Plan For Memory?

[Mithrildor]

Is it a problem to have a class 2 Sandisk SDHC card on the Pandora? Or can I run games (emulated PSX games) without problems?

Else I have bought 2 8GB sandisks for nothing (I dont know anything about the classes)

 

[GuSec]

Is it a problem to have a class 2 Sandisk SDHC card on the Pandora? Or can I run games (emulated PSX games) without problems?

Else I have bought 2 8GB sandisks for nothing (I dont know anything about the classes)

No problem, regardless of card. It has been said before, and it can be said again, the class of the card doesn't mean much.

 

[lulzfish]

Is it a problem to have a class 2 Sandisk SDHC card on the Pandora? Or can I run games (emulated PSX games) without problems?

Else I have bought 2 8GB sandisks for nothing (I dont know anything about the classes)

It's still probably faster than the PSX's CD-ROM drive, the load times might be just a little bit longer than on a faster card.

 

[Chip]

It's still probably faster than the PSX's CD-ROM drive, the load times might be just a little bit longer than on a faster card.
The PSX had a 2X CD-ROM with a max read speed of 300KB/s. Even the crappy generic cards will beat that by quite a bit. It won't be an issue

 

[Kramy]

Class numbers don't say much except that anything below class 6 is probably trash; the classes refer to minimum transfer rates of 2, 4, and 6 MB/s, respectively.

Newegg is great, but also look out for OEM rebates and smaller sites like photo retailers; I got three 8 GB Sandisk extreme-IIIs (the older 20 MB/s r/w ones, but still cool) for $20 from Abe's of Maine after a $70 rebate from Sandisk. My prepaid Visa card arrived yesterday.

Correct. Even A-Data cards (not regarded as the best) are able to manage 10MB/sec writes, 20MB/sec reads. If it isn't Class 6, it's probably so poor quality that it won't last 10000 writes.

Class numbers don't say much except that anything below class 6 is probably trash; the classes refer to minimum transfer rates of 2, 4, and 6 MB/s, respectively.

Why would anything less than 6MB/s be bad? I really can't think of anything you would need 6MB/s for.

See above. More write speed usually means a better controller. Better controllers mean more IOPS, which is better for smaller files. SD cards also vary a lot in access latencies. Poor quality ones approach HDD latencies, while most quality cards are sub-1ms.

A-Data actually advertises many of their class 6 cards as "Capable of 10MB/sec writes" - and actually, I get about 10.5MB/sec to 11MB/sec on my 16GB A-Data card.

 

[arrrgh]

Class numbers don't say much except that anything below class 6 is probably trash; the classes refer to minimum transfer rates of 2, 4, and 6 MB/s, respectively.

Why would anything less than 6MB/s be bad? I really can't think of anything you would need 6MB/s for.

See above. More write speed usually means a better controller. Better controllers mean more IOPS, which is better for smaller files. SD cards also vary a lot in access latencies. Poor quality ones approach HDD latencies, while most quality cards are sub-1ms.

A-Data actually advertises many of their class 6 cards as "Capable of 10MB/sec writes" - and actually, I get about 10.5MB/sec to 11MB/sec on my 16GB A-Data card.

Who says there aren't Class 4 cards that have a read/write speed of more than 4MB/s? Check here:
CODE
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/sdhc-memory-card,2143-2.html

Apparently, the 32GB Class 4 Kingston gets 12.8-15.2 MB/s read speed and 7.9-11 MB/s write. The class rating is just the absolute minimum speed - it doesn't say much about the actual speed in actual use scenarios.

 

[jaycee900]

I've got 2 x 8 alu mem card holders off eBay £10, got 4x2gb cards and will get 12x4gb cards £10.49 for 2 pack play.com to hold my entire rom/ISO collection.

 

[Kramy]

Who says there aren't Class 4 cards that have a read/write speed of more than 4MB/s? Check here:
CODE
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/sdhc-memory-card,2143-2.html

Apparently, the 32GB Class 4 Kingston gets 12.8-15.2 MB/s read speed and 7.9-11 MB/s write. The class rating is just the absolute minimum speed - it doesn't say much about the actual speed in actual use scenarios.

Nobody. But I seriously have to question the quality of the card's controller, if the speeds are so varied.

I'd take a guaranteed 10-11MB/sec over a guaranteed 4+ MB/sec, especially when the faster one is cheaper as well.

 

[cbox]

Wow, it is like a sociology experiment putting a simple post on here :lol: Thanks, I have done a *little* business with newegg and have bought quite a few memory cards from eBay as well with no problems. I was thinking of the microSD to SDHC adapter as a way to get larger memory sizes and a cheaper upgrade path. Maybe it is a bad idea.

microSD cards aren't cheaper than SDHC, and currently microSD tops out at 16 gig cards. Don't know why anyone would pick a microSD over a true SDHC card, unless you have another device that uses microSD.

 

[lingenfr]

Don't know why anyone would pick a microSD over a true SDHC card, unless you have another device that uses microSD.

That would be one reason, the other might be the idea that there will be a 32GB microSD produced before there will be a 64GB SDHC produced. Maybe not but I don't know why this is such a hard concept to grasp. I haven't done the shopping, but at equivalent speed/quality, I expect that two 16GB micoSD and an adapter are cheaper than a 32GB SDHC.

 

[Awakening]

Don't know why anyone would pick a microSD over a true SDHC card, unless you have another device that uses microSD.

That would be one reason, the other might be the idea that there will be a 32GB microSD produced before there will be a 64GB SDHC produced. Maybe not but I don't know why this is such a hard concept to grasp. I haven't done the shopping, but at equivalent speed/quality, I expect that two 16GB micoSD and an adapter are cheaper than a 32GB SDHC.


But then wouldn't 2 16GB SDHC cards be cheaper? No mater how you look at it SDHC cards will give you more storage per $. The only advantage of microSD is when you have another device that uses them and you want to use the cards in both.

 

[Svartalf]

But then wouldn't 2 16GB SDHC cards be cheaper? No mater how you look at it SDHC cards will give you more storage per $. The only advantage of microSD is when you have another device that uses them and you want to use the cards in both.

They'll be cheaper, but if you're accessing both at the same time (Unlikely, but possible...) you will be burning twice as much juice as the 1 32Gb card- with the advantage that your access to the data may be faster. Since you do not have hardware assist, you will not gain doing RAID0 for speed because you have to have the Pandora request a chunk from one then the other.

Six of one, half dozen of another.

Correct. Even A-Data cards (not regarded as the best) are able to manage 10MB/sec writes, 20MB/sec reads. If it isn't Class 6, it's probably so poor quality that it won't last 10000 writes.

That would be an incorrect presumption. All of the devices have the same write endurances- it's all in what speed the flash actually is and the driving electronics these days. I wouldn't buy a Class 2 device (It's okay and I'd use it if someone handed me one, but I'd rather use Class 4/6 devices. There MAY be timing issues with the cheaper Class 6 devices on some pieces of hardware, though...

QUOTE

See above. More write speed usually means a better controller. Better controllers mean more IOPS, which is better for smaller files. SD cards also vary a lot in access latencies. Poor quality ones approach HDD latencies, while most quality cards are sub-1ms.



This would be the reason I would choose a Class 4 or 6 card. HDD latencies aren't bad, though. As Chip pointed out, the PSX had way worse throughput and latencies and we played all those games (and many of us still do... ) with that. I would rather NOT have them, but they're not as bad as you're making them out to be.

QUOTE

A-Data actually advertises many of their class 6 cards as "Capable of 10MB/sec writes" - and actually, I get about 10.5MB/sec to 11MB/sec on my 16GB A-Data card.



A-Data's one of the "better" el-cheapo vendors. I've got quite a few of their Flash based devices along with Patriot, San-Disk, Lexar, and others (Helps to have done embedded work in the Linux space in the past... ). A-Data's good. Patriot's good. Fair warning, though, some of the embedded devices have timing issues with the cards from A-Data and Patriot in Class 6 modes. They get odd read error problems on some classes of devices for some reason- and not all the parts in that pool do it.

 

[Awakening]

But then wouldn't 2 16GB SDHC cards be cheaper? No mater how you look at it SDHC cards will give you more storage per $. The only advantage of microSD is when you have another device that uses them and you want to use the cards in both.

They'll be cheaper, but if you're accessing both at the same time (Unlikely, but possible...) you will be burning twice as much juice as the 1 32Gb card- with the advantage that your access to the data may be faster. Since you do not have hardware assist, you will not gain doing RAID0 for speed because you have to have the Pandora request a chunk from one then the other.

Six of one, half dozen of another.


Look at the post I'm quoting, I'm comparing 2 16GB SDHC cards to 2 16GB microSD cards.

BTW, how com a guy from Dallas calls himself "Svartalf" (Black Elf in Swedish)?

 

[GuSec]

Always nice to see Swedes interested in the project.
Anyway, I would most probably buy two 16GB SDHC cards, if needed 32GB of internal storage and this was also my original thought. It will be cheaper - and faster - than one 32GB card. But because I own a 2,5" HDD (300GB) I do not really see the need of this so I will (probably) be fine with "only" one 16GB SDHC card. (Probably gonna pick up that A-Data card, seems extremely good for that price!)
I do not quite see why one would want to buy microSD though, when they seem to be more expensive and a bit slower than their big brothers?