Compact Flash Memory

Kingston Features:

• About one third the size of a full PC card
• Plug and Play compatible
• 256mb Capacity
• 10 year data retention
• Average seek time: 10.8ms
• Endurance: 300,000 cycles per logical sector
• 5 year warranty

Transcend Features:

• About one third the size of a full PC card
• Plug and Play compatible
• 128mb Capacity
• Host Data Transfer Rate: 16.6 mb/sec
• Endurance: 1,000,000 Data/Program Cycles
• 5 year warranty

As you can see, the features between these two compact flash memory modules are very similar. Both the Kingston and Transcend offer a nice 5 year warranty and Plug and Play compatibility. The difference between Kingston’s Endurance and Transcend’s Endurance is unclear to me. It seems the two companies measure Endurance in different units, but I’m not exactly sure. I suppose we will find out if there is any real difference in our performance section… �

Kingston is also advertising their compact flash memory as being solid-state, meaning there are no moving parts that could allow for data corruption or mechanical failure. Kingston also advertises its use of ECC (Error Correction Code) Memory in their compact flash module.

Transcend has just recently released this new line of compact flash memory. This new line has 128mb, 256mb, 512mb, and 1gb modules available. This new line of compact flash memory is rated at 30X and has a built-in ATA interface! So this card should be able to work with almost any device on any platform out there!

All the specifications listed above are from Kingston’s and Transcend’s websites.