SanDisk jumps the speed bump with 30 MB/s SD cards
Digital cameras need fast memory cards, we all know that. Saving photos or video to a memory card is one of the most taxing things you can do and current SD card technology can have a hard time keeping up with that action. We’re seeing SD cards become more important on the netbook front too with low capacity SSD drives. Adding a high capacity SD card is one of the easiest ways you can add more storage to one of these little beasts. As in all things computing related the faster the better for these tasks too.
SanDisk is helping us out in this area with the introduction of their new Extreme III 30 MB/s Edition SD card line. These new SDs clock a super-fast transfer rate of 30 MB/s which will handle anything you throw at it. The new cards are available in 4, 8 and 16 GB capacities so they have you covered for just about any use. The new Extreme III SDHC 30MB/s Edition cards will be available in September and carry a MSRP of $64.99, $109.99 and $179.99 for the different capacities.
Are these cards suitable for use as a ReadyBoost drive? Lots of people have SD drives that they never use, and this could be a good way to put them to use on a mobile computer without something sticking out of a USB drive.
As card technology progresses manufacturers need to keep pace and upgrade their internal card readers accordingly. Most internal SD slots only support 4-6 MB/s max regardless of the card’s capability.