4Gb are better than 8 ... This time.

So as you know I have been having issues with my 8 Gb card. A recap of the problems.

1. Files kept getting corrupt
2. The speed was SOOOOOO SSSSLLLLOOOOWWWWW
3. Other small things I can't remember

So as a test months ago I swapped out the 8 for one of my 1Gb cards to see how it acted.
The problem was definitely with the 8Gb card. Well now that my wife has an 8Gb I-Phone I am envious of the space I lost. So I have been tweaking again with the card to see what I can get out of it.

First observation.
When I removed the 8Gb card from my DV Camera (where I was using it temporarily) and transferred the files to my PC before reformatting it for my Treo, it was FAST. Real Fast. Like 1 Gb in less than a minute fast. However once I reformatted it and started copying files back to it for the Treo it took forever. 1 Gb was taking about 30 min. I tried several different formatting methods and chunk sizes .... none of them made a difference.

Then I realized that when the card was formatted for the camera that camera had formatted it to 4 Gb. So I thought maybe some of these cards act like CPU's that are essentially under clocked to work at a stable speed. So I put card BACK in my DV camera and formatted it on that, then copied the files for the Treo back on it. The copy speed was slightly better, but nothing compared to my first copy experience. However when I put in in my Treo it was only SLIGHTLY slower than the 1 Gb card I had in there.

So now I am running an 8Gb card, formatted down to 4 Gb and running relatively beautiful.
The single issue I had with it was when I was copying the files for the Treo back onto it. I kept getting corruption errors. However running and scan disk and correcting the errors while looking for bad sectors seems to do the trick.

Sure I am wasting 4 Gb of space I could be using, but it wasn't working very well at all as an 8Gb card and is working wonderfully as a 4 Gb, so I see it as a success. If anything changes I will let you know.