[C_Jones]

I know different people may have differing or similar opinions/needs in some cases.

I prefer my SD cards, SD slot(s) in my camera, and an SD card reader which connects to my computer via a USB cable.

[automorphism]

Most people won't use this feature enough to justify it.

You could also ask this question another way: why do computers come with a hard drive at all? They have a complex OS and programs that need constant updating and that need to be there all the time, which is something cameras don't have.

[maltfalc]

better idea, give the camera 4 sd card slots that can run simultaneously and let the user choose from different raid configurations depending on whether they want redundant copies or 4X normal write speed or whatever.

[Igor123]

Most people won't use this feature enough to justify it.

You could also ask this question another way: why do computers come with a hard drive at all? They have a complex OS and programs that need constant updating and that need to be there all the time, which is something cameras don't have.

Maybe were heading in the same direction...computers didn't use to have harddrives (and as for updating...we'll as often as you bought a new os on floppy disks..), but as you say the OS (of the camera as well) get's more complex, you start having programs (or "apps") that maybe do some specific image processing or facebook sharing or DOF calculator or nightsky-gps map for astro or whatever, and suddenly maybe it will make sense to have some harddrive..?

---------- Post added 07-31-2017 at 09:47 AM ----------

better idea, give the camera 4 sd card slots that can run simultaneously and let the user choose from different raid configurations depending on whether they want redundant copies or 4X normal write speed or whatever.

This I can get behind...I think I would still prefer the SSD approach, but even today, with an improved bus in the camera they should be able to write to alternating SD-cards in parallel at and least and double the write speed... a "raidmode" of sorts with more card slots could improve the write speed further (otherwise still just limited to the max speed of one card), but compared to my approach, the need recombine the data afterfwards (with a separate program perhaps) from a number of such "raidwritten" sd-cards would probably be a bit non-usefriendly (and use space, 4 slots!)

[maltfalc]

This I can get behind...I think I would still prefer the SSD approach, but even today, with an improved bus in the camera they should be able to write to alternating SD-cards in parallel at and least and double the write speed... a "raidmode" of sorts with more card slots could improve the write speed further (otherwise still just limited to the max speed of one card), but compared to my approach, the need recombine the data afterfwards (with a separate program perhaps) from a number of such "raidwritten" sd-cards would probably be a bit non-usefriendly (and use space, 4 slots!)

4 slots each only recording every fourth photo would quadruple write speed with no need for any additional software, and if space becomes an issue, micro sd.

[Igor123]

4 slots each only recording every fourth photo would quadruple write speed with no need for any additional software, and if space becomes an issue, micro sd.

Well, it would increase speed to a certain degree: The theoretical max speed would only be used after you've taken more than four shots (since one pic is only written to one card, but I agree, it's mostly only then more speed is needed), and even then resulting in a top speed of 4x max card speed. If the bus is upgraded to the max and using top-performance cards it would still result in a max speed of 4*90mb/s=360mb/s, which is only a bit more than about half of the max data production rate for the K1 and the buffer could still fill up. Sure we could add 8 cards then instead to write faster than you can shoot but with 8 cards it starts getting ridiculous =), that's why I favored the SSD - you get those speeds with a couple of storage chips.

So I agree 4 cards would be a (large?) improvement over today (aside from somewhat more hassle when offloading 4 cards since many here seems to prefer that way to offload the data), but for my part I'd still prefer an SSD-version due to the advantages I mentioned above, unlimited buffer, and if paired with usb 3.1 or later, it could be read/offloaded at 1Gb/s, while the cards would still have the max 4*90mb/s and/or having to eject 4 of them depending on the camera bus speed or prefering to offload by cardreader.

[Lowell Goudge]

I was thinking...people often compare buffer depths for fps, and card write speeds for memory cards etc..but phones are getting fast dedicated storage in addition to memory cards (many don't even have memory cards anymore). Why don't cameras?

Say we get a K1-II with 20 fps! Thats ~800mb/s, but sequential write like this is no problem for a (good) SSD. Sure SSDs cost a bit, but this could be a small one..say 16gb, maybe cheaper than the ram memory used today it could replace (not all of it but the buffer part), and with current 7fps that would be buffer depth of perhaps 450 images, or more than a minute of holding the trigger. And that's without emptying it on a sd-card while writing...

OR, we could have a disk of 256gb and not worry about cards (or one slot perhaps if wanting to get out the images that way for some reason). It would still be a fraction of the price of the camera ($100/each for a large batch?) and replace need to buy a card for most users. (No, size isn't a problem, there are usb-stick-sized SSDs with >1TB capacity so 256 gb is probably at most a couple of chips.

So as serious question, there must be valid reasons why no camera has this...what are they?
(And don't just say people need to take the card with them quickly swap etc - a card slot can co-exist while people get used to it, or when needing it, but there are much faster ways to move data than SD-cards lousy 90mb/s for the fastest ones..)

just to be clear, the storage on phones, specifically apple devices is fixed for a simple reason, apple is in the business of selling streaming media and copy protected media (songs and movies) , removable storage was never considered because it makes it hard to control the distribution of media. the down side is that the media has a wear out life (write cycles before failure), and continual writing to the same media would lead to wear out. especial in the File Allocation Table area. when you consider a camera, do you want it to tunr into junk due to a memory failure? how many people here have written in about memory card failures, do you want that to propagate to blame the maker of the camera

[Igor123]

just to be clear, the storage on phones, specifically apple devices is fixed for a simple reason, apple is in the business of selling streaming media and copy protected media (songs and movies) , removable storage was never considered because it makes it hard to control the distribution of media. the down side is that the media has a wear out life (write cycles before failure), and continual writing to the same media would lead to wear out. especial in the File Allocation Table area. when you consider a camera, do you want it to tunr into junk due to a memory failure? how many people here have written in about memory card failures, do you want that to propagate to blame the maker of the camera

Sorry but I don't think that's the reason (SSDs are not part of the camera), SD-card endurance and proper SSD-flash or not on the same level...as I wrote earlier in the thread:

The endurance of a consumer grade ssd (samsung evo 850 250 gb) is rated at 500Tib >16million shots - that's a bit more than the shutter.

I agree that it can fail in other ways than flash memory corruption, but so can many other parts of the camera.

(EDIT: As for writing to the same (file allocation) area, SSDs have long had controllers that spread the load over the entire chip over time to avoid this, and usually have some overprovisioning to further increase the lifespan by not using dead cells)

[angerdan]

If the bus is upgraded to the max and using top-performance cards it would still result in a max speed of 4*90mb/s=360mb/s, which is only a bit more than about half of the max data production rate for the K1 and the buffer could still fill up.

UHS-III bus interface allows FD624 bus speed of 624Mbyte/s.
Secure Digital - Wikipedia

Currently fastest UHS-II SDXC cards can write 250-300Mbyte/s.
https://www.idealo.co.uk/benchmark/100C4331026-4776461-4931855-5149189-5343651-5403797.html

So shooting 8fps RAW with one Card is already possible. Even without greater internal buffer of the DSLR.

just to be clear, the storage on phones, specifically apple devices is fixed for a simple reason, apple is in the business of selling streaming media and copy protected media (songs and movies) , removable storage was never considered because it makes it hard to control the distribution of media.

Secure Digital Memory Card Standard includes the possibility to protect copyright protected content. Also Apple could've choose the option to use memory cards only for non-apple (iTunes) contents
The Security in Secure Digital - How Secure Digital Memory Cards Work | HowStuffWorks
Secure Digital - Wikipedia

[Igor123]

UHS-III bus interface allows FD624 bus speed of 624Mbyte/s.
Secure Digital - Wikipedia

Currently fastest UHS-II SDXC cards can write 250-300Mbyte/s.
https://www.idealo.co.uk/benchmark/100C4331026-4776461-4931855-5149189-5343651-5403797.html

So shooting 8fps RAW with one Card is already possible. Even without greater internal buffer of the DSLR.

Ah, didn't know that, then by all means a better bus would solve the buffer problem if a good enough card and writer was used then!

But as for shooting RAW with 8 fps with one card today, I don't agree; the K1 seems to max out at 30mb/s or so due to the bus, regardless if the card handles 40, 80 or 320 mb/s, so we need a major bus improvement at least first.

But maybe that's the reason then...the size/price ratio of SSDs maybe wasn't good enough until recently for this to become a valid or better option, while the next camera generation can have cards that remove the need for a deep buffer (and allow for faster offload than today through usb or wifi) if the camera bus permits it, so maybe it just wasn't worth investing in developing such a camera for the ~1 generation where ssds would have made sense.

(If this was a support forum I think I could be ok with selecting that post as "Accepted answer" =) )

[victormeldrew]

Technically, there is no significant difference between SSD and SD...they are both fast flash RAM. The storage medium makes no difference to how big/how fast the buffer can be. The main issue is file processing and the data transfer bus. Either of these can be improved at a cost (fairly significant) and with some side effects (heat generation/dissipation for example), without need for changing the storage medium and creating unintended consequences such as the issues described above - non-replaceable, single point of failure, fixed size, onboard data that is the most hated feature of every device that has it...actually second only to a non-replaceable battery I guess.

[angerdan]

But as for shooting RAW with 8 fps with one card today, I don't agree; the K1 seems to max out at 30mb/s or so due to the bus, regardless if the card handles 40, 80 or 320 mb/s, so we need a major bus improvement at least first.

Pentax just has to use the already available technology in their cameras. Bus speed is already available.
I don't know why Pentax stepped back to external USB 2.0 with K-1, since they offered it with the K-3 II.

If a possible K-1 II would have one USB controller for each SD-Slot and at least maximum UHS-II support (HD312 = 312Mbyte/s), performance would be in competition to CaNikon.

[photoptimist]

UHS-II requires double the electrical power of UHS-I and having one controller for each slot would also double the power again. Fast SSDs also require a lot more power than SD cards and having both SSD ans SD would increase power even more unless writing to the SD is disabled during shooting.

The higher-end Canikon's have much larger batteries than the one used in the K-1.

[Igor123]

Technically, there is no significant difference between SSD and SD...they are both fast flash RAM. The storage medium makes no difference to how big/how fast the buffer can be. The main issue is file processing and the data transfer bus. Either of these can be improved at a cost (fairly significant) and with some side effects (heat generation/dissipation for example), without need for changing the storage medium and creating unintended consequences such as the issues described above - non-replaceable, single point of failure, fixed size, onboard data that is the most hated feature of every device that has it...actually second only to a non-replaceable battery I guess.

Ok, I just meant that if the "storage" is faster than data is generated by the camera, then only a small buffer (cheaper) would be needed since it could be dumped onto storage faster than the next image, thus guaranteeing an "endless" buffer that never fills as long as there is storage space.

---------- Post added 09-12-2017 at 03:41 PM ----------

UHS-II requires double the electrical power of UHS-I and having one controller for each slot would also double the power again. Fast SSDs also require a lot more power than SD cards and having both SSD ans SD would increase power even more unless writing to the SD is disabled during shooting.

The higher-end Canikon's have much larger batteries than the one used in the K-1.

More power would be needed, but if we consider the bus and storage to be in a near-off state while not used, that power increase can almost be disregarded. The power used while writing would increase, but so would throughput, so if measuring "energy expended per stored pixel", although more would be needed, I'm not sure it would be that much higher.

[photoptimist]

Ok, I just meant that if the "storage" is faster than data is generated by the camera, then only a small buffer (cheaper) would be needed since it could be dumped onto storage faster than the next image, thus guaranteeing an "endless" buffer that never fills as long as there is storage space.

---------- Post added 09-12-2017 at 03:41 PM ----------



More power would be needed, but if we consider the bus and storage to be in a near-off state while not used, that power increase can almost be disregarded. The power used while writing would increase, but so would throughput, so if measuring "energy expended per stored pixel", although more would be needed, I'm not sure it would be that much higher.

Although you are entirely right in regard to shots-per-charge (the energy budget for the camera), it's not true for the power budget. There are strict upper limits on the total permissible wattage being pulled from the battery to run the sensor, SR, CPU, RAM, mirror & shutter, AF, LCD display, SD card, etc.

Power increases cannot be disregarded if they overload the battery which causes the battery's output voltage to sag and which can crash the camera. Total power also affects thermal design and the chance that the camera will suffer shutdowns due to overheating of the battery or circuitry during extended use.