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bought this to replace the hard drive in an ipod mini, works absolutely perfectly for my needs, i am very pleased with it.
The CompactFlash technology is not designed to support 'many' random writes, the way a hard disk is. Our 2 year old, $300 e-Machines PC did have one and so did our 'classic' 60GB PS3. In fact, I am planning to keep the card as an archive medium once it's full rather than reformat it and reuse it.- The card 'average' speed is mitigated by its low price. Past experience with a 4GB Microdrive that's almost full shows that the estimated figure is likely to be exceeded and I may be able to have as many as 5-6000 photos. Those who need more speed should seek CF cards rated 266x or 300x but be prepared to pay a lot more for the same amount of storage.Considering all of the above, my rating for this card is a 5-star.______________________________________________________Read below only if additional details are needed.General background on CF cards: ------------------------------ Since most camera support more than one standard, I thought it would be helpful to write a few words on the CF cards from the point of view of a camera user. When one's own computer/laptop lacks a CF interface, 'CF to.' adapters are available or the camera's own facilities can be used to transfer the data out. This should not be as big of a problem as it may seem because nearly all D-SLR cameras do allow transfers out through a USB cable.
- I like the large storage - thousands of photos - and I find the speed to be adequate for my needs. Brief evaluation: ---------------- The Kingston Elite Pro 16 GB 133x CompactFlash Memory Card CF/16GB-S2 offers a large amount of storage and, when used with an SLR camera that takes mostly single shots with occasional 3-frame bursts and rare 'continuous shooting', it appears to perform well. After the initial format, the camera indicated that it had room for approximately 3828 pictures at 10M/fine resolution. The card passed the following tests successfully: - 3-shots bursts - continuous shooting - single shots - erase individual and blocks of pictures - data transfer through a CF/Microdrive interface Interfaces: ---------- The CF standard, while popular with D-SLR camera users, is no longer preferred for other uses. For the sake of comparison, the 300x rated cards have a 45MB/s data transfer speed. On the same platform (the Sony A-100 D-SLR), the Kingston Elite Pro was consistently faster when compared to the Hitachi 4GB Microdrive. Full information is easy to find online. Not many computers and/or laptop come with a CF interface these days.
The relatively cheap cost 'per gigabyte' and the technology makes the CF cards well suited for D-SLR use but not recommended as replacement media for hard disks or any devices that require intense, random I/O. - I am not bothered by the limited number of erase/write cycles the CF cards support because I am not likely to perform lots of deletions. It should be noted that the card is designed to support the FAT32 file system. When in continuous mode, I did not notice a slow down after taking about 20 shots. The 3-shot bursts and the continuous shooting seem to be advancing at a 2-3 frames per second clip while shooting 'large' 10.4 megapixel photos.
The card data blocks tend to 'wear out' if they are written to many times and, eventually, the card's ability to store data reliably may decrease. In the past, I've used a 4GB Hitachi Microdrive and 2 of my kids are using the A-100 with 4GB and 8GB versions of the Kingston Elite CF when working on 'serious' projects. My discussing this card is going to be within the context of the A-100 camera using the card and a number of laptops, a PS3 console and one desktop on which the data would be transferred. To the extent that the CF technology advantages and disadvantages are understood and accepted - low cost per gigabyte, relatively slow speed, issues with numerous erase/write operations on the same block of data, the Elite can be rated as a good price/performance compromise.Briefly, the main features are (more detailed explanations follow below): - stores 4000-5000 pictures taken at 10M/fine JPEG - average speed for a CF card - relatively inexpensive - should not be reformatted and reused when full - may be incompatible with cameras that format their cards as FAT16 Evaluation and my rating: ------------------------ - I find the card to be the perfect storage medium for my Sony Alpha D-SLR camera. Moving the data out of the card appeared to be significantly faster than the Microdrive's both when directly plugged into a PS3 or desktop CF interface or when transferred out of the camera through s USB cable.
Again, when compared to the Hitachi Microdrive, scrolling on the camera was marginally faster and so was zooming. This presented no problems for my Sony Alpha. The card was quickly formatted as FAT32 by the camera and 15GB were available for storage. None of our three laptops Sony Vaio, Toshiba Satellite, Thinkpad T60 had a CF/Microdrive port.
My current camera would not be able to take advantage of a faster card. My understanding is that some D-SLRs will attempt to use FAT16 and may not be able to handle a 16GB card at all. My frame of reference: --------------------- I purchased this 16GB CF card for my Sony A-100 SLR camera. Performance: ----------- The 133x rating places this card somewhere in the middle as far a CF cards speeds is concerned, indicating 20MB/s.
Both the PS3 and the PC recognized the camera as a 15GB external drive. I was able to transfer data out to the PS3 and the eMachines home computer through the CF/Microdrive interface and to the other laptops by connecting the camera to the computers via a USB cable.
I bought the Kingston Elite Pro 16 GB 133x CF card for my Sony A200 DSLR camera. It is VERY easy to return product to Amazon. Using CF card reader does not make a difference.
But when I transfer pictures to my PCs via the USB cable, the computer does not recognize the card and you are prompted to format the card. I have returned this product and bought the Kingston Elite Pro 8GB 133x CF card. I formatted the card in the camera and the camera reads the full 16GB.
I called Kingston and was told that it is only supported by PCs less than a year old. If you proceed with formatting, you lose all pictures in the card and you only get 8GB. I have PCs with Win XP, Win Vista and Mac which are less than a year's old.
It works faultlessly. Even the return shipping are provided at no cost to you.
My partner noticed the same thing on his D3. I think my Sandisk Ultra II cards were much faster in this regard and they're supposedly slower. At a wedding I shot on saturday I really noticed the slow speed in playback on my Nikon D300. I bought three of these cards a couple weeks ago and have mixed feelings about them. I'll continue using them and maybe they'll break me of my chimping habit. The good news is it didn't affect my shooting and I didn't miss any shots as a result of the slow speed.
After that, cycling through the images was fine.
I chimp.a lot.and that's bad.I know.
So I gave it 3 stars.
The price was great for the storage but I found them quite slow.
But they're also only 4gb cards and that may have something to do with it although I think it's unlikely.
But it would take 3 to 5 seconds in some cases for an image to display which is annoying.
Even when the camera had been sitting and the buffer was clear it took a few seconds for the first image to load.
They're good, not great.
Ooh Ooh Ooh.
It has a large storage for today's DLSR cameras. You don't have to worry if you have enough room. With this card, you will have enough.
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