Two 16-gigs Or One 32-gig?

[Raz]

If I were to buy 32 Gigs worth of SDHC cards, would two 16-gig cards be better or one 32-gig?

 

[GuSec]

Two 16GB are better than one 32GB. Reason? Speed and price. 2x16GB is way cheaper than 32GB.

 

[Fishbong]

Speed? Are 16GB SDHC cards faster than 32GB ones?

 

[Raz]

Thnx, you just saved me $18 and I get a card two classes higher

Speed? Are 16GB SDHC cards faster than 32GB ones?

To my knowledge, cards with lower memory tend to be faster. I always thought of this because cards with more memory get more fragmented, but I could be wrong.. Hence this topic

 

[lulzfish]

Unless you need to store really huge files, 2 16s is probably better:

1. Speed. Having two 16GBs is like having a 32GB with twice the speed
2. Redundancy. If you're going to lose an SD card, you'll at least have another one
3. Cost. Since the chips are spread over 2 cards, they're cheaper to make

 

[borgqueenx]

im curious guys, does the pandora see's the two sd cards as one? or 2?

 

[Raz]

Here's the card I got my eyes on:

A-DATA SDHC, 16 GB, Class 6

im curious guys, does the pandora see's the two sd cards as one? or 2?

Should be two. They are separate physical volumes and it would just get messy if it recognized it as one. It's like having two hard drives in your PC

 

[fischju2000]

I would check the newegg page every day and wait for a good sale or mail in rebate. You still have 2 months before the Pandora ships (speculative!)

 

[Raz]

But of course....

I'm still looking for a better deal, but $54 for two cards seem ok.. They may have something cheaper in a few months

 

[Username]

That sounds like a good deal.

 

[lulzfish]

im curious guys, does the pandora see's the two sd cards as one? or 2?

They're definitely 2 separate SD cards. Combining them in software would be too much trouble, and would make it difficult to put files specificaly on one card or the other.

 

[Awakening]

Unless you need to store really huge files, 2 16s is probably better:

1. Speed. Having two 16GBs is like having a 32GB with twice the speed
2. Redundancy. If you're going to lose an SD card, you'll at least have another one
3. Cost. Since the chips are spread over 2 cards, they're cheaper to make

1. I doubt that 2x16 is 2 times the speed of 1x32. But smaller cards generally are faster, even at the same class rating.

3. Since 32GB are new and most people don't need them there is a higher price. As bigger cards becomes available and smaller ones are discontinued the market shifts and prices drop.

 

[sdedalus83]

32GB cards have dropped in price by about 50% since New Year's. Wait until they're shipping the Pandora to buy your flash cards. 64GB cards should be available by then, and the novelty tax will shift to those from the 32GB ones. With the price dropping anyway, that should push the cost:capacity ratio for 32GB SD well below that of 16GB.

In short, my answer is wait a couple of months and get 2 32GB cards when they're $40 each.

 

[lulzfish]

Unless you need to store really huge files, 2 16s is probably better:

1. Speed. Having two 16GBs is like having a 32GB with twice the speed
2. Redundancy. If you're going to lose an SD card, you'll at least have another one
3. Cost. Since the chips are spread over 2 cards, they're cheaper to make

1. I doubt that 2x16 is 2 times the speed of 1x32. But smaller cards generally are faster, even at the same class rating.

3. Since 32GB are new and most people don't need them there is a higher price. As bigger cards becomes available and smaller ones are discontinued the market shifts and prices drop.


Right, I meant you get up to a 2x speed increase, if you're accessing both cards.
But at worst, it's just as fast as a 32GB card with the same access speed.

 

[Raz]

32GB cards have dropped in price by about 50% since New Years. Wait until theyre shipping the Pandora to buy your flash cards. 64GB cards should be available by then, and the novelty tax will shift to those from the 32GB ones. With the price dropping anyway, that should push the cost:capacity ratio for 32GB SD well below that of 16GB.

In short, my answer is wait a couple of months and get 2 32GB cards when theyre $40 each.

Do you mean the price at which the company itself is going to sell it at? Because even cheaper than that on the web, and I'm all set with 64 GB.... Music, Videos, Documents, PSX ISOs, ROMs, Unnecessary Stuff, etc

That sounds like a good deal.

I think that's around one-third of the original price, not sure..
But you'd be surprised..

 

[fischju2000]

I wouldn't pay $27 for a 16GB - a couple of weeks ago, Newegg has 16GB Patriots for $17

 

[TrevorBradley]

im curious guys, does the pandora see's the two sd cards as one? or 2?

They're definitely 2 separate SD cards. Combining them in software would be too much trouble, and would make it difficult to put files specificaly on one card or the other.


In theory, software RAID-0, with striped SD cards would be possible. You might even see a (tiny) performance increase. But it would also be a Bad Idea ™, as the cards would be nigh-impossible to read elsewhere.

It would probably be WAY easier/better/saner to create some sort of script would symlink all the directories on on SD card into another directory on the other SD card (like all folders from SD card 2 appear in the "games" folder of SD card 1). Or just live with the 2 SD cards as is...

Honestly, unless you can actually think of more than 16GB of data you'd want to install on day 1, I'd just go with a single smaller card and upgrade as needed.

 

[Butterman]

CODE
http://www.play.com/Electronics/Electronics/4-/3583118/Play-com-16GB-SDHC-Memory-Card/Product.html



£18 from £39, apparently they're Class 4, not too sure about the brand, I'm considering picking up two right now.

 

[Prometheus]

I have one of those very 16GB cards, I picked it up a month or two ago since the price hasn't changed from £17.99 since around September or so. It still hasn't, so I doubt there's any risk of it dropping before the Pandora ships. :lol:

Almost all of my cards are Play.com's own-brand - never had any problems. (

 

[Lorkile]

I bought a 16GB card and doubt I will need more capacity anytime soon. After having to live with 4GB on my PSP for so long, and only 40GB on my laptop, I think 16GB on a portable will do very well. Especially when I figure in that I can offload excess games onto an external hard drive when I'm focusing on something else.