14 DAY TRIAL // Lexar yesterday announced a new 8GB compact flash card, which is touted as being capable of a minimum sustained write speed of 45MB/s.
The memory card producer has successfully implemented the UDMA (Ultra Direct Memory Access) specifications into their CF cards, resulting in the 300x performance. But don't get your hopes too high, you won't see any significant improvements when shooting continuously, after all, current DSLRs are not UDMA "savvy".
The major improvement is when pairing the Professional UDMA 300x CompactFlash with a UDMA-enabled device, such as Lexar's new Professional FireWire 800 Reader. The press release says that "the new Lexar Professional UDMA cards deliver a 125% performance improvement over Lexar's previous generation 133x CompactFlash product line when the card is used with a UDMA-enabled device."
Lexar Professional 300x speed-rated flash memory cards will be available in April.
As mentioned before, Lexar also introduced two new professional-grade flash memory card readers, namely the FireWire 800 version of the stackable card reader and the newly designed dual-slot USB 2.0 reader for UDMA cards and secure digital high capacity (SDHC) cards.
The Professional UDMA FireWire 800 Reader is compatible with all CompactFlash (Type I and Type II), MicroDrives, and UDMA-enabled CompactFlash cards, including the 300x speed-rated family. It ships with one 1-meter and one 18-centimeter FireWire 800 cables. The 18-cm cable is convenient when two or more readers are daisy-chained or when the reader is used with a laptop. The reader is also compatible with FireWire 400 devices when used with an optional FireWire 800-to-400 cable (sold separately).
Lexar's new high-performance Professional Dual-Slot Reader is USB 2.0-enabled and fully compatible with SD, SDHC, CompactFlash and UDMA-enabled CompactFlash memory cards.
The Professional UDMA FireWire 800 Reader will be available in April for the suggested retail price of $79.99, while the Professional Dual-Slot USB Reader will be available in June for the suggested retail price of $49.99.
