Sony increases its Vault size

As part of today's Sony announcements, the company has added an 8GB version of its Compact Vault drive to the lineup. The Vaults are CompactFlash II-size hard disk-based storage drives, similar to the more widely known Microdrive from Hitachi and the Seagate Photo hard drive, which are intended for use in high-end digital cameras.

Sony plans to price the 8GB card at $259.99 when it ships in June. That's more expensive than the competition, but Sony's claimed 12MB-per-second transfer rate is higher as well. All CompactFlash drives are cheaper than CompactFlash cards of comparable capacity, such as those from SanDisk, Kingston, and Lexar; however, the flash-based cards are faster, and because they have no moving parts or magnetic media, they are ultimately more durable and reliable.