Of the cards we’re considering in this article, CF has the largest footprint. CF cards are about the size of a matchbook. The format was first specified and produced by SanDisk in 1994. Today, many manufacturers offer CF cards.
There are two main types of CF cards: Type I and Type II (CF2) cards. The difference between CF Type I and CF Type II cards is the card thickness. Type I cards are 3.3 mm thick while Type II cards are 5 mm thick. A CF Type I card will operate in a CF Type I or CF Type II slot. A CF Type II card will only fit in a Type II slot. Type I cards are more prevalent.
There are also various speed ratings for CF cards: CF High Speed (using CF+/CF2.0), a faster CF 3.0 standard, and an even faster CF 4.0 standard that was introduced in 2007. UDMA (Ultra Direct Memory Access) CF cards are the newest standard. When Lexar announced its Professional UDMA CF cards, the company claimed the newer cards could deliver a 125% performance improvement over Lexar’s previous generation 133x CF product line when the card is used with a UDMA-enabled device.
CF cards are available in capacities ranging from about 512MB to 100GB. In stores, you’ll most commonly find cards that range from 1GB to 16GB.
