We all want higher capacity digital media to store our digital photos and files without the hassle of having to frequently upload them to the computer after just a few hours of use.  The Kingston 16 Gb Micro SDHC has give me this freedom.  Within just a few minutes of receiving my 16Gb card, I had already copied the contents of my Kodak 4Gb KHSD4GBCNA SDHC card over.  As you read this review, I encourage you to think of all the possibilities that this product can offer you.

Compatibility And Interface Options
Today, SDHC digital media cards are widely accepted in the computing world.  First, you can read these cards in any Dell Precision T3400 workstation using the integrated card reader.  When I go home, I use the integrated card reader in the ASUS 1005HA EeePc netbook to safely hold my files so I can continue working.  For gaming, I use the SDHC card in my matte black, Nintendo DSi to store downloaded games and photos that I have taken.  Then, if I ever need to repair an older computer, I can use the SanDisk ImageMate 5 in 1 Card Reader to transfer AVG Antivirus or CCleaner over for repairs.  As you can see SDHC media is truly a universal product that will help you get daily computing tasks done faster.

You should format a new SDHC within your camera or digital video recorder.  You will ensure optimum performance in your electronics because some brands like Canon still use proprietary storage formats.

Some electronics are not compatible with SDHC.  Check your device's support website before purchasing this card. 

Product Protective Packaging
My micro SDHC card came in the mail from my Ebay seller inside an 11” x 17”, plastic bubble lined, brown envelope.  Inside the package was a 4.5” high x 4” wide, white, paper and plastic container which held the Kingston 16Gb Micro SDHC card and a convenient Kingston micro SD adapter.  The SD adapter provides you with the ability to read the micro SDHC card in traditional secure digital card slots.

Inside the product protective packaging, the 16Gb micro SDHC and adapter are held securely in place with a thick, clear plastic shell that you must rip open the package to remove.  The great news is that if you have a computer or digital media device capable of reading SDHC cards you can quickly start using the Kingston 16Gb card because it is preformatted.  The card is formatted using the Fat 32 file system with an actual capacity of 16,030,629,888 bytes or 14.9Gb. 

Usage Tips For Super High Capacity mini SDHC Media
Today, if you purchase Blue-Ray discs, the manufacturers frequently include a digital copy of the movie.  You can store several of these movies on just one of these micro SDHC media cards and have an effective means of storing your entire movie collection in an incredibly small amount of space.

For the business, IT, professional, the 16Gb mini SDHC makes a lot of sense because you can keep several databases and Microsoft Word 2007 document files in one location.  In fact, my media card also has nearly every Microsoft Access data project that I have ever written on it.  I use the projects as examples of how ideas can develop and working models of data access interfaces.

Performance

Speed is the name of the game when trying to move files to your Dell Precision T3400 Workstation or backing up the photos on your Nintendo DSi.  I created a file folder with 133 MP3 files across 4 subfolders for a total of 714Mb and transferred it to the 16Gb micro SDHC using my ASUS 1005HA.  The file transfers were very fast considering this was a memory disk.  You can expect the same operation to occur in less than 35 seconds between two hard disks.

Here are the actual results:
Run #1, 2 minutes 2 seconds
Run #2, 2 minutes 3 seconds

Using an ASUS 1005HA mini laptop with an SDHC card reader and SiSoftware Sandra 2009.5.15.99 in the Removable Storage benchmark, I obtained the following performance figures for the Kingston 16Gb Micro SDHC memory card.  All my test results use the 512Kb test value in SiSoftware Sandra because they return the lowest performance figures and represent file sizes that are close to the average digital picture size.

Test 1
Device Index;  2328 ops/minute
Drive Index; 4.68 ops/minute/Mbps
512Kb Test
Read Performance;  28544 ops/minute, 237.87Kb/s, 1.59x
Write Performance; 662 ops/minute, 5.52Kb/s, 0.04x
Delete Performance; 3242 ops/minute

Test 2
Device Index; 1995 ops/minute
Drive Index;  4.16 ops/minute/Mbps
512Kb Test
Read Performance; 24773 ops/minute, 206.44Kb/s, 1.38x
Write Performance; 491 ops/minute, 4Kb/s, 0.03x
Delete Performance; 2353 ops/minute

The Kingston Class 2 mini SDHC card certainly turned out some impressive scores in my EeePc ASUS 1005HA netbook.  The only card that could come close to these read scores was the Kodak 4Gb KHSD4GBCNA SDHC with a Read Performance of 24951 ops/minute, 208Kb/s but that was only once and not backed up by the second run. 

Class Rankings Of micro SDHC Media Cards
Full size SDHC and micro SDHC memory cards are ranked by class to indicate the speed of the product.  Currently, there are three classes of SDHC cards on the market; 2,4,6.  The higher the ranking the faster the theoretical performance of your card. 

Class 2 transfers data at least 2 Mb second
Class 4 transfers data at least 4 Mb second
Class 6 transfers data at least 6 Mb second

The Kingston 16Gb card discussed in this review is a Class 2 card which means it transfers data at least 2 Mb second.  Remember, the performance of your digital device or computer’s USB interface is also a factor in reaching the full speed of your micro SDHC card. 

Summary
I was very impressed with the small form factor that the Kingston 16Gb Micro SDHC Class 2 memory comes in.  You can literally store this card anywhere in a highly protected position.  My collection of five Micro SDHC cards is kept in a water tight SDHC single card holder.  The case, if encased in fire proof foam inside a fake metal, can easily survive most house fires with only minimal scalding on the plastic exterior.  I found this out while playing one Saturday afternoon last September. 

You can surely save a lot of money archiving with these cards because your safety deposit box can be much smaller than what DAT tapes would require.  Yes, in the past I have been responsible for secretly archiving many multimillion dollar server backups.  Every time, my choice has been SD cards for their quick access and long storage times.  You can use Veritas back up software to split a SQL Server backup volume across multiple micro SDHC cards with no problem.  My second fail safe was doubling the cards with data to serve as a primitive RAID 1 form of archival.  One recent court initiated archive retrieval my client was forced to purchase an expensive tape reader that weighed over 10 lbs.  The project was in the tens of thousands of dollars as a result.  With SDHC cards you only need to pack two SDHC to USB readers and a PCI-E card in the safe.  PCI-E will be an interface that runs well into the future and gave extend your reach of cheap hardware about 10 years into the future.  Another option my clients are weighing is the suggestion of packing an ASUS 1005HA netbook into the safe so that cards can be read from a computer natively.

The best part of getting this state of the art Kingston 16Gb Micro SDHC memory card was getting it free courtesy of a Shopping.com promotion that was run during the month of August 2009 for submitting new reviews on the website.  I was given a $100 gift certificate to Ebay that was linked to my PayPal account but not told how to spend the money.  Since, I enjoy using new memory cards and reviewing them on Epinions.com so it seemed like a good fit for me.  The ability to carry what I have learned about this technology to my career has already taken about $500 off my archival media cost for this year.

For now, these cards are retailing around $55 on the internet at Ebay and going for about $85 in brick and mortar technology stores like Best Buy or Fry’s Electronics.  You can expect the price to drop quickly over the next four months from posting of this review as newer 32Gb memory cards hit the market and achieve competitive supply to demand levels.

Recommended: Yes