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memory cards,USB drives have the same range(in terms of size), what exactly causes their memory capacity to differ even though the sizes of the 1GB,2GB,8GB,16GB,32GB memory cards look the same physically. whatever this is, is it applicable to compact disc (i.e. 3.1inches)?

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A little background reading on what Flash Memory is and how it works will help you understand how it is different from CDs 1, DVDs 2 or Blu-ray discs 3.

While memory cards do come in different shapes and sizes, the increase in capacity with relatively little difference in size is due to improved technology that can pack in more bits of information per memory cell. So we have devices based on single-level cell (SLC) flash (with each cell storing only a single bit of information), multi-level cell (MLC) flash (2 bits per cell) and now triple-level cell (TLC) flash (3 bits per cell). MLC and TLC can store more bits per cell by choosing between multiple levels of electrical charge to apply to the cell's floating gates.

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SLC flash BTW has faster transfer speeds, lower power consumption and higher cell endurance, all of which come at a cost. MLC flash on the other hand has slower transfer speeds, higher power consumption and lower cell endurance than SLC, but is cheaper. Similarly TLC flash has even slower transfer speeds, higher error rates and lower cell endurance than both MLC and SLC. However TLC chips are physically smaller than SLC and MLC chips for a given memory capacity, require less power to operate than MLC memory and are cheaper to produce.

So not only do we have more information density per cell, we also have more memory density as both the transistor flash cell size and die area shrink in each successive generation of chips. In fact, Samsung recently announced that it has started production of advanced NAND flash devices with 128Gbit triple-level cell (TLC) NAND memory using 10-nm class process technology (there's a technical analysis here in case you're interested).

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  • thanks a lot.please i need to know if same applies for the compact disc 3(3.1") Jun 14, 2013 at 7:43
  • thanks a lot.please i need to know if same applies for the mini cds i.e compact disc 3(3.1inches). am on a project that needs me to describe how the cd3 can have as much memory capacity as the standard compact disc (i.e cd5) check this. Jun 14, 2013 at 7:51
  • Same capacity? The Tech Specs section of the Mini CD wiki article you linked to clearly states that the data capacity is only 185-210 MB, as compared to 650-703 MB on a standard CD. This article states the same (see the comparison table).
    – Karan
    Jun 14, 2013 at 15:28

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