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A Brief History of SD Card

A Brief History of SD Card

Nowadays, we can easily see SD Cards everywhere like phones, computers, games, cosoles and cameras. There, however, exist questions about what they are and where they originate.

 

SD cards have become common household items. You don't need to be a tech enthusiast to know about them anymore. Just about anyone who has bought a camera or mobile phone in the last 10 years will probably have  some experience with them.

 

They essentially do the same job as floppy disks did before them; store data. This modern alternative has several improvements over the old forms of memory storage. The main one is the amount of data they can hold. While it is possible to get an Secure Digital card which stores only as much data as a floppy disk, these days you're more likely to find the 2-8 GB variety.

That's the equivalent of around 8,000 floppy disks in something only a little larger than a stamp.

 

Standard SD cards had a capacity of up to 4 GB. Then came along SDHC (High Capacity) which could store up to 32 GB. The next iteration though will blow the other two out of the water with a capacity up to 2 TB, 1000 times as much as the original type.

 

All of these changes have come in just 10 years since Toshiba, Matsushita and SanDisk first began development on the format which superseded a similar format, the MMC. The main competition to SD cards is the Sony Memory Stick.

 

Interestingly, the SD logo was originally designed for another purpose altogether. Toshiba planed to enter the DVD format war with a Super Density Disc. This was abandoned and Secure Digital discs inherited the logo.

 

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David Tube has 1 articles online

So now you know a little more about the SD card. You might even feel moved to buy one. If you'd like to, Memory Card Zoo is the place to go... well it's one place to go but there are loads of others. It has to be said though that Memory Card Zoo's website is a bit more entertaining than most places that sell them.

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A Brief History of SD Card

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