Multimedia-Memory Cards

Photo	Memory card		Description
	Secure-Digital-Card	SD	The unchallanged winner these days in advancing with a clever strategy. Compact design with 31 x 23 x 2 mm only. More and more manufacturers use SD-cards in digital cameras, MP3-players, PDAs and notebooks.
	Multimedia-Card	MMC	Multimedia cards are in use nearly everywhere. Manufacured in almost the same case as SD. The SD-cards is 0,7 mm thicker than the MM-card that makes the thinner MM-cards fit in the SD-slot of a card reader, but not the other way round.
	Compact Flash	CF I CF II	This format is first choice for cameras of experts. But CompactFlash has lost a lot of their market share to booming SD-card. Type II is from 1,7 to 2,0 mm thicker than type I and won't fit in every CF-slot. Compared to more modern formats, CF-cards appear to be more bulky. (up to six times bigger than SD-cards)
	Microdrive	MD	This mini hard disk of card reader dimensions plays an important part. The same spacious design like CF. That makes Flash memory chips and even 1 inch hard disks with now 512MB to 4GB fit in a CompactFlash II case. Due to its high capacity, it is the cheapest MB price by far.
	xD-Picture-Card*	xD	Though it is used only by a few manufacturer (Fujifilm/Olympus), this format could gain market share visibly. In general slower and more expensive than SD-card. Technically building on SM-card.
	SmartMedia	SM	This format is no more important. Only remainders are still being sold, but this type will no more be improved and further developed.
	Memory Stick	MS MSPro	This competitor to Multimedia-cards is available in four different versions. The original version is quiet slow with limited memory capacity (128MB resp. Duo: 2x128MB). The Duo-version is made for cell-phones and can also be installed in digital cameras via adapter. The Pro-version has a bigger capacity, is faster, but no more downward compatible. As Sony intends to stop their PDA production, the survival of MS can be questioned by now.

* model is not supported by Shuttle card reader
Some information from: Chip Foto-Video, issue 10/2004, p94ff