Cheaper SDHC cards?

[Tensuke]

Get a 64gb flash drive! Sure, it'd stick out, but it's the same price as a 32gb sd card so you get double for your money!

 

[ilovevideogames408]

That isn't much of an option since I would be using that USB port most of the time. Whether its a controller or VX Nano.

 

[j.pickens]

Many manufacturers have slowed or stopped production because of the economy, don't expect the usual price reductions in the next 6 months.

Wanna bet on that?

 

[fischju]

Many manufacturers have slowed or stopped production because of the economy, don't expect the usual price reductions in the next 6 months.

Wanna bet on that?

I bought a Patriot 16GB for $17 five months ago. It's listed as $33 and out of stock now. In fact, the cheapest 16GB on Newegg is $30. Prices have gone up.

 

[PoisonedV]

You think one SD card having a price raise is evidence that SD cards in general are going up in price, and you also deduce WHY this is happening? How do you know it's the economy and not one of the hundreds of other factors thats cause variance

 

[fischju]

You think one SD card having a price raise is evidence that SD cards in general are going up in price, and you also deduce WHY this is happening? How do you know it's the economy and not one of the hundreds of other factors thats cause variance

Has anybody ever told you that your reading comprehension skills suck? Let me reword it, just for you. I bought a 16GB for $17 months ago, and the current cheapest 16GB from Newegg (where I bought it) is $29.99.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122791173957865389.html

HONG KONG -- Chip makers are shutting down less-productive factories, delaying investment projects and even cutting staff in a sign that the global economic slowdown and the credit crunch are taking a hefty toll on demand and hurting their operations.

The coming few months could be critical for several memory-chip makers in Asia, Europe and the U.S. as they continue to grapple with weak demand and a severe cash crunch amid plunging chip prices, which remain well below their manufacturing costs.

The weak environment has already led to losses for major producers of dynamic random access memory and NAND flash-memory chips, hurting their ability to repay debt and invest in new production technology at a time when lowering manufacturing costs is critical. Some chip makers may be forced to seek government assistance, while others are trying to weather the downturn by strengthening alliances with peers.

Samsung Electronics Co., the world's biggest memory-chip maker, said Friday it plans to shut down two chip-production lines by the end of next year as part of efforts to cut costs. The chip maker said in October that it plans to trim its capital-spending budget for memory chips for the remainder of this year.

 

[Brent212]

If/When 48 GB or 64 GB cards become available, will they work in the Pandora?

 

[PoisonedV]

You think one SD card having a price raise is evidence that SD cards in general are going up in price, and you also deduce WHY this is happening? How do you know it's the economy and not one of the hundreds of other factors thats cause variance

Has anybody ever told you that your reading comprehension skills suck? Let me reword it, just for you. I bought a 16GB for $17 months ago, and the current cheapest 16GB from Newegg (where I bought it) is $29.99.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122791173957865389.html

HONG KONG -- Chip makers are shutting down less-productive factories, delaying investment projects and even cutting staff in a sign that the global economic slowdown and the credit crunch are taking a hefty toll on demand and hurting their operations.

The coming few months could be critical for several memory-chip makers in Asia, Europe and the U.S. as they continue to grapple with weak demand and a severe cash crunch amid plunging chip prices, which remain well below their manufacturing costs.

The weak environment has already led to losses for major producers of dynamic random access memory and NAND flash-memory chips, hurting their ability to repay debt and invest in new production technology at a time when lowering manufacturing costs is critical. Some chip makers may be forced to seek government assistance, while others are trying to weather the downturn by strengthening alliances with peers.

Samsung Electronics Co., the world's biggest memory-chip maker, said Friday it plans to shut down two chip-production lines by the end of next year as part of efforts to cut costs. The chip maker said in October that it plans to trim its capital-spending budget for memory chips for the remainder of this year.

So? You've backed up your statement now, but you hadn't before. Is newegg the status quo on the entire computing market? Has anyone ever told you your interpreting skills suck?

 

[lingenfr]

So? You've backed up your statement now, but you hadn't before. Is newegg the status quo on the entire computing market? Has anyone ever told you your interpreting skills suck?

How about you guys take your pissing contest to PM. I was hoping this kind of crap would be left on the old board.

 

[kloplop321]

If/When 48 GB or 64 GB cards become available, will they work in the Pandora?

they usually come out in binary numbers, so I doubt that there will be a 48 GB card

But they should, if not, then there can and will be some update(as this is an open source machine after all)
Think about it, they are already making it have two slots, they had to do some edits to the drivers for the slots to handle two, I think they can go a step further in the case that 64 GB does not actually work the first time.

 

[valhalla]

If/When 48 GB or 64 GB cards become available, will they work in the Pandora?

they usually come out in binary numbers, so I doubt that there will be a 48 GB card

But they should, if not, then there can and will be some update(as this is an open source machine after all).

It's not sure: the SDHC standard only allows up to 32GB, and it seems the SDXC one can't be read with just a firmware update, but requires a change in the hardware.

The fact that it is technically feasible to do an SDHC-like card in sizes up to 2TB, and the existence of lots of devices with support for SDHC cards, but not SDXC ones, may or may not mean that we're going to see bigger cards that don't respect the standard, and pandora could recognise those.

 

[WizardStan]

It's not sure: the SDHC standard only allows up to 32GB, and it seems the SDXC one can't be read with just a firmware update, but requires a change in the hardware.

The 32GB limit is entirely arbitrary. SDHC can physically address 2TB. It's not at all unreasonable to believe that manufacturers will produce non-standard 64GB SDHC cards.
...
edit: Which is exactly what you said. Sorry, I'm tired, not paying attention.

 

[Gary13579]

@Anyone who wants lots of space for music... use your phone as a bluetooth modem, connect to it, stream music from your desktop. I stream music from my desktop to my phone, so I'll do the same for the majority of my MP3/video/ROM collection.

Music collection.

so are you saying you're going to listen to 64gb of music in one go?

Yeah, you guys do know that SD cards are, like, ... rewritable?

SD cards have a limited amounts of rewrites, FYI.

 

[ilovevideogames408]

What about SDHC cards. No point if there's a limited amount of rewrites...

 

[Gary13579]

What about SDHC cards. No point if there's a limited amount of rewrites...

All flash memory, USB sticks, microSD, SD, SDHC, microSDHC, miniSD, MS Pro, MS Pro Duo, SSD drives... they all have a limited to how many times each bit can be rewritten. After a bit has been changed so many times (100,000 IIRC) the bit dies.
Either the SD card will have less available space, or it'll stop working completely.

I managed to kill quite a few MS Pro Duo's in the PSP homebrew scene. I was doing far too many rewrites to it.

 

[Aethix]

I'm probably going to have one SD card for memory expansion and one SD card to bridge between my computer and Pandora. If I ever get desperate I suppose I can use a USB for the bridge.

As for 2 TB SDHC, I recently read an article about how it isn't so much the physical capacity of the card as it is the method of reading and writing. I'll have to see if I can find the article.

 

[valhalla]

@Anyone who wants lots of space for music... use your phone as a bluetooth modem, connect to it, stream music from your desktop. I stream music from my desktop to my phone, so I'll do the same for the majority of my MP3/video/ROM collection.

Were I live cellphone internet is too slow for streaming, and even with lots of caching it would go way above the contract caps. My entry level contract allows for 500MB/month, and all of the contracts I've seen give less than a cheap SD. So called "unlimited" contracts usually have a clause that allows for termination if you use it "too much", so that's not an option either. It would also drain the battery, and possibly require that you keep your desktop on, wasting electricity.

Beside, they used to speak wonders of a truck full of tapes, but do you have an idea of the sheer bandwidth of a truck full of SD cards?

 

[ilovevideogames408]

Well... Kinda ruins your day when you hear memory is not forever, it's limited. But I suppose the no. of rewrites is high

 

[lulzfish]

I think modern, consumer-quality flash memory is supposed to be around 1 M write cycles or so.
Some filesystems like FAT might wear that out a bit faster since every access writes to the file table, but they'll still last several years with regular use, and they should at least be readable until they break.

 

[Gary13579]

I think modern, consumer-quality flash memory is supposed to be around 1 M write cycles or so.
Some filesystems like FAT might wear that out a bit faster since every access writes to the file table, but they'll still last several years with regular use, and they should at least be readable until they break.

As I said, not true. If you're abusing the SD, it will die VERY fast.

For Pandora, if you've got a swap file on the SD card (NAND flash has the problem too, IIRC), it'll die in a matter of 2-3 months, a couple weeks under 24/7 use.

I managed to kill an MS Pro Duo (not a cheap knock off, a $200 Sony official card) in a matter of DAYS while working on a TV guide for the PSP. It downloaded TV data constantly, and made millions of writes to the card.