SD Media Performance Testing?

[Wimpy]

Hi,

I am just about to piece together my first PocketPC navigation system. The reviews, articles and forum topics here have been extremely helpful. During my research I have read that some SD media brands/manufactures are less reliable and potentially cause problems, especially with GPS software.

I will be basing my system on my old Axim X5 Basic, using a CF GPS and 256MB SD card. The card in question is branded Dane-Elec, but the back of the card reveals the following...

Toshiba
SD-M256
0313TA1866G
Made in Japan

From what I have read this is good, in that Toshiba media is considered reliable especially when originating from Japan. Yay! :-)

However, this card around 18 months to 1 year old, so I am guessing this is not a high speed card? Is there someway I can bench test my media to find out how quick it is (without using TT3 as I haven't purchased it yet) so I can decided if I should get a faster SD card. If I can benchmark it, what software do I need and what is an acceptable result?

Thanks in adavce.
_________________
Regards, Martin.

[DavidW]

The benchmark I tend to use is the one in Anton Tomov's Pocket Mechanic. Beware, though - you can only compare benchmarks with the same Pocket PC model and ROM version (also same SD driver version if there's been an SD driver update, as has happened for some iPAQ ROMs).


I think you'll find your old Toshiba card works just fine; I'm not aware of there being different generations of Toshiba cards, but there may be. The cards sold as 'high speed' tend to be either Panasonic or Toshiba cards - such a designation seems merely to guarantee that you'll get one of the better performing cards. I believe the wholesale prices of Panasonic and Toshiba cards are greater than other manufacturers, hence the desire on the part of the companies branding the cards to mark out their product that contains the more expensive cards as 'premium' in some way.

Panasonic cards tend to be a little faster at Toshiba at reading, and rather faster at writing - but it's the read performance that matters the most. For most navigation applications, I'd regard Panasonic and Toshiba as pretty much equal.



David

[Wimpy]

Hi DavidW,

I did wonder if you might reply, you have certainly contributed the most objective and factual information regarding SD media in these forums!

Glad to hear that generations of SD media are not something you are ware of. As such, I think I am happy with my rather lucky selection of SD media and will see how things go over the coming weeks. If I run into trouble I know what media I should look for as a replacement.

Thanks muchly!
_________________
Regards, Martin.

[DavidW]

I do try to reply when I have something useful to add. I've been enforcedly away from the forums for a few days, not least because I've had a lot of new computer kit to set up. I'm testing this new Dell Latitude D600 laptop catching up on the forums.

As an aside, if anyone is after an Intel Centrino based laptop I can recommend the D600 highly. It's an excellent performer in a very small package (it's not the most full featured of Dell's laptops, but it's about the smallest that isn't in the ultra-notebook category).



David

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