xD Picture Card - Portable Storage Devices
xD Picture Card is a flash memory storage device used in older generations of digital cameras. Fujifilm and Olympus introduced this memory card in 2002 for their digital camera range of products. Other camera manufacturers also used it. It can hold data in the range of 16 MB to 2 GB. xD Picture Card is now not used much because of the arrival of the secure digital (SD) cards which not only offer more space but even higher speeds. New cards are being manufactured but very few new devices launched from 2010 onwards supports this memory card type. During its peak, this card was widely accepted as it was superior to CompactFlash but with the advent of SD card and Sony's Memory Stick, it started losing ground to them. From 2002 -2006 xD Picture Card was the only memory card which could be used in Olympus and Fujifilm but now they have also largely transitioned into SD cards.
The major advantages of xD Picture Card is that it didn't contain flash translation layer and so, it was not affected by magnetic field. It supported better file system which had fast access to the NAND memory modules. The major disadvantage of this format is that they have limited data holding capacity of only 16 MB to 2 GB, which is very low when compared to today's standards. SD cards can easily handle up to 128 GB of data. Another limitation while using these cards is that the data transfer speed is very less compared to other models available now. They are only supported by older generation digital cameras and hence cannot be used in mobile phones. Also, the 2 GB version costs roughly three times that of SD card. Therefore, the xD Picture Card is not used much
SmartMedia is a memory card type standard owned by Toshiba. It can hold data in the range of 2-128 MB. It was launched in 1995 to compete with CompactFlash and MiniCard. 128MB SmartMedia Card was intended to be a successor of the floppy disk as this format could easily hold double the data at that time. 128MB SmartMedia Card was the top of the line model because 128 MB was the highest this format could hold. However, now that newer and better upgrades are available, the use of this card has reduced. Nevertheless, it is used in a number of applications that do not require very high memory space.
MultiMediaCard is flash based memory device launched in 1997 by Siemens AG and scandisk. It can hold data up to 32 GB. The 2 GB MultiMedia plus Card was mostly used in Smartphone's in 2000-2006 after which the secure digital type cards were adopted for use in various multimedia devices. The advantage of the 2GB MultiMedia Plus Card is that at the time of its launch it was quite smaller in size compared to its competitors and provided faster data transfer speed. During its initial years, all major mobiles and Smartphone's supported it. the latest gadgets require a better card though. Owing to this reason, it is not much in use although still functional.
The major advantages of xD Picture Card is that it didn't contain flash translation layer and so, it was not affected by magnetic field. It supported better file system which had fast access to the NAND memory modules. The major disadvantage of this format is that they have limited data holding capacity of only 16 MB to 2 GB, which is very low when compared to today's standards. SD cards can easily handle up to 128 GB of data. Another limitation while using these cards is that the data transfer speed is very less compared to other models available now. They are only supported by older generation digital cameras and hence cannot be used in mobile phones. Also, the 2 GB version costs roughly three times that of SD card. Therefore, the xD Picture Card is not used much
SmartMedia is a memory card type standard owned by Toshiba. It can hold data in the range of 2-128 MB. It was launched in 1995 to compete with CompactFlash and MiniCard. 128MB SmartMedia Card was intended to be a successor of the floppy disk as this format could easily hold double the data at that time. 128MB SmartMedia Card was the top of the line model because 128 MB was the highest this format could hold. However, now that newer and better upgrades are available, the use of this card has reduced. Nevertheless, it is used in a number of applications that do not require very high memory space.
MultiMediaCard is flash based memory device launched in 1997 by Siemens AG and scandisk. It can hold data up to 32 GB. The 2 GB MultiMedia plus Card was mostly used in Smartphone's in 2000-2006 after which the secure digital type cards were adopted for use in various multimedia devices. The advantage of the 2GB MultiMedia Plus Card is that at the time of its launch it was quite smaller in size compared to its competitors and provided faster data transfer speed. During its initial years, all major mobiles and Smartphone's supported it. the latest gadgets require a better card though. Owing to this reason, it is not much in use although still functional.
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