SD memory card

What is the maximum side SD card I can use in my K100D?

Whatever size you can get your hands on. There is no limit

Don't use them to big. If the card is faulty - you lose more images.....

I suspect there is a limit.

G

I will clarify. There is a limit as such as to what you can buy 8gig i think but no limit as too what you can put into the camera
Correct me if i am wrong George

I would definitely think you are wrong, but I'll let Matt explain. He deals with this sort of thing every day.

G

All SD cards (and most NAND-flash based products) uses the concept of pages and blocks to address the memory inside the SD card. As such there is a limit to the number of address bits used to access that memory.

SD can copes with 2Gb.
SD-HC copes with 32Gb (they added another 4-bits to the address).

If memory technology begins to exceed 32Gb in the SD form factor, then there'll have to be another SD technology

So, you're limited to 32Gb with the K10D at least (because it's extremely unlikely - read impossible - that Pentax will do a firmware update for the K10D when that happens. In fact, I strongly suspect that the K10D firmware updates are complete and 1.3 is where it will stay... they'll be funnelling their programming, development, and testing skills into the new range of DSLRs).

Does that explain it?
Matt

Thanks Matt I didn't realise there was an SD over 8 gig
But thanks for clarifing
32 gig is huge, I can;t fathom why someone would want a card that size and it would cost an arm and a leg

Clarky,
It's not that there actually is a 32Gb SD-HC card available... it's that the specification for SD-HC allows up to 32Gb of NAND flash to be addressed. So, that's the absolute maximum possible (ever) under SD-HC.
Matt

No. 32GB is theoretical at present. There may well never be a card with that capacity, but it would be possible. It wouldn't cost an arm and a leg, because improved technology brings greater power at lower prices.

I can remember when Apple hard drives had 5MB of capacity and cost about 10,000 USD in today's money.

I would predct that in six years time we will have 32GB memory cards, and they will cost much less than 16 2GB cards at today's prices.

G

Thanks Matt.

Clarky, think of filling in some bureaucratic form, where your address has to be put into little boxes, one for each letter.

If the designer of the address only allowed 25 boxes for the first line, then you could have, say: "25 Hill Street", but not: "1037A Upper St Barnabas and All The Saints Boulevard North."

Likewise, the chap who created the SD spec. did not expect there to be a need for more than 2GB (he was working when the norm was 64MB), and thus only allowed so much to be addressed.

When the new 24 bit, 16MP sensor comes out, we'll need such cards.

G

So theoretically my answer to Spamcan's question was correct. Do you enjoy giving me a headache George :

Certainly not, Clarky. But the point is that although next year Spamcan may be able to get his hands on 16GB, and 32GB a year later, that will be it. The limit is 32.

G

Hmm, i have a 4GB SD card. Not the SDHC, but plain SD. How come?

There's a good Wikipedia here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Digital_card

Have to revise some of my earlier comments
(I'm used to working with the raw NAND flash chips, rather than with SD directly... but I should have checked, I know :roll

And...
(But note that the device's firmware must be able to cope with this as well!)

Hope that helps!!
Matt