Topic: Is CF dead?

[BillB]

I have a camera and a PDA (vintages 2002-2004) that both take compact flash memory. I have a handful of 256 MB and 512 MB memory cards (all pre-2007) and have yet to feel squeezed for capacity.

I know flash memory has a finite number of cycles and these cards are so old they aren't optimized to spread the usage over the entire capacity so they will probably become unusable in one area before I've truly worn out the entire card.* That will only be an issue on the PDA since I only write to the camera card when I take a picture and I tend to fill it up (to at least 75%).

Should I invest in another memory card now or will I never buy another CF device?

If all new devices are moving to SD - in all its iterations - I won't need more CF memory. On the other hand, I'm afraid I'll get stuck in the "VHS syndrome" -- I won't be able to get readers or media and will be have a camera I can't take more pictures or download from.

* See next post at http://pc3.org/smfpc3/index.php?topic=103.0

[dewey]

According to this article (more than you may want to know about CF) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CompactFlash and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wear_levelling the wear-leveling is built into all CF devices.

You might search this forum: http://www.pdastreet.com/forums/. I found a number of articles on partitioning CFM for different PDA's.

I doubt CF is going to go away anytime soon.  Just be careful if buying a new CF card as many older devices cannot deal with the larger sizes due to formatting/speed limitations.  I ran into this with a 4Gb SD card I was given.  My 2 yr old Canon can't read it as it is SDHC.

Dewey