MEMORY CARDS
What is a Memory Card
A memory card or flash card is an electronic flash memory data storage device used for storing digital information. These are commonly used in many electronic devices, including digital cameras, mobile phones, laptop computers, tablets, MP3 players and video game consoles. Most of these can be diminutive, re-recordable, and can retain data without power. since 1994 all the memory cards are flash. Memory card is required today for smartphones, tablets and modern digital cameras.
New Newlink 38 in 1 USB Portable Multi-Card Reader
The NL-CREXTUSBA is a highly portable pocket sized USB 2.0 card reader which enables you to read from and write to a whole host of popular media cards, ranging from MS, SD, MMC, M2 and many of their variants. This card reader also comes with a clip, a key ring attachment and a cleverly attached lid to prevent loss. The maximum capacity of card to be used with this unit is 64GB.
You can buy this product from Stress Free PCs for £5.99 if you click on the picture.
A little History about Memory cards
PC Cards (PCMCIA) were among first commercial memory card formats (type I cards) to come out in the 1990s, but are now mainly used in industrial applications and to connect I/O devices such as modems. In the 1990s, a number of memory card formats smaller than the PC Card arrived, including CompactFlash, SmartMedia, and Miniature Card. The desire for smaller cards for cell-phones, PDAs, and compact digital cameras drove a trend that left the previous generation of "compact" cards looking big. In digital cameras SmartMedia and CompactFlash had been very successful In 2001, SM alone captured 50% of the digital camera market and CF had captured the professional digital camera market. By 2005 however, SD/MMC had nearly taken over SmartMedia's spot, though not to the same level and with stiff competition coming from Memory Stick variants, as well as CompactFlash. In industrial and embedded fields, even the venerable PC card (PCMCIA) memory cards still manage to maintain a niche, while in mobile phones and PDAs, the memory card market was highly fragmented until 2010 when micro-SD came to dominate new high-end phones and tablet computers.
Since 2010, new products of Sony (previously only using Memory Stick) and Olympus (previously only using XD-Card) have been offered with an additional SD-Card slot. Effectively the format war has turned in SD-Card's favor.
Watch this video on how these memory cards made
Type of Memory Cards
There are an array of storage types/formats available with each camera taking a different type. Some formats basically only used by the company that invented them such as Sony's Memory Stick series and then there are more widely used formats like SD (Secure Digital). The range of Secure Digital options: SD, SDHC and SDXC are most common amongst digital cameras although many professional digital SLRs still provide Compact Flash slots.
Secure Digital
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SD Memory Card
SDHC Memory Card
SDXC Memory Card
- First iteration of secure digital memory cards.
- Second iteration of secure digital memory cards
- HC meaning high capacity
- Third iteration of secure digital memory cards - XC meaning eXtended capacity
- Released in 1999.
- Released in 2006
Released in 2009 - Provides up to 2GB of storage.
- Provides up to 64GB of storage
- Offers increased speeds
- Provisdes up to 2TB of storage
- Offers increased speeds- up to 300MB/s
Micro SD
Micro SDHC
- First iteration of the micro format
- Second iteration of the micro format
- Released in 2005
- Released in 2007
- Provides up to 2GB of storage
- 80% smaller than regular SD memory cards
- Provides up to 32GB of storage
- 80% smaller than regular SD memory cards
- Offers increased speeds over microSD
Stress Free Pcs sell some of these SD Memory cards, Click on the picture to see if we have any in stock
Eye-Fi
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Eye-Fi cards are a unique type of SD card with Wi-Fi built right into the SD memory card. Eye-Fi allows your photos and videos to be immediately uploaded over the wifi network instantly clearing up space on the memory card for limitless shooting. You can upload not only to your computer but if you're on the road they can be uploaded to your favorite online service, including flickr, facebook, snapfish, youtube, picasa, etc. Eye-Fi provides a free hotspot access service internationally for eye-fi owners and also permit you to easily add Wi-Fi networks you have access to. Finally some Eye-Fi cards can utilize the wireless signals to do geolocation allowing it to geo tag your photos similar to a GPS (although less accurate but available indoors where GPS is not).
Compact Flash
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Compact flash, introduced in 1994, was one of the first memory card type for 16 years provided the highest level of storage and fastest transfer rates despite introductions by many competing formats. Due to its large 128GB maximum storage capacity and fast speeds compact flash has remained popular in professional digital SLRs. Secure digital has long since replaced compact flash in smaller cameras, entry level and increasingly in semi-pro SLRs. The SDXC format provides higher theoretical storage and transfer capabilities to compact flash and will finally provide an alternative storage format for pro photography cameras. Advantages of Compact Flash
- Extremely high transfer rates - 90MB/s in available cards
- Large capacities
- Many photographer like the larger size - easier to handle, harder to loose
- Most pro SLRs require compact flash
- Some feel compact flash is more durable
Memory Stick
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Sony launched the memory stick format in 1998 and has developed several improvements/revisions of the format since then. In typical Sony fashion they developed a proprietary format instead of utilizing industry standards like compact flash and secure digital - their format never really caught on with other manufacturers. Although memory stick is still around most Sony cameras also support Secure Digital, having won the digital camera format war.
Memory Stick
Memory Stick Pro
- First iteration of the memory stick format
- Second iteration of the memory stick format
- Released in 1998
- Released in 2003
- Provides up to 128MB of storage
- Provides up to 4GB of storage
MMC - MultiMediaCard
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MMC - MultiMediaCard
