Memory cards: All your questions answered

By Randolph Ramsay on 27 February 2009

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Secure Digital (SD) / Secure Digital High Capacity (SDHC)
The postage stamp size Secure Digital (SD) card is the most popular type of memory card on the market. Its small size, large capacity and robust design has made it common in everything from cameras to MP3 players. Other advantages include relatively high speed data transfer, a mechanical write protect switch to protect data and built-in copyright protection technology.

Size 32 x 24 x 2.1mm
Capacity Available from 32MB to 2GB (SD), 4GB to 32GB (SDHC)
Typically found in Digital cameras, PDAs, mobile phones, camcorders, MP3 players, televisions, DVD recorders
Manufacturers Lexar, SanDisk, Kingston Technology, Verbatim (Pretec), Panasonic, Kingmax, Fujifilm

miniSD
miniSD cards use the same technology as SD cards, meaning users get all of the advantages of an SD but in a smaller package. These smaller SD cards are used in smaller devices such as mobile phones and MP3 players. minds cards are usually sold with an adaptor which allows you to use the card in a normal SD slot.

Size 21 x 20 x 1.4mm
Capacity Available from 32MB to 2GB
Typically found in Mobile phones that offer storage-intensive multimedia features
Manufacturers Lexar, SanDisk, Kingston Technology, Verbatim (Pretec), Kingmax

microSD (TransFlash)
An even smaller SD variant, the microSD format is currently most popular with mobile phone manufacturers due to its extremely small size. They're almost too small to comfortably hold and swap in and out of devices - be careful when you're handling these little units.

Size Approximately 15 x 115 x 1mm
Capacity Available from 16MB to 2GB
Typically found in Mobile phones that offer storage-intensive multimedia features
Manufacturers SanDisk, Kingmax.

SmartMedia
SmartMedia was once the dominant card format when it came to digital photography, but it has been superseded in the past few years by more recent formats like SD. Part of fall could be attributed to its low capacity -- SmartMedia peaked at 128MB in its heyday. While new devices mainly support other card formats, manufacturers are still making SmartMedia cards for use in older equipment.

Size 45 x 37 x 0.7mm
Capacity Available from 64MB to 128MB
Typically found in Older model digital cameras and PDAs
Manufacturers Lexar, SanDisk, Kingston Technology, Verbatim (Pretec), Kingmax, Fujifilm

xD-Picture Card
The xD-Picture Card is yet another proprietary memory card format, this time developed by Olympus and Fujifilm for use in their digital photography products. xD-Picture Cards have been designed to minimise power consumption and therefore save battery life.

Size 20 x 25 x 1.78mm
Capacity Available from 32MB to 2GB
Typically found in Digital cameras from Fujifilm and Olympus
Manufacturers Lexar, SanDisk, Olympus, Fujifilm

Topics: storage, xd, formats, mmc, duo, sd, pro, media, flash, memory, sdhc, cf, compactflash, memory stick

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