Sandisk Ultra II's being downgraded

[BiPolarBear]

With all the great rebates on Sandisk's fast cards (the Extremes and Ducatis), i'm probably one of the few people left who still use Ultra II's (the Canadian rebates aren't nearly as sweet as the U.S. deals, so Ultra II seems a decent value in a name brand card for my 20D).
But just in case there are a few Ultra fans out there, here's a heads up that Sandisk will soon be "rolling down" the write speed from 15mb/s to 9mb/s.
That's a 40% speed reduction. Read speed will remain the same.
Greg

[PacAce]

As far as I know, the Ultra II (CF and SD cards) write speeds have always been at a minimum of 9 MB/second.

[xMClass]

I still use some Ultra II's.

[BiPolarBear]

PacAce,
I think you're right in that the Ultra II's were 9mb/s when released and stayed that way for quite a while, but they were sped up at some point to 15X read/write (I just checked the Sandisk website to make sure i wasn't hallucinating... again ;) ).
I had originally heard this at a product seminar and wasn't sure it was fact. So just for curiosity's sake, I e-mailed Sandisk Product Support to ask why the change.
After a few back and forths, they finally confirmed the speed decrease, and said it was "to accommodate technology transition to 43nm"... whatever that means. ???
I had also heard that the basic Sandisk "blue CF card" would cease to exist, being replaced by the slower Ultra II as their low end. That they wouldn't confirm, so I'll have to leave that as conjecture.
Greg

[PacAce]

Thanks for the clarification, Greg.

[Vascilli]

I only have Ultra II's. :(

[keitaro]

i got 2 ultra IIs both are 15mb/s... just checked the packaging...

[azpix]

all ultra 2's here also and they work just fine>

[smcclelland]

I use a mix of Ultra II's, Transcend 266x and I think I have two Extreme III's. Frankly I notice 0 difference between any of them as I slap the full card in the P3000 and download the images while loading in a new card.

If we got the rebates the US gets on the Sandisk cards I would probably buy more of them but I find they're either too bloody expensive or the good places at the right price are always sold out.

[JeffreyVB]

Ultra IIs are all I use. Both 9mb/s and 11mb/s cards.

[SuzyView]

Not bad cards. I have 3 4gb Ultra II's and some 2 and 1 that are older, but they are great. I love the Extreme III's and IV's I have more, but for the price, the Ultra II's are a bargain. They are significantly faster than the first generation of CF cards. I remember those days. :(

[Maxdave]

I still use my Ultra IIs in my XTi, where they seem to equal the performance of both the single Lexar 80X and Lexar 133X I also have.

In the 40D, the Lexar 133X certainly seems faster, but not substantially.

In the 50D, I only use my pair of 300X Lexars and a single 266X A-Data. In that camera, the speed increase is substantial.

I use a mixture of 2GB and 4GB, and with the coming of the 50D, I will only buy the latter size. Up here in Canada, I have not seen any sales for 8GB or larger CF cards, of any brand ....

I still have a few 256 MB (3 of which 2 are Ultra 2) and 512 Mb cards (2) cards. What do you do with them, seeing as they are now too small to use?

Maxdave

[BIGTUFFGUY]

I just bought a 8 gig card 15mb/s for 50$ at Bureau En Gros ( Staples) Canadian prices suck, but wtv.

It's nice knowing that i can take up to 939 photos on one card now in RAW.