At the end of last year a new format called XQD was unveiled as the eventual replacement for CompactFlash. About a month later at CES 2012, Sony announced the first XQD cards. If you’re not sold on the new format, here’s some good news for you: Lexar and SanDisk have both announced that they have no plans to release XQD cards in the near future and that they’re both committed to the CompactFlash format (a bit strange though, given that SanDisk was one of the companies that announced XQD in November 2010). Lexar’s actions certainly back up its words: at CES it unveiled its largest (256GB) and fastest (1000x) CompactFlash cards ever.
Well, well, well, look who’s first to the XQD game. It’s not Sandisk or Lexar, but Sony. On the same day Nikon announced its new D4 with XQD compatibility, Sony has announced the first line of XQD memory cards (intended to eventually replace CF cards). They offer 125MB/s transfer speeds, and can quickly store up to 100 RAW images in continuous shooting mode. A 16GB card will cost $129, while a 32GB one will be priced at $229. They’ll hit store shelves sometime in February.
In other news, Lexar has announced new 1000x CompactFlash cards, which can read at 150MB/s. A 128GB one is priced at a staggering $900. They’ve also announced the industry’s first 256GB card, which has read speeds of 60MB/s.
Perhaps in response to the growing capacities and falling prices of SD cards, the CompactFlash Association has announced a new format to replace CF cards for professional photographers. It’s called XQD, and has a size that falls between CF and SD cards (it’s thicker than SD cards, but smaller than CF cards). The interface used is PCI Express, which has a theoretical max write speed of roughly 600MB/s, though the target for real-world write speeds at first will be 125MB/s. It’ll start making public appearances at trade shows early next year, and will be licenced out to card makers around the same time.
Update: The deal prices seem to be fluctuating. They might not be what our screenshot shows.
In the market for memory cards? B&H is currently offering SanDisk Compact Flash cards at crazy prices. They’re listing Extreme Pro cards at less than 50% of the price offered at other retailers. For example, a 16GB Extreme Pro card currently costs $60 (with free shipping in the US) from B&H but $130+ at most other places.
Deal alert: you can buy a 16GB Kingston 266x CompactFlash card over at Buy.com for just $23 with shipping included. Just for comparison, these cards are listed for $33 everywhere else. Not sure how long this deal is good for.
Photographer Linhbergh recently purchased a used camera from B&H Photo Video and found a Compact Flash card left inside the camera containing photographs taken from inside the store offices. They offer an interesting glimpse into the operations at the largest non-chain photo equipment store in the United States. Read the rest of this entry »
Sure Lexar just launched a 128GB SDXC card, but that only transfers at a meager 20MB/s. SanDisk’s new Extreme Pro Compact Flash card announced today boasts the same 128GB capacity but has a write speed of up to 100MB/s. That extra 80MB/s is quite costly — unlike the $700 it costs to buy the Lexar SDXC card, this SanDisk one costs $1,500. But as they say, time is money… right?
Nikon, Sony, and Sandisk have announced that they’re teaming up to develop a set of specifications for the next generation of memory cards. The new format uses a new interface (PCI Express, previously Parallel ATA) that allows data transfer rates of up to 500MB per second. The theoretical maximum capacities of the cards would also be increased from the current 2 terabyte ceiling.
These future cards would allow photographers with future cameras to store a large number of RAW images captured with continuous burst shooting, and would also make transferring data off the card a snap. No word yet on when the future will arrive.
SanDisk just released its 64GB Ultra SDXC (extended capacity) memory card, the largest capacity for the Secure Digital format. It has a read speed of up to 15MB/second, stores up to eight hours of high-definition video, and costs $350. The new card uses the SD 3.0 specification, which allows capacities up to 2TB (2000GB).
It just so happens that today the CompactFlash Association also announced the CF5.0 specification, which allows memory cards up to 144PB (petabytes), or 150,994,944GB. Oh boy.
Sadly, the new Compact Flash specification only affords transfer speeds up to 32MB/s, meaning a full 144PB card would take about 153 years to transfer.
SanDisk just released its 64GB Ultra SDXC (extended capacity) memory card, the largest capacity for the Secure Digital format. It has a read speed of up to 15MB/second, stores up to eight hours of high-definition video, and costs $350. The new card uses the SD 3.0 specification, which allows capacities up to 2TB (2000GB).
