Rant-O-Matic: Flash Ca$h

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The article first appeared in Tom's Hard News Email Newsletter

With all of the devices that have been released that support some type of flash memory, making money on the sales of flash memory has been a piece of cake. For the most part, prices have been fairly stable, and with all of the new companies that have entered the flash memory market, it seems that anyone who has any brand name is now selling flash memory. In the past several months, we have seen companies such as Philips, Verbatim and Memorex jump into the flash arena. This isn't much of a surprise, since these companies are data storage providers, and marketing flash memory through their established distribution channels is basically a "no brainer." Even companies that are known mostly for camera or film technology are getting into the act and selling flash media with their name branded on it.

It is currently very easy to get into the flash memory business. All you have to do is go to Taiwan and contract with someone who is already building flash memory cards. For a significant preordered quantity of flash modules, these manufacturers will be thrilled to put your brand name on them. The differences among many of the flash cards is nothing more than the sticker put on the module itself. However, if you look "under the hood," quality can be a serious concern.

As an example, here are five different Compact Flash cards from five different companies. Upon close inspection, you can see little difference among all of them. The main difference is the sticker with the company logo on the outside of the cards. Some of these Cards are made in Japan and others in Taiwan. Further, some of them are manufactured on identical production lines, but simply have different brand labels. (Compact Flash modules from Kingston, Kodak, Micron, Lexar, and the generic DigiFilm)

All of the formats are in some type of sealed system, so the consumer really can't know what he is buying. We don't mean to minimize the fact that flash storage has many advantages over other existing technology that serves the same purpose. Flash storage is high speed, low voltage, durable, and non-volatile. When you couple this with its cost effective price, many other products can't hold a candle to its advantages. What gripes us is that there are so many different formats of flash memory. Currently, there is Compact Flash (CF), Smart Media (SM), Multimedia Card (MMC), Secure Digital (SD), and, of course, we can't leave out Sony's Memory Stick. We will not even get into some of the other storage options, such as IBM Microdrive, PC Card Flash, and U-Disk.

We realize that different devices need different form factors, and we are not suggesting otherwise. We just feel like we are on "flash memory overload." For example, even if you buy devices that use the same flash memory format, there is no guarantee that you will be able to reformat the flash card to work in both devices. There should be compatibility, as flash modules are supposed to follow the agreed upon manufacturing compatibility standards. However, in some cases, the manufacturing standards are "loose," and firmware issues with your device can lead to further problems. Although compatibility problems like this are not as common as they used to be, these pitfalls still exist.