Types of Memory card for digital cameras

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Types of Memory card for digital cameras

March 15th, 2010

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There are quite a few different (and incompatible) memory cards used in digital cameras.

Compact Flash (CF) – The original memory card. 42mm x 36mm x 3mm. Somewhat larger than the others, but used on all high end DSLRs. Available in capacities up to 32GB.

Secure Digital (SD) – Very small – about 24mm x 32mm and 2mm thick. This is by far the most popular memory cards in the market. They have a built in write protect switch to prevent accidental erasure and certain encryption capabilities of little interest to digital camera owners. If it is more popular, that means more manufacturer for SD card and it helps to drive the price down so low to $10-15 / 2 GB SD card now. This format even used now for High end professional HD video cameras that record straight to digital such as Panasonic’s and Sony’s brand. There is new format of SDHC ( SD High Capacity ) for capacity 4 GB and up.

Multimedia (MMC) – Same size as SD but with less features and no encryption capability. There are some that can be used in some SD cameras but they aren’t 100% compatible with SD cards in all applications. MMC is no longer manufactured and if you have one of this camera using MMC, just throw it away if it’s broken.

Smart Media – Thinner than CF cards, but lacking an on-card memory controller. Despite the name, they’re pretty dumb! Same thing as MMC, not exist in the market anymore.

Memory Stick - Introduced by Sony and used only by Sony cameras and videos. Pretty lame huh ?

XD – Developed and used by Fuji, Olympus and Toshiba – even smaller than SD. 20mm x 25mm by 1.7mm thick. One of the smallest one in the market now.

Is there any real difference in performance? No, not really. The SD cards are the cheapest per megabyte and are available in higher capacity models than the other (of course that may change with time). CF card, most high end DSLRs use them. The smaller cards tend to be used in the smaller consumer digicams. There’s really no reason to pick a camera with one type over another unless you have multiple cameras or other devices (MP3 players for example) which also use memory cards – then it’s convenient if they can share cards.