Transcend Develops SD Card with CD-ROM-Like Partition

[exfileme]

Transcend will store your data on an SD or microSD card using a CDROM-style partition, permanently locking data to the entire card or just a portion.

Transcend Develops SD Card with CD-ROM-Like Partition : Read more

 

[dgingeri]

This sounds great for console games.

 

[fandroid]

"There's also no way to write new data to the "locked" portion of the cards."

Hackers of the world respond "Challenge... wait for it.... accepted!"

 

[southernshark]

Great console games can go back to the cartridge. I actually cartridges a lot better than disks. Cartridges are a lot harder to break. This is a good thing. And it is about freaking time!!!

Its time for the spinning disk to die!!!

 

[maximus81]

They will never move away from disks and go to SD cards for games. Costs to much.

 

[Guest]

[citation][nom]fandroid[/nom]"There's also no way to write new data to the "locked" portion of the cards."Hackers of the world respond "Challenge... wait for it.... accepted!"[/citation]

My Motorola Droid Bionic is set up in this fashion. It has a cd-rom partition in its memory that contains the installation files for the moto helper software / driver.

I think this is the best implementation of such a thing. A device that contains its own driver ready for installation to get it up and running, and the alternative being like we have always done, search the net for the latest version. So its one of those things, its convenient for some, pointless for others.

 

[alidan]

i just don't understand the point of this.

we have a tab that we can move on sd cards, and we can modify the data if we need, i just cant see a use for this, especially if we need to send it back.

 

[phasmantis]

[citation][nom]maximus81[/nom]They will never move away from disks and go to SD cards for games. Costs to much.[/citation]
For now... but, this opens up a window of possibilities for every industry. Saves money on expensive blu-ray players for next generation consoles...

If the demand is higher, the cost will drop. This could be the new way to get movies and games.

 

[applegetsmelaid]

Hmmm. SD cards don't seem like a reliable way to store important data permanently. They are much more fragile than optical media. I would rather store my data on a BD-RE. Optical discs are water resistant and require a greater deal of force to physically damage than and SD card. I've seen SD cards fall apart just under normal usage circumstances; I have standard CD-R media that has withstood a great deal of abuse and they still work after a decade.

 

[digitalzom-b]

[citation][nom]applegetsmelaid[/nom]Hmmm. SD cards don't seem like a reliable way to store important data permanently. They are much more fragile than optical media. I would rather store my data on a BD-RE. Optical discs are water resistant and require a greater deal of force to physically damage than and SD card. I've seen SD cards fall apart just under normal usage circumstances; I have standard CD-R media that has withstood a great deal of abuse and they still work after a decade.[/citation]

True, this may be the only reason to stick to the more physical media.

 

[KelvinTy]

That is some expensive a** read-only SDXC card... Seriously, if it's readable, someone would be able to duplicate it. It might now be now, but it will eventually happen.

 

[loomis86]

[citation][nom]alidan[/nom]i just don't understand the point of this.we have a tab that we can move on sd cards, and we can modify the data if we need, i just cant see a use for this, especially if we need to send it back.[/citation]

The point of this is not for you to use it. It is for manufacturers to use. The reason why music and video games have not switched to SD cards is because SD cards are not permanent and too easy to pirate. Now they have fixed this shortcoming (in manufacturers' eyes) so there's a chance we will now be able to buy games on SD cards.

 

[hoof_hearted]

Great. Now bloatware and rootkits have a new avenue.

What are they going to call it? U3? Startkey?
(ref: They did something similar with USB thumbdrives a while back.)

 

[kinggraves]

[citation][nom]loomis86[/nom]The point of this is not for you to use it. It is for manufacturers to use. The reason why music and video games have not switched to SD cards is because SD cards are not permanent and too easy to pirate. Now they have fixed this shortcoming (in manufacturers' eyes) so there's a chance we will now be able to buy games on SD cards.[/citation]

The reason they haven't switched to flash memory is because flash memory costs significantly more to manufacture than the piece of plastic used to create a disc. It isn't very easy to get large supplies either considering the high demand everywhere for flash memory chips. It has nothing to do with piracy, optical discs can still be copied and pirated?

 

[jamie_1318]

[citation][nom]applegetsmelaid[/nom]Hmmm. SD cards don't seem like a reliable way to store important data permanently. They are much more fragile than optical media. I would rather store my data on a BD-RE. Optical discs are water resistant and require a greater deal of force to physically damage than and SD card. I've seen SD cards fall apart just under normal usage circumstances; I have standard CD-R media that has withstood a great deal of abuse and they still work after a decade.[/citation]

I hope you are kidding. SD cards require far more force to break. On an optical disk all it takes for the data to be rendered unreadable is a good scratch. Sure it is fixable but it is a pain in the but.
Another bonus for SD card is that they don't take light damage. If disks are exposed to sunlight they will eventually stop working at all . Granted its a long term issue but it's one that SD cards outright don't have.
As for water resistance All you have to do is dry the thing out (just wait), or seal it, which is often done at the factory. you have to dry a CD before you put it in a disk player anyways.
Did you see the article on here about a year ago that showed the amount of damage a USB key could take before it would break. SD cards are even more durable than USB keys. They could do just about anything to them and still expect them to work.
Not saying that they will replace disks with them because the costs are simply prohibitive

 

[zybch]

[citation][nom]hoof_hearted[/nom]Great. Now bloatware and rootkits have a new avenue.What are they going to call it? U3? Startkey?(ref: They did something similar with USB thumbdrives a while back.)[/citation]
Yeah. I can't wait.

I'd much rather device manufacturers (printers, scanners etc) had a small piece of non-volitile storage in them with the necessary drivers so I don't need to go searching for a driver CD or download the damn thing. They were going to do this a long time ago, but I've never seen it on anything apart from 3G USB modems.

 

[DaddyW123]

Nobody touched on what I see as the major problem here... it says the data has to be sent to Transcend to be written to the partition during production. That means that large corporations wanting to use this for sensitive data would have to send their data outside the company to get the card made... not going to happen, especially for government.

The other reason this is a problem is, if this actually does become popular, there would be a huge bottleneck at the Transcend factories because all of those Game publishers are sending in their data to be custom written to the card. How is Transcend supposed to be able to keep up with that kind of demand?

 

[joytech22]

Now release movies on it...

 

[dalauder]

[citation][nom]jamie_1318[/nom]I hope you are kidding. SD cards require far more force to break. On an optical disk all it takes for the data to be rendered unreadable is a good scratch. Sure it is fixable but it is a pain in the but.Another bonus for SD card is that they don't take light damage. If disks are exposed to sunlight they will eventually stop working at all . Granted its a long term issue but it's one that SD cards outright don't have.As for water resistance All you have to do is dry the thing out (just wait), or seal it, which is often done at the factory. you have to dry a CD before you put it in a disk player anyways.Did you see the article on here about a year ago that showed the amount of damage a USB key could take before it would break. SD cards are even more durable than USB keys. They could do just about anything to them and still expect them to work. Not saying that they will replace disks with them because the costs are simply prohibitive[/citation]I was thinking along the same lines as you and then I realized how many SD cards I've broken while trying to protect them. The only damaged DVDs/CDs I've encountered are a result of carelessness. I have plenty of stuff that's 15 years old that's in good shape. 1/5 of my SD cards have broken--like the plastic physically falls apart and the card won't read. A bunch of my Micro SD card readers are erratic--if they work at all.

So I find optical media to consistently work if I take care of it. And flash media randomly breaks, regardless of what I do--a vast improvement on floppy disks, but still not good enough for critical data longterm storage.

 

[fb39ca4]

[citation][nom]maximus81[/nom]They will never move away from disks and go to SD cards for games. Costs to much.[/citation]
Nintendo still uses flashcarts for DS games.