> 1,2,4,8,16,32, etc. Why not in nice number like 5, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50
>> GB, etc (metric)?
>>
> Because they were invented by cartoon characters who have only three
> fingers
> and a thumb. Simple.

LOL Best one yet

Jean

Re: 32 GB SD card is coming!

On Sun, 13 Jan 2008 07:56:55 -0800 (PST), aniramca@gmail,com wrote:

> 1. I wonder about a physical limit in storage for the current size of
> an SD card. How far do you thing that they can squeeze in the amount
> of memory in that size of card? Could it become a 50, 100, 200 GB SD
> card in the future. Why do they multiply in the order of
> 1,2,4,8,16,32, etc. Why not in nice number like 5, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50
> GB, etc (metric)?
>
> 2. On the back of my regular SD card, there are approx. 9 contact
> areas which connect into the terminal.

To access any of the card's memory, data is placed on the address
lines. Whatever a card's memory limit happens to be, if one more
address line is used, the card will be able to address twice as much
memory, minimum. With multiplexed addresses, it could be 4x, or
more. To be able to access memory in nice, round decimal numbers,
the cards and CPUs in the cameras would have to be redesigned to use
a number system other than binary, adding needless complexity.


> Are all those 9 contacts currently utilized for a typical usage in a
> digital camera? Or perhaps that they only use 2-3 contacts and the
> others are just reserves for future use? I noticed similar thing for
> a telephone jack.

If only this small number of contacts was used, the data would
have to be transferred serially, which would be far slower, and
would only really be beneficial if the camera's memory had to be
stored a great distance from the camera. A thin, 50 meter cable
would be much easier to use than a bulky, multi-conductor cable, and
probably much cheaper as well. There are many reasons why this
would be impractical, one being that the longer the cable (all else
being equal), the slower the maximum data rate. But if the cable
was accidentally disconnected from the camera, it would be much to
lose the card/cable if it fell into tall grass. :)

Re: 32 GB SD card is coming!


"ASAAR" <caught@22,com > wrote in message
news:ggoko3hourm6hga1chv7pskbdgs20tb8t5@4ax,com ...
> On Sun, 13 Jan 2008 07:56:55 -0800 (PST), aniramca@gmail,com wrote:
>
>> 1. I wonder about a physical limit in storage for the current size of
>> an SD card. How far do you thing that they can squeeze in the amount
>> of memory in that size of card? Could it become a 50, 100, 200 GB SD
>> card in the future. Why do they multiply in the order of
>> 1,2,4,8,16,32, etc. Why not in nice number like 5, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50
>> GB, etc (metric)?
>>
>> 2. On the back of my regular SD card, there are approx. 9 contact
>> areas which connect into the terminal.
>
> To access any of the card's memory, data is placed on the address
> lines. Whatever a card's memory limit happens to be, if one more
> address line is used, the card will be able to address twice as much
> memory, minimum. With multiplexed addresses, it could be 4x, or
> more. To be able to access memory in nice, round decimal numbers,
> the cards and CPUs in the cameras would have to be redesigned to use
> a number system other than binary, adding needless complexity.
>
>
>> Are all those 9 contacts currently utilized for a typical usage in a
>> digital camera? Or perhaps that they only use 2-3 contacts and the
>> others are just reserves for future use? I noticed similar thing for
>> a telephone jack.
>
> If only this small number of contacts was used, the data would
> have to be transferred serially, which would be far slower, and

ermm, the data *is* transferred serially.

http :// www .interfacebus,com /Secure_Digital_Card_Pinout.html

would only really be beneficial if the camera's memory had to be
> stored a great distance from the camera. A thin, 50 meter cable
> would be much easier to use than a bulky, multi-conductor cable, and
> probably much cheaper as well. There are many reasons why this
> would be impractical, one being that the longer the cable (all else
> being equal), the slower the maximum data rate. But if the cable
> was accidentally disconnected from the camera, it would be much to
> lose the card/cable if it fell into tall grass. :)
>

Re: 32 GB SD card is coming!

On Sun, 13 Jan 2008 19:34:33 -0000, Deep Reset wrote:

> ermm, the data *is* transferred serially.

Ok, I was mistaken and multiplexing isn't used. I thought that I
read years ago that some PDAs which used both MMC and SD cards had a
faster data rate due to using a wider data bus, but that's probably
not true. I doubt that the difference was that SD cards transferred
data on multiple serial lines, but the way I'm going today, I'd
better not assume anything else. :)

With SD using serial data transfer, it may be a point in favor of
CF cards, which should then have the potential to have a much
greater data transfer rate. For me though, SD is fast enough. But
then I use them in still cameras, not video cameras. I saw one
demonstrated on TV today that had 60GB of internal memory, said to
be enough for 2 hours of video at its finest resolution. They
showed a 16GB card for it that looked like SD (I didn't hear that
part of the presentation). The camera might have been a Canon.

Re: 32 GB SD card is coming!

On Sun, 13 Jan 2008 15:51:26 -0500, ASAAR <caught@22,com > wrote:

> With SD using serial data transfer, it may be a point in favor of
>CF cards, which should then have the potential to have a much
>greater data transfer rate. For me though, SD is fast enough. But

Serial data transfer has much higher potential data rates. I can get
into the technical reasons why if you want. But if you feel like
doing your own research, just look up why SATA is faster than PATA.

Of course, that doesn't mean much when comparing CF to SD because the
bus I/O transfer rate isn't the limiting speed factor for either.

Steve

Re: 32 GB SD card is coming!

On Sun, 13 Jan 2008 22:02:40 GMT, Steve wrote:

>> With SD using serial data transfer, it may be a point in favor of
>>CF cards, which should then have the potential to have a much
>>greater data transfer rate. For me though, SD is fast enough. But
>
> Serial data transfer has much higher potential data rates. I can get
> into the technical reasons why if you want. But if you feel like
> doing your own research, just look up why SATA is faster than PATA.

Though it might be interesting, it's not worth the effort right
now, for reasons mentioned here not too long ago. I assume it has
something to do with the serial stream zipping along as fast as
possible (with possibly a clock signal), vs. parallel data having to
settle and remain stable long enough to be sampled. Do you know
whether SD (or SDHC) serial rates are high enough to exceed CF data
rates? From what I've read of tests performed within the last year
or so, Sandisk Extreme IV CF cards were the fastest, although these
had to use compatible Sandisk readers to achieve the fastest rates.

Re: 32 GB SD card is coming!

On Mon, 14 Jan 2008 02:00:33 -0500, ASAAR <caught@22,com > wrote:

>On Sun, 13 Jan 2008 22:02:40 GMT, Steve wrote:
>
>>> With SD using serial data transfer, it may be a point in favor of
>>>CF cards, which should then have the potential to have a much
>>>greater data transfer rate. For me though, SD is fast enough. But
>>
>> Serial data transfer has much higher potential data rates. I can get
>> into the technical reasons why if you want. But if you feel like
>> doing your own research, just look up why SATA is faster than PATA.
>
> Though it might be interesting, it's not worth the effort right
>now, for reasons mentioned here not too long ago. I assume it has
>something to do with the serial stream zipping along as fast as
>possible (with possibly a clock signal), vs. parallel data having to
>settle and remain stable long enough to be sampled. Do you know

Pretty much right. Signal paths for the data lines, switch times for
the digital circuits, etc., all become very critical as parallel rates
are pushed up. Circuit board layout is complicated to keep all the
data lines the same length for the entire path from controller to
controller. None of that is critical for serial. The only thing
critical for serial is standard high frequency design practices.

>whether SD (or SDHC) serial rates are high enough to exceed CF data
>rates? From what I've read of tests performed within the last year
>or so, Sandisk Extreme IV CF cards were the fastest, although these
>had to use compatible Sandisk readers to achieve the fastest rates.

For both current CF and SD real-world data transfer, the interface
speed is not the limiting factor.

CF+ 2.0 is 16MB/s, 3.0 is 66MB/s and CF+ 4.0 interface is 133MB/s.

SD/MMC interface is a bit more complicated since it can operate as a 1
bit serial, or in 4 or 8 bit modes. In 1 bit serial, max rate for SD
is 6.25MB/s, MMC+ is 6.5MB/s. SD in 4 bit mode is 25MB/s. MMC+ in 4
or 8 bit modes is 26MB/s or 52MB/s.

The reason SD seems so much slower in 1 bit mode than CF is because SD
uses a slow serial clock speed of 50MHz max, and a lot of hardware
only supports 25MHz. SD could always bump up the clock rates if
faster flash memory made the interface the choke point. They'll have
to do that if they want to go much faster than the "133x" memory
speeds that are becoming common today.

CF is pretty close to it's practical limit at 133MB/s. But unlike
current SD, that should be fast enough for a long time.

Steve