4 ms·

I agree. It's too easy to lose a thumb drive, even easier to lose an SD card.

by cout 3y ago

midoridensha 3y ago
SD cards are a completely useless size these days: they're too small and easily lost, but they're too big for modern devices. For adding storage to a phone, for instance, a microSD card is much more useful (although easier lost of couse). A regular SD card is just way too big for that, and most of the space inside wasted. A thumb drive is much better, as long as it not one of those thumb drives that's barely bigger than a USB port. But for offline storage that can be easily filed into a cabinet and paged through, floppy disks really were a great size. You can't file thumb drives; they're too narrow and thick, so a collection of them just ends up being a pile. It's really too bad we don't have some kind of inexpensive, high-reliability, high-density offline storage format that resembles 3.5" floppies.
- toast0 3y ago
  Regular SD cards are at least easy to handle. MicroSD are so darn tiny, sometimes pretty hard to pick up. I know modern devices don't have a lot of space, but regular SD cards and mini-SIMs weren't really that big. (The full credit card sized original SIM card size is dramatically oversized though)
  - giantrobot 3y ago
    I hate devices that have spring loaded microSD slots that practically launch the things when you remove them. The springs have way too much tension and shoot your microSD across the room once you push it in with your nail.
  - midoridensha 3y ago
    >MicroSD are so darn tiny, sometimes pretty hard to pick up. This is true, but the idea is that you should almost never need to do this. It should be a rare occasion when you need to install or remove a microSD card. It's just like nanoSIM cards: when was the last time you needed to swap that out? Floppy disks, and today USB thumb drives, serve a different purpose: they're supposed to be easy to plug and unplug and move data around. I don't see microSD cards as having that purpose at all. I have a microSD card in my phone, and it's great, but I haven't taken it out since I put it in there several years ago; it's just a storage expansion device, not a way of easily moving data between devices. It's not that easy to swap between devices, but it's easy enough to do, with some care, for those rare occasions it might be necessary (like migrating to a new phone).
- mixmastamyk 3y ago
  Sony memory sticks were like that. Mini Disc as well a bit earlier. The main problem was Sony.
  - distract8901 3y ago
    Yes, I really liked the memory stick and UMD formats. Too bad they were made by Sony and were thus uselessly crippled for any normal purposes. You'd really think that Sony would have figured out that every single storage medium they've ever made has been an utter failure, but Sony is gonna Sony.
    - giantrobot 3y ago
      Sony: Look at this awesome new storage format! Everyone should use it! Also Sony: No, not like that. Sony's positioning in storage formats is just weird. They spend untold money developing media formats intending to recoup the development costs licensing those formats. Then make the licensing fees and conditions so onerous that no one is willing to license them. The only time anyone touches a Sony influenced format is when it's developed and licensed by a consortium.
      - duskwuff 3y ago
        > Sony's positioning in storage formats is just weird. Case in point: Vita Memory Card. Superficially similar to Micro SD, and it even uses a similar electrical protocol... but it isn't compatible.
      - midoridensha 3y ago
        Sony has (or at least had; I haven't seen them try again for a while now) a long history of trying to push proprietary standards on everyone. They really seemed to think they could come up with some proprietary standard for something where other, more open, standards already existed, and people would somehow adopt theirs en masse. It reminds me a lot of IBM when they introduced the PS/2 computers. They really, really thought that they could single-handedly kill all the PC "clones" by pushing their clunky, overpriced PC with a bunch of proprietary standards in it (namely the MCA bus). The people running these two companies had an extreme amount of arrogance and hubris.
- adrian_b 3y ago
  CFexpress Type B cards (i.e. having the Sony XQD size) would be a perfect floppy disk replacement, except that these cards are overpriced and restricted to the niche of expensive photo cameras, instead of having a slot for them in any laptop and being available at the same price as the USB drives. These cards are much sturdier than the SD cards, and much faster, due to the PCIe interface. If a laptop had a slot for them, they would have been much more convenient than external SSDs or USB drives, which protrude from the case or are hanging on cables.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

I agree. It's too easy to lose a thumb drive, even easier to lose an SD card.

by cout 3y ago

I agree. It's too easy to lose a thumb drive, even easier to lose an SD card.

SD cards are a completely useless size these days: they're too small and easily lost, but they're too big for modern devices. For adding storage to a phone, for instance, a microSD card is much more useful (although easier lost of couse). A regular SD card is just way too big for that, and most of the space inside wasted. A thumb drive is much better, as long as it not one of those thumb drives that's barely bigger than a USB port. But for offline storage that can be easily filed into a cabinet and paged through, floppy disks really were a great size. You can't file thumb drives; they're too narrow and thick, so a collection of them just ends up being a pile. It's really too bad we don't have some kind of inexpensive, high-reliability, high-density offline storage format that resembles 3.5" floppies.

toast0 3y ago
Regular SD cards are at least easy to handle. MicroSD are so darn tiny, sometimes pretty hard to pick up. I know modern devices don't have a lot of space, but regular SD cards and mini-SIMs weren't really that big. (The full credit card sized original SIM card size is dramatically oversized though)
- giantrobot 3y ago
  I hate devices that have spring loaded microSD slots that practically launch the things when you remove them. The springs have way too much tension and shoot your microSD across the room once you push it in with your nail.
- midoridensha 3y ago
  >MicroSD are so darn tiny, sometimes pretty hard to pick up. This is true, but the idea is that you should almost never need to do this. It should be a rare occasion when you need to install or remove a microSD card. It's just like nanoSIM cards: when was the last time you needed to swap that out? Floppy disks, and today USB thumb drives, serve a different purpose: they're supposed to be easy to plug and unplug and move data around. I don't see microSD cards as having that purpose at all. I have a microSD card in my phone, and it's great, but I haven't taken it out since I put it in there several years ago; it's just a storage expansion device, not a way of easily moving data between devices. It's not that easy to swap between devices, but it's easy enough to do, with some care, for those rare occasions it might be necessary (like migrating to a new phone).
mixmastamyk 3y ago
Sony memory sticks were like that. Mini Disc as well a bit earlier. The main problem was Sony.
- distract8901 3y ago
  Yes, I really liked the memory stick and UMD formats. Too bad they were made by Sony and were thus uselessly crippled for any normal purposes. You'd really think that Sony would have figured out that every single storage medium they've ever made has been an utter failure, but Sony is gonna Sony.
  - giantrobot 3y ago
    Sony: Look at this awesome new storage format! Everyone should use it! Also Sony: No, not like that. Sony's positioning in storage formats is just weird. They spend untold money developing media formats intending to recoup the development costs licensing those formats. Then make the licensing fees and conditions so onerous that no one is willing to license them. The only time anyone touches a Sony influenced format is when it's developed and licensed by a consortium.
    - duskwuff 3y ago
      > Sony's positioning in storage formats is just weird. Case in point: Vita Memory Card. Superficially similar to Micro SD, and it even uses a similar electrical protocol... but it isn't compatible.
    - midoridensha 3y ago
      Sony has (or at least had; I haven't seen them try again for a while now) a long history of trying to push proprietary standards on everyone. They really seemed to think they could come up with some proprietary standard for something where other, more open, standards already existed, and people would somehow adopt theirs en masse. It reminds me a lot of IBM when they introduced the PS/2 computers. They really, really thought that they could single-handedly kill all the PC "clones" by pushing their clunky, overpriced PC with a bunch of proprietary standards in it (namely the MCA bus). The people running these two companies had an extreme amount of arrogance and hubris.
adrian_b 3y ago
CFexpress Type B cards (i.e. having the Sony XQD size) would be a perfect floppy disk replacement, except that these cards are overpriced and restricted to the niche of expensive photo cameras, instead of having a slot for them in any laptop and being available at the same price as the USB drives. These cards are much sturdier than the SD cards, and much faster, due to the PCIe interface. If a laptop had a slot for them, they would have been much more convenient than external SSDs or USB drives, which protrude from the case or are hanging on cables.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]