Huge storage capacities and high data transfer speeds

Aug 22, 2007 13:46 GMT  ·  By

SDHC (or Secure Digital High Capacity) memory cards are becoming increasingly popular among consumers, especially due to the fact that they provide very large storage capacities, as well as fast access and read/write speeds. And one of the latest announcements regarding this particular area of the storage products market comes from Toshiba, who has just announced the release of three new SDHC models, namely 32 and 16 GB versions in SDHC format and an 8 GB version in microSDHC.

As some of you might know, the SDHC format uses the FAT32 file system, which means that these cards can achieve higher storage capacities than those using FAT16. SDHC cards have the same form factor as SD, but the SD 2.0 standard in SDHC uses a different memory addressing method (sector addressing vs byte addressing), which means that they can reach a maximum theoretical capacity of around 2048 GB.

Another interesting feature of all compatible SDHC devices is that they support both the SD and SDHC formats. Unfortunately, this doesn't apply to SD-only devices, which don't provide support for SDHC.

All the three new models released by Toshiba are Class 4 devices, which means that they can attain maximum data transfer rates of up to 4 Mb/s. Moreover, they're far from being very bulky, as they measure around 32 mm x 24 mm x 2.1 mm, at a weight of around 2 grams (the SDHC versions) or 15 mm x 11 mm x 1 mm, at a weight of around 0.4 grams (the microSDHC version).

The 16 GB version of Toshiba's SDHC card will be released in October and will retail for around $350. Moreover, the 32 GB monster (as well as the 8 GB microSDHC) will hit the shelves in January, for around 700 grand, which is quite a high price to pay for a memory card, especially one that will work with only a limited number of devices.

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