snap to viewCORRECTION : The RiData SDHC board is a Class 2 visiting card , not a Class 4 as we originally reported .
SDHC , or Secure Digital High Capacity , at long last lets South Dakota break the 2 GB barrier and contend with Compact Flash for electrical capacity . Only a handful of novel devices are compatible with SDHC , and there ’s really no support for legacy gear wheel . This means you ca n’t even put them into your data processor ’s SD posting one-armed bandit . You require a special reader which , most cards come with . As grim as that sounds , SDHC is a welcome step - up for people who have newer DSLR ’s like Nikon ’s D80 or video recording machine like Canon ’s gamy - def TX1 . I entered nine of them into my own personal laptop - and - television camera Battlemodo arena to determine compatibility and bare-ass blistering f number .
Capacity is crucial , but so is speed . That ’s where the SDHC Class organisation comes into frolic . Previously , customers were presented with calling card ranging from 66x to 150x , without any veridical guarantee of performance because there was no stock way of determining what 1x in reality was . Currently , there are three stratum : 2 , 4 and 6 , which relate directly to the lower limit write swiftness of the board : 2 MB / s , 4 MB / s and 6 Bachelor of Medicine / s. in conclusion , there ’s an official industry standard . Unfortunately , this system only define minimum speeds , which is skillful and all , but we ’re kinda more interested in maximal upper . The faster the write pep pill of board , the faster the shooting and transferee of image / videos off the card for editing .
The rival :
grade 4
Delkin eFilm Pro 4 GB C4 card they claim 150x fastness – $ 60
PNY 8 GB C4 calling card – $ 85
RiData Lightning Series 4 GB C4 card – $ 50
SanDisk Ultra II 4 GB C4 board with reader – $ 70
Class 6
ATP ProMax 4 GB C6 card with included lector – $ 75
Dane - Elec 133 Xs 4 GB C6 card – $ 35
Kingston 8 GB C6 card with optional 15 - in-1 reader – $ 100 and $ 15 severally
Lexar Professional 133x 4 GB C6 card with included proofreader – $ 100
Patriot 8 GB C6 card – $ 75
I skipped Class 2 , but as a cornerstone for comparison , I throw in an quondam beater Lexar 1 GB SD .
Even price turned out to be an unreliable measure of functioning when put through my testing gauntlet . My street damage searching found the Dane - Elec card to be the chinchy card of all , and it ’s a debauched Class 6 .
Benchmark examination :
I ran tests using each calling card in each of the four included SDHC reader both on a generic PC desktop and a MacBook . On the personal computer side , I created a 188 MiB brochure hold 20 Nikon Raw images and timed how long it took to publish the files to the card . On the MacBook , I used the benchmarking software XBench to see who had the firm writes . ( long is better , since we ’re let the cat out of the bag bandwidth , MB / s , here . you’re able to see how all Class 6 cards have 6 Mbit / s transferral speeding , but you’re able to also see how some have maximums in the adolescent . )
Real world examination :
at long last , I wanted to see what difference all of this actually signify in the existent reality , so I loaded each card into a Nikon D80 and tear 20 in the raw images while time it . The D80 can only shoot 6 raw images at full resolution before the buffer fill up up , therefore the fast card should allow for a libertine 7th image , and that ’s exactly what I found . The RiData card took over double as long as the fast card , the Lexar Pro . I was especially foiled to see that onetime 1 GB circuit card beat all but three of the newer hotter cards in real - world usage !
decision :
The clear winner in Class 4 is the SanDisk Ultra II , which managed to perform on par with the Class 6 offerings from Kingston and PNY . That should severalize you that , if you ’re choke SDHC , go Class 6 . The winner there is a close call with Lexar and ATP fighting for top spot . But when all is said and done , Lexar is King of Speed , and even though the Leontyne Price is a piffling high , the include store card reader is a better product . If you ’re strapped for cash , you might look at the ATP or better still , go with the Dane - Elec card . It has no reader , so you ’ll have to figure that out on your own , but it does have a sweet monetary value to performance ratio .
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