Each new smartphone model that appears on the market comes with a larger storage capacity. This is a prerequisite to be able to store large amounts of data or host multiple applications. Besides that, there are many phones that offer an external storage option. In them, users can use a micro SD card or a TF card to expand your memory.
TF (the acronym for Trans Flash) is a little known name to memory card users. However, almost all of us use them or have used them at some point. We explain everything here.
What is a TF card?
TransFlash was the original name of the micro Secure Digital (SD) cards. These cards were released by the SanDisk company in 2004. The creation of the TF card was a milestone. It was presented as the smallest memory card of all time (the size of a fingernail!) And its main use was to store data in digital form.
Micro SD and TF cards can be used in different types of devices, from smartphones and digital cameras to computers. In them you can store various information such as audios, videos or images.
In other words: TF Card was the initial name of the invention, although the product of SanDisk Company that would be later marketed is the micro SD card. Updating and improving the product is something that all companies and manufacturers do. These improvements also include name changes, usually for marketing and merchandising reasons. And that is precisely what happened with the name change by TransFlash. A change definitively materialized in 2005.
Differences between TF card and SD card
If we accept that the TF card and the SD card are actually two different names for the same thing, there would be no room to make any kind of difference between them. However, there are some distinctive aspects when comparing a current card with an "old" TF card:
Full Name
The SD card designation, i.e. the Secure Digital memory card, comes from the translation of this concept from the Chinese language on a secure digital card. Actually, the decision to rename TF (T-Flash) cards as MicroSD, was an initiative of the SDA. This association was founded in 2000 and has a significant presence of Chinese companies.
Storage capacity
The SD card is a new generation of memory device based on semiconductor flash memory. Instead, when we talk about a TF card, we are referring to a very small flash memory (the one before 2005).
As a result, the storage capacity is different for each type of card. The capacities in which we can find each of them are these:
- TF card: 128G, 64G, 32G, 16G, 8G, 6G, 4G, 2G, 1G, 512M, 256M and 128M.
- SD card: 512G, 128G, 64G, 32G, 16G, 8G, 6G, 4G, 2G, 1G, 512M, 256M and 128M.
Origin
The first SD cards were jointly developed by Panasonic, Toshiba and SanDisk in August 1999. On the other hand, the latest generation of TF cards appeared in 2004 from Motorola and SanDisk. It was the last with this name.
Size and appearance
If we compare a TF card from fifteen years ago with a current SD card, the first thing that strikes us is that its size is different. The dimensions of the SD card are 24mm x 32mm x 2,1mm. Instead, those of a TF card are 15mm x 11mm x 1mm.
Differences in size and appearance between the two types of memory card
In addition, they are also different from an aesthetic point of view. For example, if we look closely we can see that the small metal sheets on the back are also distributed in a different way on each type of card.
Security
The SD card has a write protection system (called a lock switch) that does not exist in the TF card. There are, however, some methods to overcome this deficiency, such as using a sizing adapter.
Use
Normally, the SD card is used in mobile phones in order to increase the storage capacity. Thanks to its smaller physical volume and increasingly large storage space, it is also a very popular choice on some GPT devices, portable music players, and other flash drives.
Being larger than SD cards, the TransFlash option is still the most common in a large number of portable digital devices, such as digital cameras, DSLRs, portable game consoles, etc.
Price
Finally, even belonging to the same brand and with the same storage capacities, the price of the SD card will always be significantly higher than that of the TF card.
Despite all these differences, the function of these cards is the same and they can be used in the same devices. However, in many new phone models, the space allocated to accommodate the external memory is adapted only to the size of the SD cards. Fortunately, it is possible to convert a TF card to an SD card, although not the other way around.
Buy a TF card
The microSD card is a small flash memory, which can hold up to 32GB of storage capacity as microSDHC and currently up to 2 TB as microSDXC, is used regularly in almost all models of smartphones, cameras, camcorders, tablets and many other devices. What's more, even the configurable memory cards used in old video game consoles where you can pull home games from the internet use a micro SD as storage. Without going any further, they can be found on consoles like Nintendo GameCube.
Indeed, you might think that the TF card is the past and the microSD the future. But that is not exactly the case. As we have seen before, certain types of devices require TF cards. How to choose the best one? Here are some practical tips:
- Only buy cards from recognized brands and that they provide correct customer service: SanDisk, Toshiba, Kingston, Samsung, Lexar, Transcend, Sony, etc.
- Look at the numbering from 1 to 10 that marks the Speed Class. The higher it is, the better the performance.