SanDisk Demoing SD Card That's Also a USB Flash Drive

SanDisk is demonstrating at this week's CES tradeshow a prototype of an SD card that can also be be used with the USB port on a desktop or laptop.

This card can be put into any SD card slot, and then plugged directly into any USB port without needing an SD card reader.

Michael Morganstern, a SanDisk product marketing manager, said, "We developed a new mechanical design which allows us to fully contain a high-speed 2.0 USB flash drive within the small SD form factor. The innovative mechanical design eliminates the need for a removable cap, which can be lost, and results in a dual functionality card that is fully SD compliant. The device also features an LED that blinks when data transfer is taking place to indicate that the card is being used as a USB flash drive."

SanDisk says the first products using this design will be released sometime during the first quarter of this year. The company says it will provide further details at the annual Photo Marketing Association show in late February.

At that time, SanDisk is expected to introduce USB/SD cards that can hold as much as 1 GB of data.

SanDisk isn't the first company to try to combine an SD card with a USB Flash drive. Unlike the one announced recently by Digimaster, though, SanDisk's card can fit entirely inside of a device's SD slot.

Related Links

• Upcoming SD Card Also Acts as USB Flash Drive
• Brighthand's Coverage of CES 2005