Will SD be the standard?

[Iman74]

I was just wondering/noticing, that SD seems to be the most used memory of them all. They also make flash memory readers that look and function like thumbdrives that can read the SD card without the need of loading drivers (as long as you have Win2000 or newer). What do you guys think?

[Statica]

Personally, I feel that there's a fork in the flash memory technolgy sectore with 2 standards that I've seen a lot of:
CompactFlash: which seems to be favored by mfgers for devices that have a single function, for example digital cameras. CF is now used in almost all the pro and prosumer that have a higher resolution. Like the Nikon D70 SLR's and the EOS Digital cameras use CF. Olympus which has remained faithful to the SmartMedia format now provides a slot for SmartMedia as well as CF (relenting without admitting they backed the wrong horse ;)). Also, immediate compatibility with IBM Microdrives is an added bonus.
SD/MMC: this seems to be the format of choice where there needs to be just storage space .. from code to images to audio to.. they seem to be favored by most mfgers of multifunctional devices like PDA's or cell fones etc.

And finally there's Sony still believing that they can shove their proprietary standard down people's throats.

As for readability, things have gotten a lot easier since Win2K. USB devices and drives are natively supported, most of them without the need for drivers.

[Hi Ho]

I have several SD devices. It does seem to be popular probably because the cards are very small, relativley cheap compared to others, and very versatile.

[Iman74]

The only thing I do not like about CF is that it needs pinouts to function properly. I have seen these very same type of pin outs on other devices, and they very easily can get bent, and once you do that straightening them out without breaking it off is quite difficult. With SD it's just metal contacts.

I would like to think that technology is pulling away from the days where a little pin needs to go into a small hole, and now we can do everything with two contacts touching each other.

[PMich]

I agree with Statica in that I think there will be a place for CF and SD since they serve different purposes. CF will win the capacity game (according to the CF association website 137GB is the theoretical max for CF) and SD will win the media size game. There are diverging applications where one will be advantageous over the other. I also think that microdrives are going to become more important in the near future giving developers a third option.