Sony's Memory Stick

The floppy disk is dead, but what will replace it?

For software distribution, nothing seems to rival CD-ROM. Almost every computer has a CD-ROM drive, the 650 MB capacity is sufficient for almost anything (except for some very involved games), and they can be pressed for well under $1 per disk.

Zip drives are relatively inexpensive, adding $100 or more to the cost of a computer system. But the disks themselves are still $20 each. Still, they're relatively fast, have a decent capacity, and seem to be showing up everywhere.

SuperDisk is too slow to make serious inroads. CD-R is still to expensive. DVD-RAM costs even more. And the new Iomega Clik drive seems too little, too late.

Thinking Different

Leave it to Sony, the Apple of the consumer electronics world, to come up with a solid state alternative to spinning disks.

The Memory Stick is small, measuring about 0.85" wide, 2" long, and 0.1" thick (21.5 x 50 x 2.8mm). That's a little thinner than a 3.5" floppy, half as long, and about as wide as a stick of gum.

Media will initially ship in 4 MB, 8 MB, and 16 MB capacities. I think we can safely assume higher capacity sticks in the future.

The Memory Stick uses flash memory and communicates serially with your computer, organizer, digital camera, MP3 player, etc. That's right - it's cross platform not just among computers, but designed to work in all manner of consumer electronics (maybe even the next Play Station).

Write speed is 1.5 MB/s (megabytes per second), identical to the 12Mb/s (megabits per second) of USB. Read speed is faster at 2.45MB/s. Based on this, a USB connected Memory Stick reader/writer is probably something we'll see within the next year or so.

Also expect to see Memory Stick "drives" available in personal computers when this new technology achieves worldwide distribution - maybe even as a standard feature in a future iMac.

At this size, it could become very popular for digital cameras, especially since you'd no longer have to send data from the camera to the computer via a slow serial connection. Eject the Stick, pop it into your computer, and read it. Although slower than your hard drive, read speed should be comparable to that of a fast CD-ROM drive.

Sony is projecting 3,300 yen for a 4 MB Stick, 4,400 yen for an 8 MB Stick, and 11,000 yen for the Memory Stick PC Card Adapter. At the current exchange rate, this translates to about $28 for a 4 MB Stick, $37 for an 8 MB Stick, and $92 for the PC Card that lets them work with a computer. (I can't find pricing for the 16 MB Memory Stick on Sony's site.)

Pros and Cons

The Memory Stick Adapter should be cost competitive with Zip drives and SuperDisk. The speed will be excellent, and response should be instantaneous - no need to spin a disk up to speed before you can access it.

Like Zips and floppies, the media can be reused.

But from a strictly computer perspective, media looks very expensive. A $1 CD-R can store 650 MB, a $10 Zip can hold almost 100 MB, but the $37 Stick has a capacity of only 8 MB.

However, there are other markets, such as digital cameras, where the media cost of Memory Sticks will be very attractive. And, as more of us have digital cameras along with computers, the use of Memory Sticks could be a real plus.

Sony's hope is to make Memory Stick a universal standard for digital equipment: cameras, computers, game systems, digital audio gear, etc. If Sony is as successful as they hope to be, the Memory Stick will be ubiquitous - and media costs should drop as the market grows and technology advances.

The Memory Stick has the potential to change the way we move data between various types of digital equipment.

Further reading

• Memory Stick, Sony