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Older Revision of Flash Memory Speed

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Flash Memory Speed

Flash memory cards--CompactFlash, Secure Digital Card, etc.--are getting faster and faster. Recently, 150x cards can be had for a mere $5 dollars. Few know exactly what 150x really mean. Sure everyone knows that the higher the number, the faster the card. And sure, 150x is three times faster than a 50x card. But exactly how fast can you save an image at 150x?

In reality 1x is equivalent to 0.15 MB/s, or 1.2 Mb/2. (Don't know the difference between MB and Mb? See Megabytes vs. Megabits.) The chart below shows the speed factors and their equivalent transfer rate.

Speed Chart

FactorTransfer Rate (MB/s)Transfer Rate (Mb/s)
1x
0.15
1.2
40x
6
48
50x
7.5
60
80x
12
96
100x
15
120
133x
19.95
159.6
150x
22.5
180
200x
30
240

Practical Use

What can you do with this knowledge? Well, you can determine how long it will take your digital camera to save a photograph onto a particular card.

For example, a raw image shot with the Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX1 takes up 16.1 MB of space. Using the chart above, you will see that it will take just over 1 second to save this photograph on a 100x card.

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