Product: SanDisk 4GB CompactFlash Card Price: US$999 Pros: Large capacity, compatible with even older cameras Cons: Expensive
Many digital camera users will be happy to know that a four-gigabyte CompactFlash card will be available from SanDisk in April.
The CompactFlash format is still the most widely used flash card format but is quickly being superseded by the Secure Digital card. Sony's Memory Stick format is also gaining acceptance because of the popularity of Sony digital cameras.
However, in terms of capacity and performance, CompactFlash still leads. SanDisk's 4GB CF card can store more than 2,000 high-resolution pictures, 1,000 digital songs or eight hours of MPEG 4 video. Its advanced design allows it to operate in cameras that use either the FAT16 or FAT32 file formats.
The File allocation table (FAT) is an area on storage media that contains information such as the location of files, their names and sizes. FAT16, the initial file allocation table used by a number of current and most older digital cameras, cannot use CompactFlash cards greater than 2GB.
FAT32 uses a 32-bit number to show where the pieces of a file are stored and circumvents the 2GB capacity limit.
