Future Sdhc Prices?


quadomatic

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Storage seems to be an issue for a lot of ppl looking at Pandora. I personally don't think external drives would make much sense. While power might not be an issue, they sort of ruin the whole, ultra portable aspect that makes Pandora so appealing (at least for me). The standards SDHC is probably your best bet. Fast, cheap...and its supported by default, retaining the intended portability.

Right now newegg has 32GB SDHC cards for $130. However, these are PNY cards, and generally PNY cards cost loads more than normal.

I'm guessing that A-Data 32GB SDHC cards will sell for <$100 once they roll them out. For example, 32GB Compact Flash cards mostly sell for $130 to $150 on newegg. However, A-Data's card sells for $98.99.

What do you guys think?
 
quadomatic said:
What do you guys think?
I think you get what you pay for. Cards from third-tier redistributors (they don't actually manufacture the cards, they just slap their name on them) like A-Data, PQI, Ridata, etc. are a gamble. You might get lucky and get a decent card for cheap, or you might get a card that dies in a few days-weeks. If you can't afford a card from Sandisk or Panasonic, then at least spring for a Kingston or PNY card.

Card sizes will keep going up and prices will keep coming down, just as they always have.
 
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Unless I successfully manage to corner the NAND flash market, prices will probably drop dramatically. For instance, my 16 gigabyte card that I'm currently using with my (deteriorating) GP2X in anticipation of the Pandora cost $70. They used to cost around $400 IIRC.
 
I think solid state is becoming more practical. The proof has been obvious in the last few years for handhelds. Now with cheap 16G and a rapid price drop on 32GB, we'll see a typical Pandora with 64GB in no time, where the standard UMPC with 1.8" HDD would have only moved from 40GB to 80GB. The gap is quickly closing.

I'm more concerned about being mislead with read write speeds from SD card manufacturers.
 
icurafu said:
I think solid state is becoming more practical. The proof has been obvious in the last few years for handhelds. Now with cheap 16G and a rapid price drop on 32GB, we'll see a typical Pandora with 64GB in no time, where the standard UMPC with 1.8" HDD would have only moved from 40GB to 80GB. The gap is quickly closing.

I'm more concerned about being mislead with read write speeds from SD card manufacturers.

I thought the SDHC standard's maximum was defined as 32GB?

But, then again, some manufacturers manage to make SD cards with greater sizes than the standard initially allowed for. I don't imagine such cards will be cheap though.

If you think about it, the Pandora is quite a steal. If you look at the iPod Touch with a price point of $400 for a 32GB version, and a Pandora at $330, and likely <$100 for a 32GB SDHC card (with an additional SDHC slot if you so wish to use it, as well as USB for infinite possibilities), which do you think is the better deal?
 
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quadomatic said:
icurafu said:
I think solid state is becoming more practical. The proof has been obvious in the last few years for handhelds. Now with cheap 16G and a rapid price drop on 32GB, we'll see a typical Pandora with 64GB in no time, where the standard UMPC with 1.8" HDD would have only moved from 40GB to 80GB. The gap is quickly closing.

I'm more concerned about being mislead with read write speeds from SD card manufacturers.

I thought the SDHC standard's maximum was defined as 32GB?

But, then again, some manufacturers manage to make SD cards with greater sizes than the standard initially allowed for. I don't imagine such cards will be cheap though.

If you think about it, the Pandora is quite a steal. If you look at the iPod Touch with a price point of $400 for a 32GB version, and a Pandora at $330, and likely <$100 for a 32GB SDHC card (with an additional SDHC slot if you so wish to use it, as well as USB for infinite possibilities), which do you think is the better deal?


The pandora has two SDHC slots...2 * 32 = 64GB.
 
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daemonaholic said:
quadomatic said:
icurafu said:
I think solid state is becoming more practical. The proof has been obvious in the last few years for handhelds. Now with cheap 16G and a rapid price drop on 32GB, we'll see a typical Pandora with 64GB in no time, where the standard UMPC with 1.8" HDD would have only moved from 40GB to 80GB. The gap is quickly closing.

I'm more concerned about being mislead with read write speeds from SD card manufacturers.

I thought the SDHC standard's maximum was defined as 32GB?

But, then again, some manufacturers manage to make SD cards with greater sizes than the standard initially allowed for. I don't imagine such cards will be cheap though.

If you think about it, the Pandora is quite a steal. If you look at the iPod Touch with a price point of $400 for a 32GB version, and a Pandora at $330, and likely <$100 for a 32GB SDHC card (with an additional SDHC slot if you so wish to use it, as well as USB for infinite possibilities), which do you think is the better deal?


The pandora has two SDHC slots...2 * 32 = 64GB.


I assumed that by 64GB Pandora he meant that it would be a 64GB SDHC card. My bad.
 
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The SDHC standard supports something like 2TB. The reason its advertised as 64GB is that its all you can buy right now.

BTW... 16GB SDHC cards droped at least $19 USD on newegg in the last 4 to 5 months.
 
quadomatic said:
I assumed that by 64GB Pandora he meant that it would be a 64GB SDHC card. My bad.
You know what they say about assuming.
You're making an estimate based on prior information.
 
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greendots said:
The SDHC standard supports something like 2TB. The reason its advertised as 64GB is that its all you can buy right now.

BTW... 16GB SDHC cards droped at least $19 USD on newegg in the last 4 to 5 months.
It may support 2TB, but since the standard is set at 32GB, the only cards you'll see with higher capacities will be from companies like A-Data. And if you look up in this topic, you will see a very good post by chip concerning the reliability of SD cards from different companies.

EDIT:
WizardStan said:
quadomatic said:
I assumed that by 64GB Pandora he meant that it would be a 64GB SDHC card. My bad.
You know what they say about assuming.
You're making an estimate based on prior information.

LOL

-God Ginrai
 
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I dunno, A-Data cards got good reviews from Newegg users. TechPowerUp! did a review as well.

UPDATE: Hmm...looks like a lot of ones broke...thanks for the tip. I guess I would go with PNY or Kingston then. I have an A-Data SD card that's pretty old right now and is working fine though. Newegg has good RMA policy too.
 
Theres only a handfull of companies that make those chips. Companies like ADATA buy from them and make their products... Not so different from this project (only flash cards are much less complicated)
 
Chip said:
quadomatic said:
What do you guys think?
I think you get what you pay for. Cards from third-tier redistributors (they don't actually manufacture the cards, they just slap their name on them) like A-Data, PQI, Ridata, etc. are a gamble. You might get lucky and get a decent card for cheap, or you might get a card that dies in a few days-weeks. If you can't afford a card from Sandisk or Panasonic, then at least spring for a Kingston or PNY card.

Card sizes will keep going up and prices will keep coming down, just as they always have.


Please get your facts straight, PQI does in fact manufacture all of their products. Also card sizes are not going up, storage capacity is increasing.

SDHC prices seem to drop quarterly and storage capacity doubling every 3 quarters. Because the manufacturing process is so similar, the cost to make a 4GB SDHC card is not much higher for 16GB. So the price is inflated because people will pay more for higher capacity and brand recognition.
 
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Kings said:
Also card sizes are not going up, storage capacity is increasing.
That's just splitting hairs, you don't have to be a term nazi. :-||

-God Ginrai
 
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God Ginrai said:
It may support 2TB, but since the standard is set at 32GB,...
AFAIK the only reason for 32GB limit is used filesystem. It still using FAT16/32. If (in future) any 32+ GB SHHC card come, then nothing can't stop from using other modern FS like ext2, NTFS or so on, and exceed limit 32GB. Or you can make more partitions 32GB each. Just imagine, 1TB SDHC card!
 
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peca said:
God Ginrai said:
It may support 2TB, but since the standard is set at 32GB,...
AFAIK the only reason for 32GB limit is used filesystem. It still using FAT16/32. If (in future) any 32+ GB SHHC card come, then nothing can't stop from using other modern FS like ext2, NTFS or so on, and exceed limit 32GB. Or you can make more partitions 32GB each. Just imagine, 1TB SDHC card!


My Archos 500 is formatted to FAT32, Which has a 100GB hard drive, Pretty much all mp3/mp4, Portable media players and portable hard drives are formatted to FAT32. The 32GB limit on FAT32 was pretty much enforced by microsoft via windows xp to force people to use the NTFS filesystem on drives bigger than 32GB, Though there are plenty of ways around that.

Trooper
 
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Actually, the FAT32 limit is technically 2TB and FAT16 is 4GB. Windows was only capable of supporting up to 128GB on FAT32 at it's introduction in Windows 95 and 98 because the Scandisk utility included was 16-bit, so would only support up to 4.2 million sectors...to keep backwards compatibility, they never allowed FAT32 to exceed 128GB, despite later updating Scandisk for NTFS.
 
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