Toshiba to launch CompactFlash memory card for digital single lens reflex market

Technology Dec. 19, 2012 - 05:30AM JST ( 13 )

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13 Comments

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titaniumdioxideDec. 19, 2012 - 08:18AM JST

Bravo! This is what you expect from "The inventor of flash memory".
0

ebisenDec. 19, 2012 - 08:32AM JST

oh wow, I need to get one of those. way more reliable than SD cards.
-4

basroilDec. 19, 2012 - 03:01PM JST

Toshiba said it aims to capture a 30% market share by 2015 by developing high performance memory cards.

Not really possible while Sandisk still holds production at toshiba factories. SanDisk uses toshiba chips already, but they have a fairly good reputation among photographers for their product quality (along with Lexar). Perhaps toshiba will try to piggyback on that knowledge, but 30% share by 2015 doesn't seem possible unless they undercut their business partner significantly, and entirely ignore the high end segment.
-1

Korlacan KhanthavilayDec. 19, 2012 - 06:53PM JST

CF and SD cards both use Nand memory. They are roughly the same in reliability. CF is just faster, cause of it's connection.
-2

basroilDec. 19, 2012 - 08:14PM JST

Korlacan KhanthavilayDec. 19, 2012 - 06:53PM JST

CF and SD cards both use Nand memory. They are roughly the same in reliability.

That's like saying all SSDs have the same reliability because they all use NAND, but there's half a dozen types of NAND and write cycles between 3000 a cell and several million. Both CF and SD cards can use one of several types, so readability is more a factor of the manufacturer than the format, but saying it's NAND isn't too telling when NOR memory is nearly non-existent in the consumer market.

Mode 7 cards like this one sometimes do have TRIM support, so that does improve reliability (stable speed terms, both formats have wear leveling). Speed wise, SD controllers tend to have more stable speeds regardless of the mix of manufacturers, while CF tends to depend on manufacturer of the memory and device, and speeds can be quite inconsistent. There's a reason why some professional cameras are moving towards UHS-I/II SDXC cards, there's just less of a chance that the specifications say nothing. (Take a look at the 30mb/s Extreme III cards from Sandisk and you'll see a huge variation in actual realworld performance)
-1

John BeckerDec. 20, 2012 - 02:15AM JST

A lot of photographers are backing away from SanDisk and moving to Lexar and others. In addition to less than great reliability from SanDisk lately, there are counterfeiting problems that are leaving people with really bad generic cards that say "SanDisk."
0

Korlacan KhanthavilayDec. 20, 2012 - 07:04PM JST

Reliability and longevity. 2 different things.

CF doesn't depends on the manufacturer of the memory. There's rarely a big difference between the different NAND memory from the different manufacturers. It's the controllers that make the difference on how well the card's performance is. Also, it's the controller that deals with the wear leveling. Which majority of cards now have a controller that is capable of doing it. Of course, the sophistication of the controller is all dependent on which company produced it and what they implemented on the controller.

A CF card is more like an SSD drive. The better controllers give you the better performance, even if the NAND memory is all the same.
-2

basroilDec. 21, 2012 - 01:04PM JST

Korlacan KhanthavilayDec. 20, 2012 - 07:04PM JST

Reliability and longevity. 2 different things.

When you shoot 3500 shots a day, longevity is part of reliability! I've seen people that shoot three cards full every few days, enough so that the lesser cards start having corrupted blocks from memory failure. Granted, that was far more important a few years back when life cycles were about 500 writes, but for heavy duty (professional) use, it's still important.
-3

basroilDec. 21, 2012 - 01:09PM JST

A CF card is more like an SSD drive. The better controllers give you the better performance, even if the NAND memory is all the same.

True, but also like SSD the type of NAND is very important, especially for maximum write speeds.

But again, nowadays the cards are more limited by the interface itself rather than controller or memory type. And sadly, the SDXC UHS-I interface is just better designed for stable minimum write speeds among all the manufactures. If they had really wanted to corner the market, they should have gone with SDXC rather than CF.
0

Korlacan KhanthavilayDec. 22, 2012 - 12:25AM JST

Well nowadays, NAND has like 1,000,000 writes or more, so it's not that big an issue and cards are so cheap, who cares if you use it all up.

As for the type of NAND, not a big deal. They're all near each other in performance. The only way they'll start really increasing performance is to bin the parts, so you get the best of the best. That'd significantly increase prices though.

I'd much prefer CF over SD, if they could make them faster. Because of the it's physical size, you can boost the storage of it and with more storage, comes faster performance. If the controller is capable of making use of it, like putting the chips in a RAID 0 configuration.
-3

basroilDec. 23, 2012 - 02:33PM JST

Korlacan KhanthavilayDec. 22, 2012 - 12:25AM JST

I'd much prefer CF over SD, if they could make them faster. Because of the it's physical size, you can boost the storage of it and with more storage, comes faster performance. If the controller is capable of making use of it, like putting the chips in a RAID 0 configuration.

Micro SDXC maxes out at 64gb and SDXC is 256gb, with SDXC cards in the 90mb/s read write range. Compact flash UDMA 7 with 1000x speed maxes out at just 128gb, and 256gb cards are just 400x and write speed less than 45mb/s. Sure CF offers faster read speeds, but nobody really cares about that, the only thing that matters when you take the photo or video is write speed, which SDXC simply is better for when not considering the ridiculously expensive 1000x cards that have a tiny market. If toshiba really cares about cornering the memory market, they need to start from class 6/10 SDXC cards that make up most of the market (especially now that most low end DSLRs and consumer camcorders are SD based)
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Korlacan KhanthavilayDec. 23, 2012 - 09:49PM JST

Ya, CF has been lagging behind SD. CF standard allows for greater storage limits than SDXC's standard. Too bad no one is bothering to increase CF's speed and size. I'm not really looking at it from a camera standpoint, more of a tablet standpoint.

Imagine having a CF slot on the outside and the CF card was your hdd. Instead of the current soldered on chips or mSata SSDs. It'd give the user ability to easily upgraded. Course CF cards are crap. Why most everything is getting away from it.
-1

basroilDec. 25, 2012 - 07:07PM JST

Korlacan KhanthavilayDec. 23, 2012 - 09:49PM JST

I'm not really looking at it from a camera standpoint, more of a tablet standpoint.

Well, CF and SD is absolute horrible for scratch/OS disks (they wear out far faster), but even so the current speeds of even SDXC UHS-I is good enough for files and even app storage. Most good tablets already have SD (well, most are microSD that simply aren't good enough in write speeds yet) and that's more than enough for the devices. One person went as far as using NTFS linking in a Surface to have 64gb microSD used for all file storage on the SurfaceRT without drawbacks (well, maybe multitasking HD video recording and downloading something from wireless N connection, but it's nowhere near a normal use on the device).

I love CF, used it from my rebels to my 1D's, but it really just isn't a good business choice for anyone (especially toshiba, with their biggest partner being their biggest rival) with UHS-I type SDXC cards already providing about the same speed as a hard disk (and much higher with small files, up to twice the iops of even the fastest HDDs)