1Gb Lexar SD card

[gripp]

I've just received a 1Gb Lexar SD card (made in USA) from eBuyer who misleadingly show a picture of the 1Gb 32x Lexar card on their site. I specifically wanted the faster card (32x) for obvious reasons, but I've now got a card which Pocket Mechanic calibrates at 0.8 Mb/sec whereas my 512Mb Kingston is 1.03 Mb/sec.

Having copied all the data from the 512Mb card over, the IGb card works "out of the box", but I'm annoyed about eBuyer's misleading advertising.

Does anyone know if a 32x card would be significantly faster - or even give problems (I'm worried that a slow card will cause more CoPilot lock-ups), and should I return it to eBuyer for a refund? The week before Christmas is the worst time to be sending things back and getting into disputes with e-traders!!
_________________
Nokia E65 & TT Nav6

[DavidW]

What you don't say is what Pocket PC and ROM version you tested with.

I've got a Lexar 32x 256MB SD card which is Made in the USA (I think Lexar are having cards made specifically for them these days, rather than rebadging other manufacturers). It benchmarks at around 0.8MBytes/second read speed in Pocket Mechanic 1.49 on my iPAQ hx4700 (ROM 1.00.09) - the same as my Panasonic made 512MB SD card. On limited testing, the Lexar 32x seems reliable.


I'm hoping to get a Lexar 32x 1GB SD card to test fairly soon - so I'll have an idea then how well it works. What I will say is that it's not speed that matters as much as reliable operation.

I recently had an Integral "High Speed" 1GB SD card on test. The write performance was amazing, the read performance rather disappointing. The killer, though, was that the card could be shut down by loading it heavily. Two concurrent operations would near certainly do this (such as reading two large files simultaneously in a card reader), but it could fail under large writes. The same card kept crashing TomTom Navigator 3 on the hx4700 - again, it appeared to have shut down.


Pocket PCs rarely get anywhere near the headline speeds of SD cards - I'm not convinced that faster hardware, such as USB 2.0 card readers on a modern PC do either.


I'm afraid the pictures on eBuyer tend to be for illustration only - they're fairly often wrong, especially for things like printer cartridges. Unless the description promised 32x or High Speed, you probably haven't got much of a case. eBuyer's RMA process is somewhat protracted (from previous experience of returning defective goods), and you probably won't get it sorted any time soon. If the card works, I'd be tempted to hold on to it.



David

[gripp]

David,

Many thanks for your detailed and most helpful reply.

I'm running with a Mitac 168, Windows version 2003, v4.20.0, build 14053). ROM version: 168WWER22.

I'll take your advice and stick with the Lexar 1Gb despite its lack of 32x capabilities. Although Pocket Mechanic rates it slower than the Kingston 512Mb, I have a perception that the synchronising of AvantGo is actually FASTER with the 1Gb card! My Sprite backup to the card took only 2min30secs.

I have loaded nearly all my many programs onto the SD card, even the DLLs that MemMaid could move, so the SD card is getting very heavily used.

I'll be most intererested to read about your findings with the Lexar 1Gb x32. It's always been my understanding that Lexar are a prime brand which I hope will mean that the card is above all reliable.

Silly thing is, I paid £52.98 for the 1Gb card this week and £50.42 for the 512Mb Kingston exactly one month ago!! At this rate we shall all be able to afford a library of 1Gb cards holding our complete music collection.

Thanks again for your advice.
Geoff
_________________
Nokia E65 & TT Nav6

[DavidW]

Benchmarks don't tell the whole story. When I benchmarked a few SD cards whilst testing the Integral 1GB, I found that Spb Benchmark tended to lead me towards different conclusions to Pocket Mechanic.

The performance 'in use' is probably influenced more by things such as the format the card is in (I tend to reformat mine FAT32 with 2KByte clusters, that being the best compromise for my storage card load) than the raw figures.


A reliable card is very important - and once you get one I'd hang on to it even if it's not necessarily the fastest card available. The fastest headline speed card I ever had in my possession was the hopelessly unreliable Integral 1GB.


It is true that some cards do perform better than others (you might like to compare the calculation speeds for various routes in your navigation software as a 'real life' benchmark relevant to you), but this isn't necessarily linked to the 'headline' speed - nor to the benchmarks.

Many brands do rebadge - Lexar used to. I had a 256MB Lexar SD card which was rebadged Toshiba (that one is now in my brother's digital camera - used, amongst other things, for his honeymoon pictures). People who purchased 256MB Lexar SD cards shortly after I bought that one got rebadged Sandisk. It does seem, though, that Lexar have now gone to own manufacture - or are contracting for a specific design to be made for them in the USA.



David

[Tim Buxton]

Just thought I'd look at my three Lexar branded SD cards, and an unknown brand 128Mb MMC. All speeds were taken using PM 1.49 Benchmark and the iPAQ, a 5555 ROM 1.10.10 ENG was soft reset before each test.

1GB 32X Lexar
Read 0.66Mb Write 0.08Mb

LEXAR MEDIA
SD1GB-100M
1204411
A040507B
MADE IN U.S.A.

512Mb Lexar (bought as 32X, but it doesn't say 32X on it)
Read 0.83Mb Write 0.07Mb

D000 BQ3CD001013
512MB MADE IN JAPAN

256Mb 32X Lexar
Read 0.81Mb Write 0.06Mb

D000 BK3KE 019666
256MB MADE IN JAPAN

128MB Unknown MMC
Read 0.57Mb Write 0.09Mb

Markings incomplete due to 'Void if removed' sticker over them.
Sticker says U261234 and AEC 0400395
Card says MC1G081C and 0408U2SH, with more markings under sticker.

Doesn't mean much to me, but might to someone else (David).
_________________
Tim

[DavidW]

The D000 cards you have (the 512MB and 256MB) are Panasonic, Tim - if I'm right, the codes will be portrait. The benchmark figures quoted are typical for Panasonic cards in a Pocket PC.

Toshiba cards have similar codes, but lack the D000 and the codes are landscape.


The 1GB "Made in USA" card is the type that I believe is Lexar's own manufacture - or made on behalf of Lexar. Your figures make it a touch slower than the Panasonic cards, but not too bad. If Lexar have stopped rebranding, and these cards prove reliable, they may well be a good option - not as expensive as Panasonic's own brand, and hopefully no gamble as to what you get in the packet. You can hardly hide that a Lexar packet has been opened - it takes considerable effort to get into one!


MMCs - they tend to be slow, as they don't have the high speed modes of operation that SD cards do. I have a 16MB Sandisk MMC in a Nokia 9110 somewhere - the memory card cost me something like 40 pounds!

Having said that, your MMC has put up a pretty respectable performance.



David

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