Question about SD Cards/Flash-based Memory

Hey guys, I'm running a Studio 15 laptop that comes with a 5400RPM 320Gb Western Digital drive. Anyways, I was just thinking...the card slot on my computer is mainly unused, and I have a spare SD cards lying around. If I put an SD card in and install small/frequently accessed programs on it, will I see a notable speed increase in these programs?

Thanks in advance.

 

Nope. The SD card will be slower in pretty much everything ( maybe not over a small portion of the random reads curve). You can try it though; maybe there are exceptions...

 

So the higher access times have no affect?

 

Lower access times? Like I said, the lower access times may have an effect over a small portion of the random reads curve, but in general the low throughput of the cards negate the benefits.

EDIT: Here is the CrystalDiskMark for a moderately fast HDD and SD card:

Toshiba MK8052GSX

Sequential Read : 51.705 MB/s
Sequential Write : 51.001 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 22.201 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 25.963 MB/s
Random Read 4KB : 0.297 MB/s
Random Write 4KB : 0.948 MB/s

Test Size : 100 MB

Transcend 2GB SD

Sequential Read : 7.534 MB/s
Sequential Write : 6.186 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 7.585 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 2.445 MB/s
Random Read 4KB : 4.035 MB/s
Random Write 4KB : 0.029 MB/s

Test Size : 100 MB

You can see how, in just about everything except for 4KB random reads, the SD is significantly slower than the HDD. Now this isn't the fastest SD card on the market, but all other SD cards (and flash memory for that matter) will more or less follow the same pattern. I suppose in some programs you might be able to feel a difference in load times, but it would be minimal.

 

Yeah, sorry, I meant to say better access times. Thanks for your help =)

 

Hi, this is Rob,
The short answer is yes, but I do not mean to put myself up as an authority on SD memory cards but, through a number of forum sites I am receiving a lot of email regarding problems with these cards. I hope this will make things a little clearer.
Firstly one must understand exactly how a memory card works. Your computer responds to a string code in the SD card. The card stores blocks of binary information in 'clusters'.
In the original SD format it stores 4096 clusters with up to 512 blocks, each block containing 512 bytes of information. This gave a card capacity of 4096 x 512 x 512 = 1 Gigabyte. These cards typically came pre-formatted to the FAT-16 file system with the MBR partition scheme. This meant that any computer or host type device would recognise them through a card reader
Now the rub comes....With the advent of high capacity cards the recognition string changes and the block capacity was increased from 512 bytes to 1024 and 2048 giving a capacity of 4096 x 512 x 2048 = 32 Gigabytes, and these cards can only be formatted to the FAT-32 file system.
For this reason an SD card reader (which in all probability your computer is fitted with) will not recognise the data stream from a SDHC card. The situation is being further complicated because there is now an XC (extended capacity) card on the market which has a capacity of 2 terabytes (2048 Gigabytes) but this is at present being limited to 64 gigabytes by the SD 2.0 documentation.

What all this means is.....you don't use a 5 ton crane to move a 10 ton rock.....doesn't happen. If you wish to use an SDHC card you must have an SDHC card reader and access your computer through one of the high speed USB ports. The reader will access the information so the computer can handle it.
The first thing you must do when you purchase your SDHC card and SDHC card reader is to format the card to the FAT32 file system otherwise you will not get the rated capacity out of the card. Also, under no circumstance do a defragmentation on the card. All the clusters are equally accessable so there is no need and you will only wear the card out quicker.....remember these cards have a finite life and the more you re-write them the sooner they will fail.

Sorry....I don't want to sound like a 'know-all' but I have been using these cards since they were released onto the market and, like you, I have had to learn through trial and error.
I am presently using 32gb and 16gb cards which achieve what you are thinking of doing and it's a good way of storing information as it's a great way of virus control.

Hope this is of use.....and potentially cuts back on my email traffic.......Rob... and greetings from Aussie land.