FAQ

Flash Memory Cards

How do I recover missing files or accidentally deleted files on flash drive or memory card?

For functional memory cards and flash drives
If the memory card or flash drive is still functional, you can try using a data recovery program. There is a high probability that your data can be recovered after you get an error while using the card, accidentally format it or delete files.

DO NOT attempt to access the flash drive or memory card to another host device, it might overwrite your existing files. You can download a Demo Disk Recovery Program (or purchase an official version). These Recovery Programs will show you what files can be recovered and provide a preview of the files for some common picture file types. The demo versions will require purchase of a license key to enable the feature to save the files. This is an excellent way to see if the program will work before you purchase.

 

For Non-functional memory cards and flash drives
If your memory card or flash drive is no longer functional or cannot be accessed by your computer/portable device, then you will need to send it to a data recovery company. They will attempt to recover data on your memory card or flash drive. Please contact your local distributor for help.

 

NOTE: MICRODIA warranty does NOT provide reimbursement for data recovery services. The warranty covers the product itself, but does NOT cover any compensation due to data loss. It is recommended to backup all your data and pictures regularly.

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Why do I get a “The disk is write-protected” message when I transfer files to my SD card?

Case 1 – Move the lock switch

There is a Lock switch on the left side of the SD card. Make sure the Lock switch is slid up (unlock position). You will not be able to modify or delete the contents on the memory card if it is locked.

Case 2 – Cannot move the lock switch

If the lock switch is lost or moves easily, it is likely the switch is sliding to the locked position as the card is placed in your host device. In this case the card will need to be replaced.

Please contact your local distributor for support and check the warranty status.

Warning: All data may be lost and unrecoverable in the process.

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I cannot transfer a single 4GB or larger file to my flash drive or memory card!

This is due to file system limitation. File larger than 4GB can NOT be stored on a FAT32 flash memory.
Formatting the flash drive as exFAT or NTFS file system will resolve this issue.

Please backup your files before formatting!

1 – Format in exFAT
exFAT file system is compatible with Windows/Mac.

Windows 7 and Mac OS 10.6.6 or higher are compatible with exFAT file system. Older operating systems may need a patch installed for exFAT compatibility.

However, exFAT file system is NOT compatible with some host devices such as TV, game systems, older operating systems, car stereos etc. Please contact the suppliers of your host devices for more details.

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To format a device on your Windows:
1. Double-click on My Computer.
2. Right-click on the flash drive or memory card, then select Format.
3. In the File System list, click exFAT.
4. Click Start.
5. Click OK to start formatting.

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To format a device on your Mac OS X:
1. Double-click on Macintosh HD – or in the Finder menu click File > New Finder Window
2. Click the Applications folder – if using a Finder Window Applications will be in the left side menu.
3. Click the Utilities folder.
4. Double-click Disk Utility.
5. On the left side of the window are the drives connected to the computer. Select the capacity of the drive respective to the one containing the device you wish to format then click the Erase tab.
6. Verify Volume Format is set to exFAT, then click Erase.

     - Format in NTFS

     - Formatting the device as NTFS will make it unwriteable on Mac OS. Most Mac computers can read NTFS, but not write.
     - Once the device is formatted as NTFS, you MUST use “Safely Remove Hardware” to remove your device.

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Format the flash drive on Windows:
1. Double-click My Computer.
2. Right-click on the flash drive, then select Format.
3. In the File system list, click NTFS.
4. Click Start.
5. Click OK to start formatting.

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What is VPG ?

• VPG stands for “Video Performance Guarantee”.
• It’s introduced since Compact Flash (CF) specification 5.0
• Designed for very high-end HD/FHD/4K video recording.
• Ensures the video stream is saved without interruptions that would affect the video quality.
• VPG logo is a “clapper board” with a number inside specifying the minimum guaranteed write speed.

VPG       Minimum Write Speed
20           20MB/s
65           65MB/s
130         130MB/s

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Why does my computer / laptop / mobile device report a less capacity than the advertised capacity?

• As is common with all data storage media, USB drives have a smaller true capacity versus the advertised capacity due to the historical definitions of GB and MB, as well as Memory Management and Partition Accounting information also uses some memory on the drive.

• Many people also mistakenly attribute the discrepancy in reported and advertised capacities to reserved space used for file system and partition accounting information. However, for large (several GB) file systems, this data rarely occupies more than several MB, and therefore cannot possibly account for the apparent “loss” of tens of MBs or even GBs.

• Nearly all operating system utilities report capacities using binary definitions for the prefixes. This is largely historical, because when storage capacities started to exceed thousands of bytes, there were no standard binary prefixes (the IEC only standardized binary prefixes in 1999), so 2^10 (1024) bytes was called a kilobyte because 1024 is “close enough” to the metric prefix kilo, which is defined as 10^3 or 1000. This trend became habit and continued to be applied to the prefixes “mega,” “giga,” and even “tera.” The discrepancy becomes much more noticeable in reported capacities in the multiple gigabyte range, and users will often notice that the volume capacity reported by their OS is significantly less than that advertised by the manufacturer.

• For example, a drive advertised as 200 GB can be expected to store close to 200 x 10^9, or 200 billion bytes. This uses the proper SI definition of “giga,” 10^9 and cannot be considered as incorrect.
Since utilities provided by the operating system probably define a Gigabyte as 2^30, or 1073741824 bytes, the reported capacity of the drive will be closer to 186.26GB (actually, GiB), a difference of well over ten gibibytes.

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Is MICRODIA Flash Memory Card Resistant to Vibration, Magnetic Fields & Humidity?

Yes.

MICRODIA XTRA™ / XTRA Plus™ / XTRA Pro™ / XTRA Elite™ Series flash memory cards are honoured with the following features:

• Extreme Durability

• Drop-Shock-Vibration-Resistance

• Water-Dust-Heat-Resistance

• Electro Static-Proof

 

How Many Pictures & Audio/Video Hours can be Stored in a Flash Memory Card?

The number of pictures/musics/videos you can take varies depending on your device setting, like resolution, picture/video/audio mode and complexity of the scene/video being taken.

However, we can estimate by simple calculation:

MP=Megapixels / MB=Megabytes / GB=Gigabytes
1GB=1000MB=1,000,000,000bytes

Capacity of a Photo / Music / Video file divided by Total Capacity of Memory Card
= No. of Photo / Music / Video could be stored

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What are the differences between the products in the XTRA™ / XTRA Plus™ / XTRA Pro™ / XTRA Elite™ Series?

MICRODIA family of flash memory cards offers 4 different performances & specifications to fulfill everyone’s expectations.

Because “WRITE” performance is so important, MICRODIA implemented a system to indicate speed difference: XTRA™ / XTRA Plus™ / XTRA Pro™ / XTRA Elite™

XTRA™ : made for everyone to enjoy

Speed class is C10/U1, reaching up to 333X (50MB/s) rated speed for SD/microSD cards or VPG-20, and up to 266X (40MB/s) for CF cards.

XTRA PLUS™ :

Speed class is C10/U1, and can reach up to 533X (80MB/s) rated speed for SD/microSD cards or VPG-20, and up to 500X (75MB/s) for CF cards.

XTRA PRO™ : made for serious professional photographers.

with C10/U3 speed class and up to 667X (or 100MB/sec) rating speed for SD/microSD cards or VPG-20 up to 800X (or 120MB/sec) for CF cards.

XTRA ELITE™ :

Speed class is C10/U3, reaching up to 2000X (or 300MB/sec) rated speed for SD/microSD cards or VPG-65 up to 1066X (or 160MB/sec) for CF cards.

MICRODIA introduced its EPM technology in the XTRA PRO™ and XTRA ELITE™ series to improve the read and write speeds as well as prolong the service life of the flash memory cards.

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What is EPM Technology?

EPM is the acronym for “Enhanced Processing Management”.

This proprietary controller firmware was developed and patented by MICRODIA. It allows multi-channeling data transfer between Controller and Flash Memory to enhance the read and write speeds, as well as increase the service life of the flash memory card by averaging the utilisation of each memory cell intelligently.

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What are the Differences Between Speed Ratings & Speed Classes?

Rated Speed / Speed Rating:

This is the maximum transfer speed for reading and writing images to and from a card. This measurement is pertinent to still photography, especially for taking pictures with high resolution and/or saving in RAW format where the files created are very large. High rated speed gives your camera the capability to capture images faster.

Speed Class:

This is the minimum speed based on a worst case scenario test. The Speed Class is important for video mode or camcorders where the device is actually saving a steady stream of data. The Speed Class refers to the guaranteed sustained rate with no dropped frames at which a video is captured. Speed Class 10 means a minimum write speed of 10MB/s.

UHS (Ultra High Speed):

This is the latest performance category available today, was introduced in 2009 by the SD Association and is designed for SD and microSD memory cards. UHS utilizes a new data bus that will not work in non-UHS host devices. If you use a UHS memory card in a non-UHS host, it will default to the standard data bus and use the “Speed Class” rating instead of the “UHS Speed Class” rating. UHS Speed Class defines bus-interface speeds up to 312 Megabytes per second for greater device performance.

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SD, SDHC, SDXC specification & compatibility

The SDA set the capacities of these three standard form factors as follows:

Form Factor       Capacity                  File System

SD                      Up to 2GB               FAT 16

SDHC                 4GB – 32GB            FAT 32

SDXC                 64GB – 2TB             exFAT

Existing SD devices and SDHC devices are not compatible with new SDXC memory cards. However, existing SD memory cards and SDHC memory cards will work in SDXC devices.

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What is a microSD Card?

MicroSD was announced by SDA at CTIA Wireless 2005 as a small form factor extension to the SD card standard. The card is also called TransFlash (sometimes abbreviated TF).

The microSD card was developed in order to meet the demands of the smart phone market and offers significant savings in card area and volume.

A key benefit of the microSD card is that it is both electrically and software compatible with the existing SD standard. To allow interoperability with standard SD devices, it also has an adapter that converts the microSD card into the SD card form factor. The adapter allows the microSD card to fit into existing SD card slots, and thereby provide compatibility with the rapidly growing number of SD compatible devices in the market.

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What is a SD (Secure Digital) Card?

A Secure Digital (SD) card is a non-volatile memory card for use in portable devices, such as DSLR cameras, GPS navigation devices, handheld consoles, and notebooks.

SD memory card and SD host device are the terms for licensed products that meet SD standards which are maintained by the SD Association (SDA). SD memory card standards are available in a variety of formats, capacities (SD/ SDHC/ SDXC), bus speed ( Normal Speed/ High Speed/ UHS-I/ UHS-II ) and speed class options.

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What is an XQD Card?

The CompactFlash Association (CFA) touts the XQD card as a high-performance flash memory card. Specifications for the newest version (Version 2.0), released on 13 Feb 2014, noted that the new card leverages the dual PCIe Gen2x2 and USB3.0 interface for higher performance. Read and write speeds can reach up to 1GB/s (1000MB/s), and storage capabilities extend beyond 2TB.

This speed enhancement enables a new generation of flash memory cards to meet the demands of professional 4K video processing requirements. Consequently, the new specifications will further increase capabilities and value for photographers, videographers, and cinematographers.

Dimensions:

38.5mm x 29.6mm x 3.8mm

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What is a CF (Compact Flash) card?

Compact Flash is a small form factor that combines non-volatile storage, high-capacity options and industry-standard compatibility, which is absolutely essential for digital cameras and handheld computing devices.

There are two main subdivisions of CF cards:

• Type I (3.3 mm thick)

• Type II (CF2) cards (5 mm thick)

CF Type I is widely used and all CF cards from MICRODIA are of Type I.

The high level performance capability of CF storage cards continues to improve with each version. To get the most out of your CF card purchase, match or exceed the host (camera) capability with the CF storage card version. For camera use, both the write speed in camera and the read speed for later image processing should be considered.

Today, Compact Flash cards are available in capacities up to 1TB, with both read and write speeds reaching up to 160 MB/sec.

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What do I need to know when choosing flash memory cards?

Physical Format:

The first consideration is where you will use the card: Different cameras, camcorders, action-cams, and smart phones use different sizes of cards. They also sometimes have different interfaces. For example, the SD card is equipped with a 9-pin interface to fit a 4-bit data bus, but a CF card has a 50-pin interface for a 16-bit data bus.

Capacity:
Flash memory cards offer different storage capacities. Especially for SD/microSD cards. Most SD/microSD cards you’ll find today are technically SDHC, with capacities between 4GB and 32GB. The largest class is SDXC (Secure Digital Extended Capacity) which can range from 64GB to 2TB.
While larger is better, you need to make sure your device is compatible with the larger capacity. Note that older cameras can only read SD cards, and similarly, cameras that aren’t SDXC-compatible won’t accept 64GB cards.

Speed:
When it comes to shooting high-resolution RAW photos with a digital SLR, you’ll need a quick card to take more than two or three shots at a time. SD (CF) cards are described by their speed class, which ranges from Class 10 to U1/U3 (from VPG 20 to 65) ; these are defined by the minimum operation speed. Another parameter is given as speed rating which indicates the maximum read and write speeds of the card.

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What type of cards does the XTRA™ Series offer?

MICRODIA provides three types of flash memory cards to fit your needs and devices:
•CF (Compact Flash) cards
•SD (Secure Digital) cards
•microSD cards

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Why are flash memory cards important?

Nowadays, many people carry smart phones, digital cameras, pocket camcorders, and action-cams in order to take snapshots and videos of life’s precious memories.
As picture quality and resolutions on mobile devices have improved, so the need to save and store larger picture files has increased.
High quality flash memory cards have become the norm. They provide larger capacities and faster operating speeds to match the capabilities of your mobile devices, and the cards ensure that every shot is captured and kept safe and secure from life’s little mishaps.