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Review: Transcend ADVERTISEMENT
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Transcend was kind enough to lend us a 64GB
Class 10 SDXC card for review. Like other SD cards with greater than 32GB of
capacity, this is a next generation SD card where the letters ‘XC’ stands for
“eXtended Capacity”. The SDXC format allows for capacities of up to 2TB, but
due to the current manufacturing limitations, SDXC cards are only commercially
available with capacities of up to 64GB at this time of writing.
The vast majority of modern digital cameras
use SD cards and with large number of professional level DSLR cameras now using
SD cards, speed is a very important factor, such as for sports and press
photographers, especially those who need to take many photos in rapid
succession. As this card has a Class 10 rating, this means that it must
sustain a minimum write speed of 10MB/s even in a fragmented state. So in this
review, we will focus our testing on write performance and throughput. These
include tests with a clean card and filled to capacity with random photos
removed to introduce free space fragmentation.
Transcend Company Information
Transcend is a well-known manufacturer of
memory products, including USB flash drives, flash memory cards, card readers,
computer RAM and a variety of consumer electronics goods.
The company was founded in 1988 with its
headquarters in Taipei, Taiwan and claim to be the first memory module
manufacturer in Taiwan and also the second in the world to receive ISO 9001
certification. Their products are marketed around the world, serving all the
major markets.
Further information on the Transcend
Company Profile can be found on
their website.
Retail packaging
The SDXC card was shipped to us in shrink-wrapped
retail packaging, as shown in the following images:
Front
Rear
Close-up of the section in English
What’s inside the packaging?
Actually, to our surprise, there is nothing
but the SDXC card inside, held in place by the rigid plastic packaging. No
storage case or card holder was included, so unless one plans keeping this
permanently stored in the camera, we recommend getting a SD case/holder to
protect the card.
The following technical specifications info
is printed on the inside of the packaging.
Below this is the warranty info and how to
activate it:
The following shows a close-up of the front
and back of the SD card:
The yellow tab on the left is a switch to
write-protect the card. On the bottom of the card, we see the CE certification
and what appears to be the serial # of the card.
Size Comparison
Most users of SD cards don’t give a second
thought about the storage density of the cards. As long as the card stores
their photos and performs to their expectations, that’s all they care about. It
is not until we started looking at this 64GB that we realise just how much
information is being crammed into this postage stamp size item. Remember when Blu-ray
was announced and hearing about how incredible it is to pack 50GB on a CD size
disc? Well…
Imagine that DVD+R was a 50GB BD+R DL
disc. Now it’s quite clear just how far storage technology has come along
since then. Even the 256GB SSD above looks huge in comparison, not to mention
4 times thicker than the SD card. If it was not for the high cost of NAND
flash, recordable optical media for data storage would be history.
Product Specifications
The following specifications are , based on
the packaging and the Transcend website:
- 64GB Capacity
- Class 10 write rating
- Supports exFAT file system
- Built-in Error Correcting Code (ECC)
- Supports Content Protection for
Recordable Media (CPRM) - Firmware upgradable
- Supports auto-standby, power-off and
sleep modes. - Mechanical write protect switch
- Up to 25MB/s throughput
- Dimensions (LxWxH): 32 x 24 x 2.1 (mm)
- Weight: 2g
- Operating Voltage: 2.7v ~ 3.6V
- Operating Temperature: -25°C (-13°F) to
85°C (185°F) - Durability: 10,000 insertion/removal
cycles - Fully compatible with Secure Digital 3.0
specifications - Limited Lifetime Warranty (Requires
registration <30 days of purchase)
Now let’s head to the next page where we
will look at our test PC and testing procedures…
