Owner`s manual

nanoFlash FAQs
10-Apr-10 ©Convergent Design, Inc. Page 9 of 42
a. Solid-state media, no moving parts
b. Low-power (about 1/10 of hard disk-drive)
c. Very reliable (all solid-state); 100K write cycles, 10 year data retention
d. Easily removable, 10K insertion cycles.
e. Low-cost, about 1/3 to 1/10 the price of other professional solid-state media.
f. High read/write bandwidth (up to 720 Mbps read/write speeds).
g. Widely available (multiple vendors, many sales outlets)
h. The price of CompactFlash cards is expected to come down, while the
performance and capacity is expected to increase.
i. CompactFlash memory is expected to increase in capacity, for example, 64 GB
cards are now available
33. Doesn’t solid-state memory cost much more than hard-drives?
Yes, in general solid-sate memory is 3X (or more) times the equivalent cost of a
mechanical hard-drives (on a GB basis). However, the reliability, power and size benefits
far outweigh the cost in a portable recorder application.
34. Can I write-protect the Compact Flash Card?
Within the nanoFlash, you can write-protect the CF cards by selecting the “None” option
on the record-trigger. This option also prevents CF card formatting. Unfortunately, CF
cards cannot be write-protected in your PC/MAC.
35. How many Compact Flash card slots on nanoFlash?
nanoFlash supports two CF cards. Users can enjoy very long record times, as nanoFlash
will automatically close one clip and start another on the next available CompactFlash
card. This is seamless across both record and playback.
36. Can I hot-swap the cards and continue recording indefinitely?
This is planned for release in mid 2010.
37. Can you record seamlessly from one CompactFlash card to another?
Yes, as the remaining record capacity on the current CompactFlash card reaches a
critical level, the nanoFlash automatically closes the current file, and then opens a new file
on the next card. This process is completely transparent to the user, for both record and
playback. No frames of video or audio are lost during this process.
38. How do I know it’s time to remove a Compact Flash card?
There is bi-color LEDs next to each CompactFlash card slot, which indicates the current
status of the card (idle, writing data to the card, ready to eject, etc). Also, the overall
remaining capacity of each card is displayed on the LCD (0 to 100%), as well as the total
number of minutes available across all cards.
39. What are typical read / write speeds for Compact Flash cards?
The read / write speeds of CF is based on the old Compact Disk standard of 1X = 150
KB/s. So, a 133X CF card is rated at 133 x 150 KB/s ≈ 20 MB/s or 160 Mb/s. Below are
some example read / write performance measurements for CF cards tested and