How to choose an SD card for your netbook

Now I know with all the huge capacity hard disks around these days – you get 160 Gigabytes in a cheap netbook and can multiply that many times with a cheap external USB hard disk – we tend to forget about the humble SD card. We use them in our digital cameras because we have to, but often despise SD cards as holding “ONLY” 4Gigs or 8 Gigs.

Well think again. At little more than the size of a postage stamp, an SD card can fit in your wallet, purse or organiser, be posted in a normal envelope through snailmail (Yes, some of us still have to use that!) and hold masses of MP3s, videos, or even a full length feature film. There’s none of the lumpiness that’s inevitable with a USB stick – yes the SD card is really so small and thin you can take it anywhere.

make sure you get a quality SD card for your netbook

SD cards have plunged in price recently, and now you can buy them in most supermarkets, so how do you choose the right SD card for you?

Well first, there’s the size. You can get up to 32Gigabytes now on an SD card, but not all devices can handle an SD card that big. It may sound a bit tame, but I stick to 4Gig SD cards as I know for certain they work with practically everything. Soon, most things will be sure to work with 8Gig cards, but I’ve found one or two universal card readers and even a DVD player that won’t handle them, so I’m cautious.

Then, there’s how much to pay for your netbook’s SD card.

Well to some extent you still get what you pay for, and there’s absolutely NO point in saving 50 pence and having your SD card fail and lose your prized copy of Michael Jackson’s immortal hits on video.

Choose a good make of SD card for your netbook such as Sandisk or Kingston. They cost that little bit more than the unbranded ones, but usually come with a lifetime guarantee and the main thing is you know they’ve been tested, made to last and you can trust them.

My friend Josh was chuffed that he’d saved two pounds on a couple of SD cards by buying unbranded from a supermarket that shall remain nameless. He buys SD cards in pairs as he’s a cautious man is Josh and double copies everything in case of failure. He’d burned a rare copy of a Robert Johnson track he’d picked up on to both of them as he likes to carry Robert Johnson just everywhere.  And you guessed it, both failed on him.

He wasn’t so pleased with his canny purchase after that, and now, like me, Josh always buys Sandisk SD cards. We’ve never had one fail on us, and don’t know anybody who has.

Even a great Sandisk 4Gig SD card will cost a lot less than a tenner, so you’re saving very little, and to me at any rate the peace of mind is worth far more than that. Click here, or  on the pic above to check out today’s best price on the 4Gig Sandisk card.

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