Digital Home Thoughts: Transcend's 8 GB 120x Speed CompactFlash Card Reviewed

Ah, sweet, sweet storage. If you use any type of device that uses memory cards - laptop, PDA, phone, digital camera, etc. - there's always the quest for more storage. The people at TheMemStore sent me a Transcend 8 GB High-Speed Pro CompactFlash card rated at 120x. I decided to put it through its paces.

Using SiSoftware Sandra's Removable Storage test and a Sandisk 7 in 1 USB 2.0 memory card reader, I first benchmarked the Transcend 8 GB card. I focused on the 2 MB read/write test results, because that size of file is close to both music and digital photo files. With 2 MB files the Transcend card was 171 operations per minute, with a read performance of 8499 KB/s and a write performance of 3140 KB/s. When I ran my 4 GB Kingston card through the same tests, the results were surprising: with 2 MB files it was 191 operations per minute, with read performance of 6519 KB/s and write performance of 3311 KB/s. Lastly, I also tried my Sandisk Ultra 512 MB card just to see how well the Transcend would do against it. The Sandisk card did 216 operations per minute with 2 MB files, having a 7373 KB/s read speed, and a 3482 KB/s write speed. From the benchmark standpoint, the 8 GB Transcend card was faster at reading 2 MB files than the other cards, but slower at writing 2 MB files.

Here's the dirty little secret with memory cards though: if you're using them in a digital camera, odds are good that the memory buffer on your camera will nullify most of the reasons why you'd purchase a faster memory card. As an example, my Nikon D200, when set to shoot in the highest quality JPEG mode, will take 31 images back to back before it will pause for a split second and not allow me to take another photo. Stop and ponder the for a second - that means that when I have it set to shoot at its maximum speed of five shots per second (5fps) I can hold down the shutter release for around 6.5 seconds and take 31 images before the speed of the memory card really comes into play. When set to pure RAW, the number of images I can shoot before having to pause is 22. RAW+JPEG (Normal) gets me 19 images.

In the year and a half that I've owned my D200, I can tell you how many times I've shot so many frames back to back that I've overwhelmed the buffer: once. I was at an air show a couple of weeks ago and when I was shooting frames of a monster truck (yeah, I know it was an air show, go figure) blasting over some crushed cars, and I was shooting in RAW mode with the trigger down trying to get every frame as the trucks launched themselves into the air. And even when I had to pause, within three seconds I could take another couple of frames. At this point, when the buffer is completely full and it's writing to the memory card, the write speed of your memory card matters. Ask yourself how often you're in that situation of shooting 20+ photos in six seconds - professional sports photographers probably live in that zone, but the rest of us? Probably not. You can read more on this topic at Ken Rockwell's site.

So, that said, how does the Transcend 8 GB 120x card measure up price wise? It's a mixed bag - you can get a SanDisk Ultra II 8 GB card for basically the same price, and I suspect the performance would be similar. It's a lot less expensive than the 8 GB SanDisk Ultra IV which costs $249 USD. On the other hand, other Web sites have much less expensive 8 GB cards - look at this Qmemory card which boasts 150x speed for only $89 USD. Even if the Qmemory speed isn't 150x, being 39% less expensive has got to count for something. So here's my advice: buy the biggest card you can afford, and don't worry too much about the speed label on the card.

Jason Dunn owns and operates Thoughts Media Inc., a company dedicated to creating the best in online communities. He enjoys mobile devices, digital media content creation/editing, and pretty much all technology. He lives in Calgary, Alberta, Canada with his lovely wife, and his sometimes obedient dog. He has quite the collection of Flash memory cards!