Why is the 256mb or 512mb CF Card better then the 1gb CF Card?

[aussie_nx70v]

Maybe someone can enlighten me......

I've read on several threads that they have been having problems when they use their 1gb card to play movies or play music. However when they use their 512mb or ideally their 256mb card they have no problems.

Does anyone know why that is? Does anyone know what im talking about?

Questions...questions....questions......

Is the driver not performing properly with 1gb cards? Does it need a shot of Viagra?

Im close to buying a 1gb card to play movies with. However, if there is a documented problem with these types of cards i will hold off.

[Sensei]

Originally posted by aussie_nx70v

Is the driver not performing properly with 1gb cards? Does it need a shot of Viagra?


LMAO! Viagra:D lol

anyways, what I heard is that if you get a large storage, there will be a lot of files, and accessing a file is a pain because of the latency for it to load. I am hoping you have used Clie Viewer. Even on my 128MB stick, it takes like 2 mins for all my pictures to load completely.

[Flash-57]

I just ordered a Viking 256M CF from ecost.com for $35 (after rebate). I'd have liked to get a 1G CF card, but they were all $250 or more. So, for me, the 256 is the best option for now.

[oneeyesquare]

I bought a Transcend 1gig card, the "30x" read/write model. I have no problems transferring files back and forth. Almost as fast on the Clie as transferring on the card reader. Speed seems fine to me. MP3's play fine and load into the player under masquerade quickly. I think speed is highly dependant on the card.
As for CLieViewer, the first program I bought was AcidImage. I might not live long enough for ClieViewer to load all my pics!!! :D

[Eddy]

Originally posted by Flash-57
I just ordered a Viking 256M CF from ecost.com for $35 (after rebate).

Wow, that sounds like a very good deal with your 256Mb CF! :o
If you were looking into the 1G, they have SanDisk1G for US$179.99 at amazon.com & free shipping. I got mine already, but still favors my 256M SanDisk. Because I can play HighQuality Movie clips on it whereas I can't on my 1G. Same Brand of CFs too.

Originally posted by Sensei
anyways, what I heard is that if you get a large storage, there will be a lot of files, and accessing a file is a pain because of the latency for it to load.

I agree that storage volume is the cause of files to load up slowly. But then (personally) only for the Movies files more or less, they have to be in Standard format inorder to play. All other applications & MP3 works fine and smoothly off the 1G Card. & since I like to keep my video clips which are very short in fact (biggest movie is 36MB/9min30 HighQuality), I am currently still using my 256MB card.

[Eddy]

I've noticed some minor differences between my 2 SanDisk CF cards.
They're both formatted FAT.
I load the same file into both of the CF (256 & 1G), but when I look into the properties of the cards, the Actual File Size on Disk between the two cards are different. Did anybody else notice this? Actually is this suppose to be correct? It seems that the same exact file is taking up more space in the 1G card where it's taking lesser amount of space in the 256MB CF, but they're in the same format. Is this the main reason why the very same file is not loading up correctly off the 1G, well... again this is back to the movie issue.

[Flash-57]

No. The problem is an old one, that dates back to the original DOS days.

The problem was how to store different files on one diskette, without overlapping them and losing track of where each file was. So, they divided up the diskette into a bunch of different clusters (32,000, if I recall). So, for a 360k diskette, each cluster would hold 10 bytes. Since each cluster could only hold data from one file, unused space in a cluster was wasted. A 297k file would take up 30 such clusters. This system is called the FAT.

Then, disks got bigger and bigger. But, most operating systems still could only understand 32,000 clusters, so cluster size and the accompanying waste grew larger.

So, for a 1 Gig disk, each cluster would be 31 Meg! That same 297k file would waste a whole 31M cluster.

Luckily, operating systems have evolved to accomodate larger numbers of cluster and differently sized clusters, but the problem of wasted space still exists.

On your 256 card, the cluster size is smaller than for the 1G card. Your file fits more efficiently into the smaller clusters on the 256 card and less space.

Hopefully, I haven't butchered the concept too much. Try this link for more information,

http://www.mozillaquest.com/aboutcomputers/FATData1.html

[Eddy]

thanks Flash-57, least you've solved my wonders about that one question in the back of my mind (Clearly stated too), so which brings us back to cluster size eh?. :D
So which brings FAT32 to my mind, but then again FAT32 is not yet supported by CF driver.