Monday, June 18, 2007
High-Capacity Secure Digital Card (SDHC) Headaches
Posted by Jason Dunn in "THOUGHT" @ 11:30 AM
For those that haven't been keeping track of SD card memory, here's the current state of affairs: in order to break the 2 GB barrier, SD cards transitioned to a new format called SDHC (Secure Digital High Capacity). Ignoring the fact that there are some 4 GB SD cards out there today that are not SDHC, this is the new format that allows 4 GB, 8 GB, and higher capacity cards. There's always a catch, right? The catch this time is that while this new format is physically the same size as the old SD format, meaning it will fit in the same slots, the new SDHC cards are not compatible with the old SD card readers. I knew all of this in abstract, and knew it would be a hassle, but it wasn't until I purchased my first SDHC card that I realized exactly how frustrating it was going to be.
With flash memory prices being what they are now, it's hard to not snap up a few high-capacity cards: I had a friend pick up four 2 GB SD cards, and a single SDHC 4 GB card. I popped it in my camera (the Canon SD800) and it recognized it as I knew it would, and at 7 megpixels and Fine quality JPEGs, I can capture 2009 images. I can't imagine ever needing that many images, but it does mean I can take longer videos without worrying about running out of space. I took a few dozen photos, and without thinking, put the SDHC card into my laptop's SD card slot. It took me a minute to realize why it wasn't working, but it actually ended up "crashing" the SD slot interface and regular SD cards were unreadable until I rebooted. I then tried the memory card slots on my Dell 24" LCD monitors, and much to my surprise they aren't SDHC-compatible either.
I have no memory card reader capable of reading SDHC cards. What a pain - what's worse, it's a pain I should have been more aware of. I toyed with the idea of buying a new memory card reader, but seeing as I already have non-SDHC memory card readers in all three of my Dell monitors, it's a bit of a waste. I also thought about just sticking to the 2 GB SD cards, but that would be wasting the new 4 GB card I just bought.
What I did instead was order two of these SanDisk MicroMates, which are essentially small SDHC memory card readers that connect directly to a USB port. I'll keep one handy in my office, and one in my camera bag, and that solution should allow me to access content on the 4 GB card quickly enough. In the meantime, I connected my SD800 directly to my PC and pulled the images off that way. It's great how the SD800 connects to Vista without any drivers and allows you to access the memory card as if it were a local storage drive.
SDHC cards are definitely the future of SD storage, but until the rest of the memory card reader ecosystem (laptops, monitors, devices) catch up, it will be a painful couple of years.
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 collects memory cards.
With flash memory prices being what they are now, it's hard to not snap up a few high-capacity cards: I had a friend pick up four 2 GB SD cards, and a single SDHC 4 GB card. I popped it in my camera (the Canon SD800) and it recognized it as I knew it would, and at 7 megpixels and Fine quality JPEGs, I can capture 2009 images. I can't imagine ever needing that many images, but it does mean I can take longer videos without worrying about running out of space. I took a few dozen photos, and without thinking, put the SDHC card into my laptop's SD card slot. It took me a minute to realize why it wasn't working, but it actually ended up "crashing" the SD slot interface and regular SD cards were unreadable until I rebooted. I then tried the memory card slots on my Dell 24" LCD monitors, and much to my surprise they aren't SDHC-compatible either.
I have no memory card reader capable of reading SDHC cards. What a pain - what's worse, it's a pain I should have been more aware of. I toyed with the idea of buying a new memory card reader, but seeing as I already have non-SDHC memory card readers in all three of my Dell monitors, it's a bit of a waste. I also thought about just sticking to the 2 GB SD cards, but that would be wasting the new 4 GB card I just bought.
What I did instead was order two of these SanDisk MicroMates, which are essentially small SDHC memory card readers that connect directly to a USB port. I'll keep one handy in my office, and one in my camera bag, and that solution should allow me to access content on the 4 GB card quickly enough. In the meantime, I connected my SD800 directly to my PC and pulled the images off that way. It's great how the SD800 connects to Vista without any drivers and allows you to access the memory card as if it were a local storage drive.
SDHC cards are definitely the future of SD storage, but until the rest of the memory card reader ecosystem (laptops, monitors, devices) catch up, it will be a painful couple of years.
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 collects memory cards.
