 In 1995, Toshiba Corporation created the SmartMedia card in attempt to replace the floppy disk and although it failed to do so, the SmartMedia card was used in many types of storage devices. The SmartMedia card is one of the oldest of the portable media formats still in (limited) use today. It is a removable flash memory card that can be used in several different types of digital devices; including digital cameras, digital music players (mp3 players), digital voice recorders and PDAs.
The main advantage that SmartMedia cards have over the other memory cards is that because they read, write, and erase memory in small blocks of data (256 or 512 bytes at a time), you can more precisely select what data you want to save. Although the SmartMedia card was well received when it hit the market (especially the digital camera segment), SmartMedia cards have a few underlying weaknesses.
Capacities of SmartMedia cards are in sizes of 2mb, 4mb, 8mb, 16mb, 32mb, 64mb and top off at 128mb. Due to limited capacities, low transfer rates, it’s less sturdy encasing (compared to other flash memory card formats), the SmartMedia card has been replaced by other formats (primarily XD cards and SD cards).
Newer, smaller and higher capacity replacements have made it difficult for manufacturers to continue production of these aging SmartMedia Cards. It has been announced that production of the SmartMedia cards are discontinued by major manufacturers including; Toshiba, Samsung, Lexar, and SanDisk.
**Please note that there will be no further stock of SmartMedia cards due to the discontinuation of these products.
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