It’s time to expand my Fuze and probably get an 8GB Micro SDHC card. I know that writing data to the card will take a little longer, but playback and listing tracks/info won’t be affected, right? As I’m going to use it exclusively for the Fuze and not my mobile (where it might make more sense to get the fastest class), is there any real advantage of Class 6 over Class 4? What if I bought a 16GB card, would the size start to make a difference? Again, I know writing data would take longer, but would there be any noticeable difference when actually listening, listing or watching media?
I own a Class 4 8GB Micro SDHC card that I only use in my Fuze. I’ve never used a Class 6, so I’m not exactly sure what the difference in speed would be. You’d probably see a difference when you’re writing data to the card and when the Fuze is “Refreshing your media”. As for the playback and listing speeds, I don’t think you’d see a difference. My current card plays everything fine, I don’t notice a speed difference at all.
I mean, if I were to play the songs that are on the Fuze’s internal memory and compare that to songs that are on my card, I don’t see a difference in the speed (switching between songs, displaying artwork, or anything like that). So in short, I don’t think you’d be able to see a difference between a Class 4 and 6 card if you’re only worried about the playback speeds.
I use a class 4 card (8GB) and have no problems with music whatsoever. It plays perfectly. I don’t do pictures or video on that tiny screen so I can’t speak for those. Personally, I don’t think paying more for the class 6 is worth it if you’re just doing music. At least that’s the case for WMA and MP3. I don’t know if it’ll affect OGG or FLAC since support for those formats hasn’t been added yet.
That’s an interesting question about 16GB card, though. When I bought a 4GB (PRO Duo, not MicroSDHC) card for my Sony PSP (gaming/MP3/video device) I noticed it definitely seemed slower than the 2GB card I had used previously, despite them both being Sandisk cards of the same type, differing only in capacity. I hear the 8GB cards are even slower yet and not suitable for some purposes, though I’ve never felt a need to get one that big myself.
Of course, the PRO Duo and MicroSDHC cards are very different, and the Fuze and PSP have different operating systems so these experiences might not be comparable. In fact, I’ve noticed that my 8GB MicroSDHC card takes the same amount of time to load (30 minutes) as my older 2GB MicroSD card on my E280 did, even though it’s four times bigger. So the data I can contribute is kind of all over the place. Probably your question about the 16GB cards can’t be answered until they’ve been out for a while and people have had time to play with them.
Well, that’s my own input. Doubt it helps much but ya never know…
In general, you would only really notice a significant difference when transferring a lot of data. Like when you are first filling up the player.
Class 4 = 4MB/sec
Class 6 = 6MB/sec
Which means a 50% difference. Note, however that these are the guaranteed minimum transfer rates. A really good Class 4 card could have higher peak transfer rates than a crappy Class 6 card. But the Class 6 is guaranteed never to drop below 6MB/sec, while the Class 4 most likely will.
If you are looking for a 4GB or 8GB card, you might as well go Class 6 since the prices are so low. Newegg has some really good deals right now. I don’t know if the new 16GB cards will be available in Class 6 for a while or not. Even if they are, I’m sure they will be very expensive. 8GB Class 6 seems to be the sweet spot right now.
The price differential between a 8GB Class 4 and 6 in the UK is about 20% on some websites. A 16GB Class 4 is about 40% more than a Class 6 8GB. I’ll probably go for the Class 6 8GB as it looks worth the money.
PEAK seem to be one of the cheapest brands, but I know nothing about this company. I’m tempted to go for SanDisk to keep it in the family.
I never heard of the Peak brand. Have you seen the bulk pack Sandisk cards on UK websites? A bulk packaged Sandisk card might be close in price to some other brands. In the US, Sandisk brand micro SD cards seem to be priced much higher than other poular brands when sold in retail packages, but on Amazon the Sandisk cards sold as bulk packaged are much closer in price to other popular brands. I don’t understand why Sandisk is pricing its retail packaged micro SD cards so much higher than other brands(I assume they are, and it isn’t just retailers trying to make a much higher margin on Sandisk cards than on other brands). I guess some of the other brands may be selling cards well below cost now, although we don’t know what it costs others and what it costs Sandisk to make micro SD cards(Do retailers get any protection against falling prices? What incentive do they have to keep a reasonable inventory of cards in stores?)
I guess it takes something like an hour to completely fill an 8 gig class 2 card, while only around half an hour for a class 4 card, or around 20 minutes for a class 6 card. Most people won’t fill an 8 gig card from empty to completely full in one step that often. Even so, it seems like a good idea to avoid class 2 cards, but class 4 cards seem to be good enough if the class 6 cards aren’t available or are much more expensive.
I have a 4gb class 6 card. Full with full length DVD movies and podcasts on it. Almost full, about 400 mb left. Takes about 30 seconds to refresh when I put it in my player. It’s a SanDisk.
@dalaug234 wrote:
I have a 4gb class 6 card. Full with full length DVD movies and podcasts on it. Almost full, about 400 mb left. Takes about 30 seconds to refresh when I put it in my player. It’s a SanDisk.
How many files are on your card? I think it’s the number of files that will primarily affect the refresh time, versus the amount of data (bytes).
As of right now, I have 3 full length dvd’s (including the 2+hour first harry potter movie), and 22 audio podcasts, each up to 20 minutes long (most about 15 minutes long). My setting shows 1329 mb free on the card.
I just shut it off, took out the card, put the card in, turned it on. Took about 13 seconds to refresh the media.
As of right now, I have 3 full length dvd’s (including the 2+hour first harry potter movie), and 22 audio podcasts, each up to 20 minutes long (most about 15 minutes long). My setting shows 1329 mb free on the card.
I just shut it off, took out the card, put the card in, turned it on. Took about 13 seconds to refresh the media.
So, 25 files?
Try filling it with 1000 MP3s and see how long it takes to refresh.
@dalaug234 wrote:
I have a 4gb class 6 card. Full with full length DVD movies and podcasts on it. Almost full, about 400 mb left. Takes about 30 seconds to refresh when I put it in my player. It’s a SanDisk.
How many files are on your card? I think it’s the number of files that will primarily affect the refresh time, versus the amount of data (bytes).
It also affects the transfer time. Many small files take a lot longer to transfer than a few large files. This is where the Class 6 should help. Class 4’s are probably pretty good with transferring large files, but the Class 6 should be noticeably better when transferring a lot of smaller files, because this is when you are most likely to hit the minimum guaranteed rate.
As of right now, I have 3 full length dvd’s (including the 2+hour first harry potter movie), and 22 audio podcasts, each up to 20 minutes long (most about 15 minutes long). My setting shows 1329 mb free on the card.
I just shut it off, took out the card, put the card in, turned it on. Took about 13 seconds to refresh the media.
So, 25 files?
Try filling it with 1000 MP3s and see how long it takes to refresh.
So maybe it’s the type of files that could count for how long it would take to refresh. My podcasts are siimple audio ones, I’m sure it takes less time because it’s just audio podcasts not video. The DVD have been converted through the software anydvdconverter and are avi and then through SMC. I wonder about that because my coworker who has an ipod and is using anydvdconverter too, but putting them as MP4 for Ipod (there’s a special selection for that), seems to be able to get more movies on her ipod. She had 4gb left on the 8gb one, and has put 6 movies on there so far. I can get about 4 on there with my audio podcasts on the 4gb card and have less then 400mb (not enough for a movie).
My completely uneducated, probably soon to be corrected guess, is that the refresh time consists of the firmware reading some header from the file to determine its format, and then based on that information, reading tag information for display purposes. So refresh time would be mostly based on the number of files, with some very small fraction of that time that is variable based on each file’s format (what’s the byte offset to tag information “X”, etc.).
@promisedplanet wrote:
My completely uneducated, probably soon to be corrected guess, is that the refresh time consists of the firmware reading some header from the file to determine its format, and then based on that information, reading tag information for display purposes. So refresh time would be mostly based on the number of files, with some very small fraction of that time that is variable based on each file’s format (what’s the byte offset to tag information “X”, etc.).
Ding! We have a winner!
Tag info is read from each file, then written to the Fuze’s internal database. So lots of files = lots of read/write activity.
Try filling it with 1000 MP3s and see how long it takes to refresh.
So how long does your 1000 MP3’s take to refresh on your card?
Evidently I have an older card, it takes about 8 minutes.
Unfortunately at the time I had a Fuze, the firmware would re-read the entire card whenever contents of *internal* memory changed. Because I often would change the contents of internal memory (normally a quick operation) due to the way I use my player, I had to deal with this card re-read every time. It was a show stopper for me. I’ve heard that SanDisk plans to put out a firmware update to address this. I really liked my Fuze and may get a new one if this is fixed. I’ve also considered getting a faster microSDHC card.
