Tuesday, December 28, 2010

SD Memory Cards

In the last couple of years I have used a USB flash drive like this:

as my primary computer data storage and I've used the hard drive on my laptop and office computer as data back-up and the location for the operating system and applications. This means that I can easily transport all my data from office to home and back without having to copy heaps of files back and forth and remember which ones I've updated and without having a hard drive dangling off my laptop. The applications etc. are the same in both locations and all the data goes with me. The Lexar 16GB hard-drive pictured is fast and almost indestructible. But I'm rapidly running out of space and they don't make a 32GB model. I can't find another small, fast, and robust drive with a 32GB capacity. So I'm thinking of using something like this in future instead:

It's an SD card more commonly used in cameras etc. MacBooks and iMacs both have SD card slots and according to Apple there should be no problems even in installing the operating system on such a card. For computers without a slot card readers can be bought very cheaply.

So are there any drawbacks to this idea?

2 comments:

  1. Potential issues are theft, accidental loss, and data corruption from removing before unmounting the device. But you've already been dealing with these, and on balance this sounds like a great idea. Nothing much should change moving from flash drives to SD cards -- in fact I think SD cards are faster. Very cool.

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  2. Since writing the post I tested a class 2 (probably) SD card from a digital camera vs. my Lexar flashdrive using the free XBench software. See next post.

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