The Gigabyte has become the new Megabyte

Just when you think you’ve finally gotten your head around the fact that you can fit 16GB of data on a memory card no bigger than your fingernail (MicroSD), along comes the next-generation of memory cards, SDXC, which proclaim a whopping 2TB on the same form factor!

The website referenced above suggests that a 2 TB SDXC memory card could store around 480 hours of HD recordings, or 136,000 photos. However, looking backwards to previous technologies and storage terms, 2 Terabytes is the equivalent of two thousand Gigabytes, or 2 million Megabytes, and would be roughly equivalent to 1,388,888 floppy discs (of the 3.5″ high density variety from the nineties which had a capacity of 1.44MB).

Oh the times they are a’ changing…

MicroSD Price Comparison

I recently purchased a 2GB MicroSD memory card for my mobile phone and discovered a surprising variation in the prices, especially when it came to the shipping charges from the Irish-based sites. It beats me why they have to charge so much for a device that is about the same size as your smallest finger nail.

In any case the cheapest offering was from 7 Day Shop and the card duly arrived within the time promised with no hidden charges appearing on my credit card statement.

Supplier Make Unit Price Shipping Total
7 Day Shop (UK)* SANdisk €26.45 €5.80 €32.25
Mobile Fun (UK)* SANdisk €32.27 €3.68 €35.95
SVP UK* Integral €34.87 €7.68 €42.55
Cruicial Crucial €36.41 €7.00 €43.41
Expansys (Ireland) SANdisk €32.95 €13.95 €46.90
Komplett (Ireland) Corsair
TwinMOS
Crucial
€40.00
€34.50
€44.00
€12.00
€12.00
€12.00
€52.00
€46.50
€56.00

* Some sites only quoted prices in GBP and I have converted these based on a rate of €0.68c.

All prices quoted are inclusive of relevant VAT.