Roundup: CompactFlash Cards For Professionals

Silicon Power Professional Compact Flash Card (32 GB)

Silicon Power and Transcend were the only memory vendors to provide a 32 GB CompactFlash card. Silicon Power actually offers five different CF card types, which mainly differ in speed: 45X, 80X, 120X, 200X, and 300X. We received the 32 GB Professional top model, which is rated at 300X or 45 MB/s speeds; it is also available at 16, 8, 4, and 2 GB capacities. The slower models seem to be older products, as they are not available at the highest capacities, but rather at lower capacities the further down you go into the slower versions.

Our 32 GB test sample provides ample capacity for all sorts of applications, but the performance doesn’t meet expectations. We measured write throughput of 29.5 to 35.3 MB/s; read performance was 40-44.1 MB/s, which is better. We didn’t find information on the type of flash memory used by Silicon Power, but looking at the poor I/O performance results we are fairly sure that it has to be MLC flash.

However, the device is certainly a good deal if you get it much cheaper than other products, or if you get this 32 GB device for the cost of other 16 GB CF cards, assuming performance is not your primary requirement.