The SD Card is a highly secure stamp-sized flash memory card. Jointly developed by Matsushita Electronic (best known for its Panasonic brand name products), SanDisk and Toshiba, the SD Card weighs approximately two grams.
The SD Card can be used in a variety of digital products; digital music players, cellular phones, handheld PCs (HPCs), digital cameras, digital video camcorders, smart phones, car navigation systems and electronic books.
Advanced Features:- Cryptographic security for copyrighted data based on proven security concepts from DVD audio
- High transfer rate for fast copy/download
- High storage capacity
- Non-volatile solid-state; no moving parts maximizes battery power. Data is not lost when power is turned off
- Low battery consumption to maximize battery life in small portable devices
- User selectable mechanical write protect switch on the exterior card casing
- New devices with SD Card slots will accept existing MultiMediaCards
- Operating shock rating of 2,000Gs, equivalent to a 10-foot drop to the floor
- Security level complies with both current and future Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI) portable device requirements
1 Great Card!
I've really enjoyed the card so far. It worked great the first time I put it in my Kodak digital camera and I took 738 pictures the next week when I visited New York City. I'm very impressed and excited about using it for a long time like my two-year old 64 MB Sandisk card.
2 Card Works Great....Most of the Time!
SanDisk makes really great SD cards, however, these 512mb's have given me the most trouble out of all of them. Most of the time, transfer is quick and easy for any file. I can put a file on the card and take it off at anytime. However, every once and a while, especially on cameras, the file almost seems to become corrupt. This problem actually happens on the card, for I have conducted numerous tests, all showing that the card messes up the file. It really only happens once in a blue moon, but when it does, it's quite a hinderance. Regaurdless of the fact, SanDisk really makes the most reliable products and at a good price, so if you are looking for a nice sized SD card, this is probably the way to go!
3 I have not had a problem.
Hiya. I know that some people have been giving Sandisk products a hard time since they joined the market. I've never had a problem with Sandisk products since I started purchasing them a few years ago. If you own a Sony digital camera or camcorder and wanna save some cash on memory cards sandisk is where you go. I just purchased a Sandisk 512 mb sd card on ebay for forty bucks. Its perfect for the 3.2 mp Casio Exilim EX-S100 that its mated to. This card will hold 276 pics at the cameras finest resolution and 2 weeks and 1000 pics later I have no complanints. The camera writes quickly to the card and the card can transfer 500 mb of pic data to my pc in less then 8 mins (using usb 2.0 cradle connection). It hasent failed yet. I think the problem with a lot of consumers is they don't format the card in camera. Please try this as it improves the write speed greatly. Sandisk is a fine company and very reliable .
4 Nice SD Card
Great performance and nice price. I have had a great experience with SanDisk products.
5 Nice affordable sd card, if you get one that works
Apparently you have about an 80% chance of getting one that works, and another 80% chance of having a compatable product. Esp w/ with products from obscure places like Dell and RIO, which SANdisk does not claim to be compatable with. But other than those it'll be great(The remaining 64% of the time.) Just be sure to buy it from a place that will give you credit against a lexar purchase since there's a slightly less than even chance that you'll need to return it.
6 Diskappointed
I have used SanDisk Compact Flash Memory cards and had great results (Nikon 2MP digital camera and Cannon 3MP digital camera). This Secure Digital Card started showing errors from the beginning, and then got worse. Unable to use at all in my Coolpix 4800 after a couple weeks. Lost some great shots (I know they were great because I saw them in the viewer when I shot them) because of errors on this card. Glad I got the [...] but still feel like SanDisk ripped me off.
7 Very Slow!
I have 3MP digital camera (Canon SD110) and with this card, too slow men! - The real capacity of this card is aprox. 480Mb.
I've tried other sd (lexar) and work fine. For Performance I recommend Lexar SD's.
8 slow card
the people who wrote this is a "fast" card have no expertise. this is now one of the slowest cards out there, this makes a huge difference with cameras over 2 megapixels. if you are shooting with a three or four megapixel camera it will be unbearably slow.
price. please! the page shows a list price of two fifty. wow so for fifty five it must be a great deal right? no! memory prices fall like a riock and the list price is from two years ago. the listed "sale price" of fifty five is the going rate across all the competition.
Indeed sandisks own "utra II" version of their 512 sd card is sixty five dollars everywhere. the ultra II reads and writes on average seven times faster.
9 SanJunk is all your getting with this card.
I bought this card in November, and it is now December. 1 month is all that it lasted. It won't format, it won't recognize data, it is worthless. I am not sure what I am going to do with it now, except maybe hope that the manufacturer will send a new one. It is a piece of junk. Save your money or buy Lexar.
10 Fast and flawless at the right price.
Works just fine in my Minolta G500 camera. Can't imagine what there could be to criticize. Can't beat the price either.
11 Size Matters
Just a FYI, This device is 512,000,000 bytes in size. that is 488MBytes (1024 Method). Then there is 5Mbytes used for the SD Feature of the card, Leaving you 483MBytes. Just wish manufactures would stop playing this game and call it waht is is a 488MByte Card.
12 Lost all files on this card
I have an iPAQ h4150 with a 512 MB Sandisk SD card, one day I was synchronizing files and I lost all my files on the SD card. I formated the card and tried to copy new files on it but when I try to add files I got the error message "CARD IS FULL". I tried formatting the card using Fat16, Fat32 and it still doesn't work. This card is garbage! I bought a different brand of SD card and never had this problem again.
13 Agree with other users, you get what you pay for
Never had problems with San Disk before in my life, then this card came into play. This Card is made in China, and there are imcompatibility issues that people just can't figure out. Other people with the SanDisk SD 512 card made in Taiwan have no problems, just the ones made in China.
It works fine in most devices, but there are some problems with Kodak cameras. Some combinations of cameras and readers work, Pentax and Casio Exslim. But using a Kodak DX6440 will not get a read on any card reader. Works great in the dock, but you can't take it to a photo lab to print without risk of corrupting the card.
San Disk customer support is great, they sent a label to pick up the corrupted card (which worked sometimes when it was new) and sent a replacement card. (that process took 2 weeks) Just don't risk your pictures unless you test out the card throughly before you shoot that irreplaceable picture.
14 Fast
I recently bought the Pentax Optio S4 and wanted to get a memory card for it. I didn't want to ever ever ever worry about saving pictures - I wanted as much memory as possible so I could save as many pictures on the highest quality and never worry. I never again have to utter the phrase "I'm out of film" (memory in this case.) I got this card, stuck it in the camera, and it worked immediately. It is FAST - faster than the internal memory of the camera itself! It can hold approximately 170 photos of the highest quality on the Pentax Optio S4. The speed of this thing is what gets me- saves a photo in like a second or 2 - I don't even get a chance to wait for it to save. CRAZY! Works amazingly well and I could not be more happy with it.
15 Not a MINI SD
I haven't gotten this product I just want to warn people that are looking to buy the Audiovox SMT5000. The Audiovox requires a Mini SD not a card like this. Amazon is recommending the card when you purchase a Audiovox SMT5000 however.
16 How many pictures will it store?
How many pictures will it store? It is the most commonly asked question from digital camera enthusiast but usually the question that is the most difficult to get a straight answer about. Well, considering I worked in the memory industry for over 7 years I can help clarify this perplexing question and do so unbiased as I have since changed industries.
The SanDisk SDSDB-512-A10 512MB Secure Digital Card, like most 512MB cards, will store on average 568 pictures when used with a 2 megapixel camera, 426 images when used with a 3 megapixel camera, 256 pictures when used with a 4 megapixel camera, 204 images when used with a 5 megapixel camera, and 160 pictures when used with a 6 megapixel camera. These numbers are based off the assumption that you are going to shoot your images at the highest quality JPEG setting available for the camera and understand that they are estimates and may be off by as much as 10 percent due to numerous factors including the complexity of the scene being shot and the compression algorithm used by your specific camera.
I truly hope this review was helpful to you in determining whether this 512MB card is the right capacity for your specific needs.
17 You get what you pay for...
I bought this card because it had a good price, only $49,99 which is much lower than other SD cards. I used it once, then I tried to read it from a memory card reader and I got an error. I searched the SanDisk website for support and they said that I should format the card. I tried to format the card using Windows and I got a "Windows was unable to format the media" error. Tried a search engine and found that I was not the only one with that kind of problem.
Finally I downloaded a SD format utility from Panasonic. It successfully formated the card and now I can read it, but I don't know for how long.
I guess that I got what I paid for... I paid cheap and I got a cheap unstable memory.
18 mooseatplay
After I made a mistake this dealer helped me correct my error. A simple mistake made an Amazon dealer come through for me. I can not recommend this dealer higher, I would be more than pleased to deal with them again. In fact I will. My highest recommendation! sd0215@wowway.com Thank you and all my best!
19 2nd try
I just sent my exchange request to Amazon. It seems my first 512 SD card is bad after 2 weeks, and I hardly used the thing. My player shows the card, but cannot load any music to the card. I will see if the replacement works better. I just prefer it works.
20 Big Storage. Slow Speed.
If you're buying a 512 MB card, then most likely you need/use a lot of data storage. If you fill this card up then try to download to your computer, it will take several minutes to transfer. You should really consider getting a high-speed card so that you can cut on transfer time. Many cameras also take advantage of the faster speed on the high-speed cards; this can be especially helpful if when you take many pictures in succession.
21 works great and a great price
I bought this card in February and paid $160 for it and now it is almost $100 dollars cheaper.
As for the card it works great. I use it in an HP camera and it has saved my pictures great time after time without any loss of data. The pictures look great and it holds 383 photos at 5mp and ** compression.
It also works great in the photo machine and "Sams Club" if you want to get prints.
Good product, Great price
22 HOLY MOLY LOOK AT THE PRICE!
$40 a card? My Rio will be happy in a week
23 Absolutely Great
I also have a Kingston card, which is okay, but the 512 price and performance for Sandisk is great. I use it for my MP3 player and use the card for data transfer using the SD slot on my Gateway laptop. I also wrote something on Kingston regarding the manufacturing processes of these two companies (sandisk makes own chip and founded the SD card format), as I'm aware of how it's done from my work experience at Simpletech, and Sandisk is the better quality product.
24 Was great for a month, then died
For no reason, it just stopped working while loading music onto my MP3 player. I don't do anything rough with it, I just set it on my desk and listen. A big disappointment. I'd recommend another. Might as well go cheapest, if you can't trust the one with the brand name.
25 Don't need an ipod....
I recieved a 128MB Rio forge as a back-to-school gift from my parents. I run cross country, and during the off season, I like to have some tunes while I run. I had my eye on a couple of 512MB flash based models (hard drive based mp3 players are prone to skipping in my experiences), until they got me the 128 forge. I was going to take it back and exchange with a 512MB, when I noticed the forge had an expansion SD slot. After some shopping around, I found out that instead of paying another hundred bucks for a 384MB upgrade (i.e. getting a new one),for a around the same price I could upgrade 512MB(getting the sandisk card) for a total 640MB. Now I can store around 200 songs, plenty enough for my runs.
I went with the Sandisk card because I've heard a lot of bad things about similar "generic" cards out there (kingston, pny..). I know they've been around the longest ( to my understanding, they created the SD format), and I figured they'd have the best quality. And so far, I have no complaints. It has integrated with the forge flawlessly, and to say the least, I'm a happy jogger.
26 BAD quality! stay away!
I bought this (Sandisk 512 MB Secure Digital) in February and gave it to my mom as a gift in May. She used it in her digital camera and took pictures with it for her college reunion. Afterwards, the card displayed "Corrupt Data" and the pictures were lost! Do NOT buy this card, if you do not believe me, do a search for this card and you will see similar testimonials!
The grief and sadness this card has caused me is not worth its cheaper price!
user be warned!
by the way, the one i have is made in china, i have read these ones are the WORST
27 The BEST deal from Amazon yet...
I placed my order on the 10th & got it 4 days later.
That was not what I expected. I wasn't scheduled to get till the 20th - 23rd.
Talk about speedy delivery.
Oh & the card works GREAT! Can't beat a 512MB SanDisk Card for $74.00.
I will sure be using Amazon again!
28 Great Card. No Problems at all.
I use the Sandisk 512 SD card in my HP 2215 IPAQ. I have never had a problem with it and it gives me plenty of space to store all of the music that I enjoy. I would love to get a 1 GB card but I want to wait for the prices to come down a little more. This card is fast but I would still like it to be faster. I'm not sure if it is the card slowing down the process or the USB connection to my IPAQ. I was thinking about buying the Sandisk ULTRA SD card to see if there is a speed difference.
29 Horrible memory card for PDAs
Well after purchasing my second Sandisk product (the other was the 512K CF card) I will never buy another Sandisk product again, don't care if it is cheaper. I know you other PDA owners know what I am talking about. For digital cameras I don't know, it may or may not work fine. But I've used the Sandisk cards in my Dell Axim and Compaq Ipaq and have had the same problems. When transferring large amounts of data >15MBs the files do not write properly. Half of my mp3s that I tranfer do not play. In addition if you transfer data that is greater than the available amount on the card it will frequently erase all data on the card!!!!!!!
BEWARE, stay away if you are going to use this in your PDA. I've found no problems using Viking (1 CF card), MicroTech (1 CF) and Kingston ( 2 SD cards) products.
30 Dead Out of the Package
I purchased this primarily because of the comparatively low price. I have another Sandisk (128mb) that works well. This one was recognized by Windows the first time I used it but the first files written on it were corrupted and couldn't be erased. I tried to read it on another XP computer but I received an error message "the file is corrupted and unreadable." Sandisk tech support (only 10 sec wait!) agreed it was a bad card. I would buy another brand.
31 Amazing New Storage Technology!
It's a wonder it works so well at all, buy tons so it will be affordable!
32 483mb?
When I got it, I put it in my IPAQ 5555 PDA. It shows only 483mb not 512mb. I know it shouldn't be exactly 512mb, but almost 30 mb different is not too much?
33 Results of my speed tests using SiSoft Sandra 2004 (SP1)
I ran these tests using SiSoft Sandra 2004 (SP1) just so that I could personally compare the performance differences between my various CF and SD flash memory cards and using USB 2.0 vs. 1.X. Here are the impressive results of the SanDisk 512MB SD Card:
Make/Model of Flash Reader used:
Lexar 6-in-1 USB 2.0 Multi-Card Reader (model RW018-01)
Homebuilt PC used:
Asus P4P-800VM motherboard with on-board USB 2.0, Intel P4 2.8GHz (800 FSB), 1GB Crucial brand DDR RAM, Win XP Pro (SP-1)
512byte files:
R = 101 kb/sec, 0x
W = 2.2 kb/sec
32kB files:
R = 2788 kb/sec, 15x
W = 107 kb/sec, 0x
256kB files:
R = 5773 kb/sec, 32x
W = 785 kb/sec, 4x
2MB files:
R = 6485 kb/sec, 36x
W = 1638 kb/sec, 9x
Note: Why 4 stars instead of 5? Well, I am currently on my second 512MB card. My first one became corrupted after a week of use. It could not read from it write to it or even access it. I use it mainly for my Compaq iPAQ 3970 Pocket PC. Always make sure you backup the SD card's contents to your PC just in case it goes bad like mine did. The Lexar reader I used (which I purchased here on Amazon) makes this a quick process.
And try to use USB 2.0, because when I ran the tests above on a USB 1.X system, these were the results I got using 2MB files:
R = 1024 kb/sec, 5x
W = 683 kb/sec, 3x
Going from USB 1.X to USB 2.0 results in a huge leap in performance.
And for you PDA users... The speed of a card is not really an issue since Pocket Mechanic on my Compaq iPAQ 3970 Pocket PC benchmarked my SanDisk 512MB SD Card with a molasses-slow Read Speed of 0.5x and a Write Speed of 0.2x. In other words, the PDA's internal controller is the bottleneck, not the SD card. If writing large amounts of data, I recommend you purchase a USB 2.0 card and USB 2.0 reader for your PC and use that instead.
34 Works great for me, but if it doesn't for you, there is hope
I have an Axim x5, which are notoriously incompatible with Sandisk SD cards, but this card has been working wonderfully for me (along with a newer 128mb card), even if the read speed isn't quite as fast as other brands. For some idea if others with your device have been having problems with Sandisk, take a look here: http://sdprob.aximsite.com/theproblemlist.htm (this site is heavily skewed toward Dell handhelds, for obvious reasons).
If you do have issues, Sandisk is very good about replacing the card. Look at the info here for Tungsten t3: http://www.sandisk.com/tech/faq/224.html; and here for Axims: http://www.sandisk.com/tech/faq/216.html. Both will eventually take you to the same replacement request form, so I think you can use that form for any model. Good luck!
35 Value depends on how much data you move & how often
This review applies to computers equipped with usb2.0. Users who have usb1.x may still find this informative, however.
I just received a SanDisk 512MB Ultra II Secure Digital card and did a quick & dirty performance comparison with the non-ultra SanDisk SD card. If you just want the results, then go to the bottom of the review. For the more inquisitive, here is my test configuration:
linux-2.4.22 (with ehci to enable usb2.0) connected to . . .
usb2.0 hub connected to . . .
SanDisk SDDR-88 usb2.0 memory card reader
commands for the write test:
- mount -o noatime,sync /dev/sda1 /flash_memory
- cat testfile > /dev/null
- time cp tesfile /flash_memory
The first command forces any writes to the flash_memory to happen immediately, so there is no caching going on. The second command reads through the ~50MB testfile and caches it into memory (no need to access the hard disk). The third command actually copies the test file to the memory card and times it.
commands for the read test:
- umount /flash_memory
- mount -o noatime,sync /dev/sda1 /flash_memory
- time cp /flash_memory/testfile /dev/null
The first command unmounts the flash memory and clears the cache. The second command mounts the flash memory so the computer can access its files. The third command actually copies the file, which must be read directly from the card because we cleared the cache, and times the copy.
The read and writes tests were performed multiple times, and the results varied little between iterations. The 512MB card was completely empty, and the 256MB card had a small 3MB file.
The SanDisk Ultra II card turned in some impressive numbers:
writes: 4.95MB/sec (5048.2KB/sec)
reads: 8.19MB/sec (8389.96KB/sec)
For comparison, here are the numbers for the SanDisk 256MB non-ultra card:
writes: 0.86MB/sec (876.44KB/sec)
reads: 1.53MB/sec (1570.69KB/sec)
If you need performance, then the SanDisk Ultra II series + usb2.0 is a winning combination. The Ultra II reads and writes more than five times as fast as the plain-vanilla SanDisk secure digital card. In my case, I will be using the card to store MP3 files for a portable audio device, and waiting around while moving MP3s is not how I want to spend my time. So, I bought the Ultra II. Your needs may vary. Buy accordingly.
Compare prices between the Ultra II and non-Ultra cards and ask yourself, "How much is my time worth?" If you answer this question honestly, then you won't be kicking yourself later on because you bought the wrong card. For people who copy small files frequently, the non-ultra cards provide great value for the dollar. If you move larger files, however, then have something else to do during the copy operation because the non-ultra cards will frustrate you otherwise.
Also, I realize that other manufactures market "high-performance" memory cards, but since I don't own one, I can't recommend/jeer them here.
36 Works great with Palm Tungsten E
I bought this Sandisk 512MB SD card to play music in my Palm Tungsten E. I have had excellent results transferring music and playing music on this card. I haven't had one problem and would highly recommend it. It looks like I can store about 120 songs with an average encoding of 128kbps. So it's a bit expensive when compared to the capacity of an ipod, but I didn't want to carry around 2 devices, charge them, etc.
The downsides are not really about this card at all. They are:
1. The Palm MP3 kit that comes with the fast transfer USB device doesn't work with the RealOne 10 sync function. It uses the slow USB cable that's used for HotSync.
2. The RealOne 10 doesn't transfer playlists from the desktop to the Palm. I downloaded the new Real Player 1.1 to my Palm but it doesn't have many new features.
3. The in-your-ear headphones that come with the Palm MP3 kit suck. They don't fit in my ear (I'm an average size 5'11" male), they fall out so the music doesn't sound great. I went to the Metreon and got the Sony foldable MDR-G72 headphones and I'm enjoying the music much, much more.
This review is about more than just the Sandisk SD card, but I'll reiterate, the Sandisk card has worked flawlessly for me.
37 FAST!
I recently bought the Pentax Optio S4 and wanted to get a memory card for it. I didn't want to ever ever ever worry about saving pictures - I wanted as much memory as possible so I could save as many pictures on the highest quality and never worry. I never again have to utter the phrase "I'm out of film" (memory in this case.) I got this card, stuck it in the camera, and it worked immediately. It is FAST - faster than the internal memory of the camera itself! It can hold approximately 170 photos of the highest quality on the Pentax Optio S4. The speed of this thing is what gets me- saves a photo in like a second or 2 - I don't even get a chance to wait for it to save. CRAZY! Works amazingly well and I could not be more happy with it.
38 SD Memory 512 MB
Card worked for the 1st time then it quit working and none of the 5 computers or the 3 readers could read it or even see it?
39 Why so much cheaper?
This card works perfectly in my Treo 600 and Viking 6-in-1 drive. (For other Treo 600 owners who may be wondering, in light of the warning card included with the Treo, the SanDisk card IS compatible.) I haven't had a single problem.
40 Completely Awesome Product
I was so happy when I received this last night. I couldn't believe UPS delivered so late. Well, about 3 weeks ago I received my Tungsten T2 which is my second PDA (after a long year with the m130). It is completely amazing. I have so many awesome products for it such as: VoiceMemo, Kinoma Video Player, Photo viewer, a keyboard, a Nintendo emulator, a dictionary, a thesaurus, an acronym dictionary, a phrase dictionary, an animator, a remote, palmreader, realone mp3 player, powerone graphing calculator, and many others. I wasn't sure how to play mp3's and when i read about it the palm website made it seem like the only way to use it was to buy the mp3 audio kit they were selling. I thought it had some driver or program which allows mp3's to be played. The mp3 audio kit is basically just a 64mb secure digital memory card (Palm brand) and a palm brand usb/secure digital memory transfer device, with some small headphones. I bought it on amazon for about 57 dollars (it is 99 bucks on the palm website) and i was impressed, but realized I was sort of ripped off. I already had a sandisk memory transfer device, and better headphones, so I payed about a dollar per megabyte, basically. Well, i grew accustom to the palm brand usb/sd transfer device so i wanted to keep it, but I wanted more space. With the kinoma video player and convertor, I can convert many simpsons and futurama episodes i have on my computer (all mpgs) and put them on my tungsten t2 with very nice resolution (all pixels used) and great sound. (the sound is flawless if headphones are used. the palm's speakers are good but not great.) So i had to delete many songs if i wanted to fit a whole episode and it became quite irritating. One night I saw this product here for about 230 dollars and was surprised it was that low. So i searched around and found it at the J and R website (jandr.com) for 160 dollars with a 20 dollar rebate, and out of impulse just bought it that night. It was well worth it. I was going to tell amazon about the lower price but it seems that they already got to it. this card is amazing. A little less than 500 is usable but that's really no problem. i put on all three system of a down albums on it last night and that only took about 3 minutes (about 50 songs). I also put on two simpsons episodes and about 100 nintendo games, along with a few dictionaries, and I still have 100 megabytes left. I know of no one else who uses their palm as much as I do, but I'd like to let people know that it is much more than just an organizer. This card may not be right for you if you don't have any huge programs or files you want to put on, but if so then I strongly recommend it. Just read the directions and make sure you dont abuse it. I'm planning on selling the 64mb sandisk memory card which ive had for about 2 weeks, along with an old, fully functional sandisk usb/sd data transfer device, so if you're interested email regmcube@yahoo.com. thanks!
41 Great value for what I paid
John gave a great review on this item, and I based my buying decision on his review. Read it if you have not yet done that, I will only add the following:
I purchased this SD card along with the Casio Exilim EX-Z4 digital camera. I had the EX-S1 with a the famous and expensive SimpleTech SD card previously, and you know what? you will practically find that both cards are functioning at the same speed and performance levels, only that you have saved US$ 100 difference between SanDisk and other branded cards including SimpleTech ... I would say that it was a good deal, and SanDisk definately sent a strong message to other manufacturers to reconsider their price points.
42 Speed Test Results...
[Note: This review was originally posted on 20-Oct-2003 and contains an important update made on 29-Oct-2003! Be sure to read the entire review for details!]
SanDisk's 512MB SD card is by far the cheapest available. In most cases, the other cards are at least 50% more than this one.
I was curious about speed since SanDisk is known for being a bit on the slow side. This card was relatively newly released when I wanted it, so I was unable to find any good speed figures online. Therefore, I bought it anyway -- and ran the speed tests myself.
Testing on a Toshiba/AudioVox Genio e550G with Kai's Speed Test application, I ran the Write Test 5 times with the following results:
Trial #1: 263KB/Sec
Trial #2: 263KB/Sec
Trial #3: 181KB/Sec
Trial #4: 171KB/Sec
Trial #5: 196KB/Sec
Not very consistent, for some reason. I was not running any other applications at the time, so I am not sure why the fluctuation.
For comparison, here are the results using a Lexar 256MB SD card:
Trial #1: 263KB/Sec
Trial #2: 271KB/Sec
Trial #3: 279KB/Sec
Trial #4: 256KB/Sec
Trial #5: 256KB/Sec
So, at their best, the two cards seem quite comparable. It is just that the Lexar card is clearly more stable as far as speed fluctuations go.
In any case, I'm happy with it -- especially for the huge difference in price in most cases. Works for me. Plus, 5-year warranty -- just in case.
- John...
---UPDATE---
The fact that the card always performed well for the first two tests but then slowed and stayed slow until the device was reset was really bothering me, so I contacted SanDisk about it and gave them the same results that I shared here. SanDisk said that they thought the card was defective! I therefore had this card replaced (very quickly and easily by Amazon, I will add) and have just repeated my tests with the new card. Good news! The replacement card is usually faster and much more consistent than the original! It no longer slows down after the first two tests -- the results are repeatable at any time.
For comparison, here are the new figures for the 512MB SanDisk card:
Trial #1: 329KB/Sec
Trial #2: 263KB/Sec
Trial #3: 341KB/Sec
Trial #4: 279KB/Sec
Trial #5: 318KB/Sec
As you can see, the card is now performing at or above the speed of the 256MB Lexar that I had previously tested. I am now quite satisfied with this card -- it appears to be giving the same speeds or better than other cards well above this price range.
- John...
43 Very Fast, Highly Compatible Memory Card
I purchased the SanDisk 512MB Secure Digital Card for use in my MP3 player (Rio Cali-256). I had never before seen a Secure Digital card and was surprised at how small the card is.
I opened the package, inserted the card into my MP3 player, and presto. Instant recognition. No need to format the card.
I started downloading my music files onto it, and noticed the speed was equivalent to the memory onboard my player. As a result, I now have an additional 120 mp3 files on my player!
I'd give the product five stars, but the memory size did not appear to my MP3 player as 512MB. It was slightly less than this - not too much less, but when I buy 512 MB, I certainly want all 512.
