Sd Card Search

[Richard871]

Hello All:

I have been checking all around the web to find the best card for the Pandora. I found a couple that should do the job for me.

I was curious if anyone found any good cards around the web for the pandora. "Looking for the best Value"

Thanks for any help in advance.

 

[Wheels]

You should know to never trust SD cards you find on e-Bay, they're often a ripoff.
Newegg is where I go to shop online, they generally have a great selection with good prices, and in my experience good customer service.

 

[Prometheus]

It's a bit tricky to recommend anything if we don't know your country. Myself, I'm more-than-happy with the "own-brand" SDHC Cards from Play.com - I picked up a few 16GB cards before flash-media prices started rising last year, and they're most excellent.

That aside, I'm afraid I'm going to have to do what I always do when the subject of SD Cards comes up, and warn you against purchasing on eBay, or from third parties selling via well-known retail sites such as Amazon, and the like. There are a lot of fake cards out there, which are manipulated in order to report a false capacity to whatever operating system you happen to use. Please take a look at the first five links in my signature, below, for more information on this before you make a purchase.

 

[Grench]

Hello All:

I have been checking all around the web to find the best card for the Pandora.

To me anyway, the best card would be the least expensive but dependable one that caps out the interface/slot's speed.

At a minimum I want the SDHC card to be as fast as the Pandora is capable of reading.
In theory it would be nice to have the card write as fast as the Pandora is capable of as well.
So far we know that the SDHC card slot interface is capped @ 24MB/sec. Whether that is net bandwidth (read+write) or 24MB/sec bi-directional or if it has other limitations or inefficiencies - we don't know.

Frankly there is no way to answer the primary criteria, "caps out the slot's speed," until someone builds or finds a benchmarking application that can get used on lots of cards in lots of Pandoras and posted up together. Then the data should show that cards over X speed don't gain anything because X is the true throughput cap. And that won't be clear until someone buys a card that is too fast for the Pandora.

Once that criteria is figured out, least expensive should be easy to spot.

Dependable is always a difficult one. By the time trends are developed for any one media card, it and all of it's counter parts are already obsolete and replaced by new versions.

So, who has or can write a viable benchmarking program that can test min/max/avg read/write to all media devices on a Pandora? May as well hit USB as well as the internal NAND (read only) to use as a 0 line or benchmark. Even better would be if they created a text output file that could be posted to a thread in the forums - then have the thread auto read by another program to generate card to card comparative statistics. Or not.

 

[Richard871]

I am from the US,and I was just curious what cards people found for their pandora, so i would see if I missed anything.

This is the only one I found that I think is good so far through my search.

My link

Thanks for you responses!

 

[MonkeyChops]

I bought my 8gig class 6 shortly after ordering (year and a half ago) and paid 20 bucks from newegg. I see that the price really hasn't changed much since then. I've been waiting to get another card and almost pulled the trigger a couple times when the pandora was "getting close" to shipping. I decided last time to wait till the pandora was in my hands to order another card but it looks like it doesn't matter much, sd card pricing seems very stabile right now.

 

[DaMummy]

i purchased 6 32gb sandisk ultra's from newegg when they were on sale, though i plan to resell 4-5 of them, and maybe just use a fast 4gb card in the other sd slot

 

[paulguy]

Well, in linux to do a good sequential test, you can always use something like dd. it always gives you the amount of data transferred, the time, and then calculates the rate from that after any operation.

As for pattern/random IO tests, I figure there's something more specific out there for it, even for linux. Otherwise, it's nothing terribly complicated that someone couldn't write up. Linux is pretty nice with the direct block device access, and in that way, it should bypass any disk caching.

 

[dflemstr]

As for pattern/random IO tests, I figure there's something more specific out there for it, even for linux. Otherwise, it's nothing terribly complicated that someone couldn't write up. Linux is pretty nice with the direct block device access, and in that way, it should bypass any disk caching.

#For a 1GiB SD card (adjust count=whatever otherwise)

#Create a test file the size of the SD card filled with random data
#(The "urandom" device spits out random data for you, and you copy that data into a file)
dd if=/dev/urandom of=testfile1 bs=1M count=1024

#Write the test file to SD card (adjust /dev/sdb to point to the SD card)
dd if=testfile1 of=/dev/sdb bs=1M

#Read back data from the SD card
dd if=/dev/sdb of=testfile2 bs=1M

#Compare the two files
cmp testfile1 testfile2
#If there is no output, the files are identical

 

[Mjlink]

In hopes of getting a Pandora soon, I ordered one of these:
http://microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0314845

Not sure if your in the US etc, not sure how well this will work, but I'll report back in a few days.

I have a 16gb A-Data that I picked up from NewEgg last year it is very good for the price as well as a 8gb A-Data MicroSDHC that i've had no issues with.

Not sure about the Tiger Direct other than the one reviewer said it didn't write fast enough for Class 6/HD Video, but not thinking the Pandora needs anything that fast either. Clarification here would be great for anyone knowing how I can test these cards for speed on Mac OS X.

Peace & Redwood Kush,

Link

 

[Mjlink]

So excuse my double post but might as well dig up an old post to clear out some of this tomfoolery.

I would like to present my findings of MicroCenter regarding the 32gb SDHC card.

First I was about to bitch about them screwing me on shipping, but they didn't.

It cost me $76.94 total
$1.00 Shipping
$5.95 Sales Tax (CA)

I called last week to see how it would be shipped, the young lady told me that it would ship Fed-Ex. So I ordered it February 10th, just prior to Presiden't Day Weekend (no postal service Monday, but Fed-Ex Yes). It shipped the Saturday or Sunday (notice dated 2-14, nothing moves on Sundays outbound, regardless).

Its now February 22nd, 12 days after the order, it arrived US Mail (bad info from the girl on the phone, I didn't expect FedEx to take over a week) today from Pennsylvania (my home state, which now makes sense on sales tax b/c my bank account still has a PA billing address). Priority shipping was $.88, I might recommend going with a quicker shipping option if it exists for a reasonable price. At this point, it wasn't urgent, if Chinese New Year worked out in our favor, then FedEx might have been the way to fly. 2 Day ship would have been $8 not $1, while NEXT day was $11 (that's a F'n steal IMHO).

The card itself is pretty damn quick. My MacBook Pro transferred 12+gb of my GP2X stuff to the card in about 20 minutes, wasn't watching while I was surfing the net. The card feels sturdy, like my AData 16gb card (I mention this because of using Mini/Micro/SD adapters that are thin and delicate in comparison to not needing a conversion card). When I place it into the Macbook, its recognized within 3 seconds of insertion to the SD card port.

Would love to try it out on my Dingoo, but, it won't fit

Hope this helps some people out, it seems like a good price. I will be trying the card with a GoPro HD Surf cam when I get one of those, I'm sure if I order one today, I'll get it before my Pandora...

Here's to some more hope.

Peace & Vapor

Link

PS My only gripe is the card is blue, but this could be a benefit when showing new people the Pandora, you can warn them about the blue card easily whereas black would give you a "What card, where?"

 

[Jumpman]

I've got 2 of these! http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820220359&cm_re=sdhc_32gb-_-20-220-359-_-Product They are just sitting here, waiting for there new home. I was using one with my WIZ last year until I retired it.

I actually was planning to sell my WIZ at Christmas, and never got the time, and last week I actually got bit by the WIZ bug for a secong time, and order one of these card in 16GB! So my WIZ is out of retirement, at least until my Pandora arrives! All 3 sd cards work perfect. Patriot Rules!


Chris

 

[second exodous]

I still like to buy brands I trust and Transcend seems like the best read/write performance by a large margin compared to cheaper cards and are even faster than cards in their price range and the more expensive cards also. I always buy the TS16GSDHC6, it's a 16GB class 6 card, I've owned 3 of them and none have failed yet. I gave one away when I gave my GP2X away but still use the other two often.

Everyone goes gaga for Kingston for some unknown reason and after this article I would steer clear of them. Also, they are slow even for class 4 cards, I have a few class 4 RiDATA cards that wipe the floor with them. My RiDATA hit the USB 2.0 limit for pretty constant transfer rates while the Kingston spike here and there but over all are pretty slow.

Also, just from what I read, 32GB cards aren't doing so well in the speed/quality department. Reviews of 32GB cards on Amazon and Newegg are always plagued with complaints, much higher than 16GB cards. I'm going to hold off on 32GB cards until I start seeing better reviews so for now I have two 16GB cards for a total of 32GB. Who knows, maybe when companies start pushing it to 64GB they will be forced to use better chips and will resolve the problems 32GB cards have.

I would recommend searching for TS16GSDHC6 and buying from a seller that looks on the up and up.

 

[fischju2000]

I've got 2 of these! http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820220359&cm_re=sdhc_32gb-_-20-220-359-_-Product They are just sitting here, waiting for there new home. I was using one with my WIZ last year until I retired it.

I actually was planning to sell my WIZ at Christmas, and never got the time, and last week I actually got bit by the WIZ bug for a secong time, and order one of these card in 16GB! So my WIZ is out of retirement, at least until my Pandora arrives! All 3 sd cards work perfect. Patriot Rules!


Chris

I have a 16gb from Patriot (From Newegg) and plan on getting another, they are great cards. $90 is too much for an SD card for me, only $35 for a 16GB (got mine for $20 due to some great sales last year).

Sandisk has started shipping 64GB SDXC cards for $350 http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/22/sandisk-ships-64gb-ultra-sdxc-card-for-350/

 

[Prometheus]

@second exodus - That article was an interesting read - have you thought about passing it on to SOSFakeFlash?

Reading the comments I'm not entirely sure why Kingston should be avoided, though, as it sounds like a distributor issue (I'll quote one exchange below).

AgentX says:
February 16, 2010 at 8:27 am

Hi Bunny,

Really interesting post. I have something to add: about a year ago I bought a Kingston microSD card from an Amazon marketplace seller. It came with an adaptor that strangely was a few mm too wide for an SD slot. This arose my suspicions so I emailed Kingston, providing them with pictures of the card ( http://i50.tinypic.com/aeb7s3.jpg http://i49.tinypic.com/34edtgy.jpg ). It looks very similar to your sample. I received email confirmation that it was a counterfeit card: “Based on the images provided, I am sorry to confirm that the part is not a genuine Kingston product … The numbers on the card are not our serial numbers. Someone had to imitate them.” It seems like we’re receiving different explanations.
Reply

*
Anonymous Coward says:
February 16, 2010 at 8:06 pm

Bunnie bought his directly from an authorized distributor.
Hard to tell someone he bought fakes from your own distributor.
Reply
o
Tarantino says:
February 17, 2010 at 12:39 pm

Just because it was an “authorized distributor” doesn’t mean that they’re above getting cheaper counterfit cards and calling them Kingston. Especially in todays smaller margin world.

This blog explains why one of my kingston cards will, and one of my kingston cards wont, work in the same machine. I hope the head of the Totem pole @ Kingston does something about it. I had been buying Kingston exclusively, but now I’m rethinking my decision.
Reply

 

[Mjlink]

I figure $70 for a 32gb SDHC card is a nice price for a reputable multi-state company in the US. If MicroCenter was a internet only site I might be more hesitant to be so positive, but they aren't Circuit City (haha).

I read some reviews of them and figured I'd give it a try and that is why I posted my results here. If anyone knows of a program that I could use to benchmark this thing on Mac OS X, let me know.

I think people get too hyped up in the names on memory, they aren't sunglasses, its all 1s and 0s. Granted those rogue scammers on Ebay, but MicroCenter seems legit and put their own name on the card.

Peace & SnowG (Sno-Cap x OG Kush)

Link

 

[second exodous]

@second exodus - That article was an interesting read - have you thought about passing it on to SOSFakeFlash?

Reading the comments I'm not entirely sure why Kingston should be avoided, though, as it sounds like a distributor issue (I'll quote one exchange below).

Spoiler

AgentX says:
February 16, 2010 at 8:27 am

Hi Bunny,

Really interesting post. I have something to add: about a year ago I bought a Kingston microSD card from an Amazon marketplace seller. It came with an adaptor that strangely was a few mm too wide for an SD slot. This arose my suspicions so I emailed Kingston, providing them with pictures of the card ( http://i50.tinypic.com/aeb7s3.jpg http://i49.tinypic.com/34edtgy.jpg ). It looks very similar to your sample. I received email confirmation that it was a counterfeit card: “Based on the images provided, I am sorry to confirm that the part is not a genuine Kingston product … The numbers on the card are not our serial numbers. Someone had to imitate them.” It seems like we’re receiving different explanations.
Reply

*
Anonymous Coward says:
February 16, 2010 at 8:06 pm

Bunnie bought his directly from an authorized distributor.
Hard to tell someone he bought fakes from your own distributor.
Reply
o
Tarantino says:
February 17, 2010 at 12:39 pm

Just because it was an “authorized distributor” doesn’t mean that they’re above getting cheaper counterfit cards and calling them Kingston. Especially in todays smaller margin world.

This blog explains why one of my kingston cards will, and one of my kingston cards wont, work in the same machine. I hope the head of the Totem pole @ Kingston does something about it. I had been buying Kingston exclusively, but now I’m rethinking my decision.
Reply

I guess avoiding them was a little harsh, but I wouldn't get Kingston just for the other reason I stated: they're slow. Off the top of my head I think they make class 6 cards but they're expensive compared to other class 6 cards.

The only reason Kingston are being counterfeit is because people go gaga over them like I said before. I still don't get this, is it because they are made in Japan? I know a lot of people that are loyal to them and/or Sansdisk, willing to pay twice as much for slower cards. I'm loyal to Transcend lately but only because I own a few 16GB cards, but as of right now I wouldn't buy a 32GB card from them because the comments on their 32GB cards are not good. Oh, I do have two 8GB class 6 mircoSD cards from them also, just as fast as my other class 6 Transcend cards.

RiDATA is also good but I think they're going out of business or shrinking as I can't find many stores that carry their cards.

If I find glowing comments of any 32GB cards on here I'll probably go with whatever brand is mentioned, I just don't like the reviews of any 32GB cards.

 

[Prometheus]

I guess avoiding them was a little harsh, but I wouldn't get Kingston just for the other reason I stated: they're slow.

Understandable. I've got a couple of Class 4 Kingston cards, but they're fine for my needs - I don't have any requirement for speed other than "moderately quick". :lol:

I still don't get this, is it because they are made in Japan? I know a lot of people that are loyal to them and/or Sansdisk, willing to pay twice as much for slower cards.

I'm afraid I have no idea! Over here, before flash prices started rising, I generally found that Kingston's cards were more affordable than the other well-known brands, though.

 

[Tor]

I still like to buy brands I trust and Transcend[...]

Over at Brighthand the consensus seems to be that there are really only 3 SD card manufacturers out there: Toshiba, Sandisk, Panasonic.
Everyone else (Transcend, Kingston, A-Data etc.) are only rebranding.
That doesn't mean there aren't differences, presumably those manufacturers have different types of batches or quality etc.
And lastly, Panasonic cards are generally considered the best cards (again, according to Brighthand forum members).

 

[second exodous]

I still like to buy brands I trust and Transcend[...]

Over at Brighthand the consensus seems to be that there are really only 3 SD card manufacturers out there: Toshiba, Sandisk, Panasonic.
Everyone else (Transcend, Kingston, A-Data etc.) are only rebranding.
That doesn't mean there aren't differences, presumably those manufacturers have different types of batches or quality etc.
And lastly, Panasonic cards are generally considered the best cards (again, according to Brighthand forum members).

True, but even with re-branded if the company is a trustworthy they'll only buy quality chips. I've also read Panasonic is the best but they are also really pricey.

Micron, although they don't market their chips under their own name, make SD chips also. I have no idea who buys their chips but I do know that they have at least one factory in the US that makes them.