When Size Really Matters: Smallest Flash Cards
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Test Setup
| Hardware | |
|---|---|
| Processor | Intel Pentium 4, 2.0 GHz256 kB L2 Cache (Willamette) |
| Motherboard | Intel 845EBTIntel 845E ChipsetBIOS BT84520A.86A.0024.P10 |
| Memory | 256 MB DDR/PC2100, CL2.0Micron/Crucial |
| Controller | i845E UltraDMA/100-Controller (ICH4)On-Board USB 2.0 (ICH4)On-Board FireWire |
| Graphics card | ATI Radeon SDRAM, 32 MB |
| Network | 3COM 905TX PCI 100 MBit |
| Operating system | Windows XP Professional 5.10.2600Service Pack 1 |
| Benchmarks & Measurements | |
| Performance measurements | c't h2benchw 3.6 |
| I/O performance | IOMeter 2003.05.10 |
| Drivers & Settings | |
| Graphics driver | 5.1.2001.0 (Windows XP Standard) |
| IDE driver | Intel INF Drivers 5.02.1003 |
| DirectX version | 9.0c |
| Resolution | 1024x768, 32 Bit, 85 Hz |
USB Card Reader
For installation, we tried out three different USB-based card readers. Although none of the available micro format card vendors publish performance figures to let them grab market share from faster flash products, all three devices proved to offer acceptable performance. In general, these micro formats fit into some kind of SD adapter, which then makes them readable to any device that can read SD cards. That's why we had no difficulties with our testing.
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Patrick Schmid was the editor-in-chief for Tom's Hardware from 2005 to 2006. He wrote numerous articles on a wide range of hardware topics, including storage, CPUs, and system builds.