hpmoon

I just got off the phone with a Sony engineer after numerous layers of outsourced, uneducated responses after I first called Sony to inquire about their new black memory sticks. Naturally, the first few people I talked to at Sony did nothing more than surf around SonyStyle.com, telling me what they saw.

Here's what I found out from the engineering department (and this should really dispel a lot of misinformation out there), and we'll use a 512mb capacity for the example:

MSX-512
This is the classic Memory Stick Pro in white. They are being phased out and are not available at SonyStyle.com, therefore it's really hard to find out any information on them. Let's treat it as the base model for this purpose. Significantly (and Sony should be embarrassed for not knowing anything about these), it's what you'd typically find in a store today.

MSX-512S
This is the newer Memory Stick Pro in black. Although compatible with all devices that could use the classic, white base model, the black version can communicate in parallel at a higher speed. Sony has only introduced one or two digital cameras that are equipped with a parallel bus. Absolutely no Clies have the parallel bus.

MSX-512N
This is the clearly-labeled "High-Speed" Memory Stick Pro in red. Simply put, there is no product on the market at this time that can take advantage of the higher throughput.

Notably, then, this information doesn't jive quite right with the following graphic; I'm fairly confident that Sony simply screwed it up.

Attached Images

memorystick11big.gif (71.6 KB, 71 views)

CliePet

Minor correction: the original (white with light orange/peach) MS Pro sticks also have the parallel bus. It typically has slow write speeds (around serial speed), but the read speeds are very fast (ie. you will notice the difference if copying data from stick to PC)

The newer and more expensive sticks are distinguished by FASTER WRITE SPEEDs -- just like more expensive CF cards.

For CLIE owners, and CLIE uses, the speed differences are not important. The faster sticks are meant for movie cameras.

---
If replace your entire memory stick with new movies/music very often, you *may* see the speed advantage of the more expensive sticks (when copying from the PC to the stick).
NOTE: this is assuming you have a fast memory stick reader (eg: MSAC-US30 or the $20 MSAC-USM1) connected to a USB 2.0 connection. If using an older 'serial only' memory stick reader and/or USB 1.0 it will be much slower than the potential.

====
NOTE: the Magic Gate printed on these sticks is not supported on the CLIE either. It is different than the pure white Magic Gate (non-MS Pro) sticks, which is supported.

troydl

If the newer Memory Stick Pro in black has a parallel bus and the original (white with light orange/peach) MS Pro sticks have the parallel bus too and no clies have a parallel bus then shouldn't these sticks "not" work with the clie?

But my white MS and someone else's black MS works on our TH55??? does the TH55 have a parallel bus?

troydl

looking at the graphic i see they (the MS) support both serial AND parallel so i guess the Clie's use it in serial mode...

hpmoon

I wrote in my original post that Sony's attached graphic is inconsistent because I believe it is: although the graphic asserts that the original Memory Stick Pros have both parallel and serial buses, the senior engineer I spoke to today sounded quite clear on this, that only the -S and -N models add a parallel bus. At this point it's one's word versus another's.

Good point, though, about card readers; I forgot to mention the fact that the newer black sticks (and the high-speed ones, too) can be useful in parallel mode if the Memory Stick card reader has a parallel bus. I haven't researched whether there is any reader on the market with a parallel bus (and I doubt that it would be advertised that way regardless, as it's too technical for mass merchandising).

kp*

In other words, if you're just going to use the MS in the Clie, you might as well stick with the white ones? I'm glad you found all this out, as I was just price comparing various MS today.

Did the engineer say anything about why some people were having trouble putting large amounts of music on the black ones, (maybe specific to the TH)? And how does this explain the various speed readings that people have been comparing in the other MS threads? Is the margin of error for the benchmarks that large?

__________________
HeadsetChatter.com -- stage management | computers | geek life