Tech Hobbyist Destroys 51 MicroSD Cards To Build Ultimate Performance Database (tomshardware.com)
- Reference: 0178244552
- News link: https://it.slashdot.org/story/25/07/01/155208/tech-hobbyist-destroys-51-microsd-cards-to-build-ultimate-performance-database
- Source link: https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/microsd-cards/microsd-card-testing-database-exposes-fakes-charts-performance-and-endurance-200-cards-tested-51-to-destruction-8-machines-running-70-card-readers-wrote-18-petabytes-for-testing
The 15,000-word report covering over 200 different cards reveals significant quality disparities. Name-brand cards purchased from Amazon performed markedly better than identical models from AliExpress, while cards with "fake flash" -- inflated capacity ratings -- performed significantly worse than authentic storage. Sandisk and Kingston cards averaged 4,634 and 3,555 read/write cycles before first error, respectively, while Lenovo cards averaged just 291 cycles. Some off-brand cards failed after only 27 cycles. Cole tested 51 cards to complete destruction during the endurance testing phase.
[1] https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/microsd-cards/microsd-card-testing-database-exposes-fakes-charts-performance-and-endurance-200-cards-tested-51-to-destruction-8-machines-running-70-card-readers-wrote-18-petabytes-for-testing
[2] https://www.bahjeez.com/the-great-microsd-card-survey/
The kind of destruction to get behind (Score:3, Insightful)
This is the kind of destruction we love to see. Destruction to determine product quality and help decide what to purchase. Not dumb destruction of brand new quality products in order to generate dumb clicks and dumb comments.
Re:The kind of destruction to get behind (Score:4, Interesting)
> This is the kind of destruction we love to see. Destruction to determine product quality and help decide what to purchase. Not dumb destruction of brand new quality products in order to generate dumb clicks and dumb comments.
Looking forward to when the high endurance cards finally reach the 1% failure state so that we can find out whether these things really are better than the standard cards. So far, the first failure of SanDisk High Endurance was *way* earlier than SanDisk Pro, on average, so I won't be surprised if it turns out that the whole high endurance thing is a scam.
Re: (Score:2)
I wouldn't say scam, but, its a marketing trick for "wear leveling" that standard microSD doesn't do. But just because you wear level doesn't make it more durable. Durability needs more NAND layers and more NAND chips and striping to truly shine, and microSD simply can't fit all that.
Useful for RPi owners, read wear tests need too (Score:2)
SD cards failing in RPis is hassle. If you can't use PXE or NVMe, such as on a RPi Zero then having trusted brand cards is a good plan and the work Matt is doing looks useful.
A dirty little secret of SD cards is they can fail from continuous reads too, such as when used in a looping media player. Reading cells cause some leakage to adjacent cells and the cards normally rewrite cells after many reads. However that happens in the background when the card is idle, so if you read without ever letting the
Ok, but... (Score:2)
Ok, great, someone has done the research to know which reliable cards to buy. However, how does one avoid counterfeit cards masquerading as these cards? For example, the Kingston Canvas Go! Plus 64GB card scored the best. When I go to Kingston's site to purchase one ( [1]https://www.kingston.com/en/me... [kingston.com] ) I can't. I'm only given a link where to purchase from. I would feel much better about my odds if I could purchase directly from Kingston. I refuse to order from Amazon because I have been burnt by counterfei
[1] https://www.kingston.com/en/memory-cards/canvas-go-plus-microsd-card#atc
Re: (Score:2)
> Ok, great, someone has done the research to know which reliable cards to buy. However, how does one avoid counterfeit cards masquerading as these cards? For example, the Kingston Canvas Go! Plus 64GB card scored the best. When I go to Kingston's site to purchase one ( [1]https://www.kingston.com/en/me... [kingston.com] ) I can't. I'm only given a link where to purchase from. I would feel much better about my odds if I could purchase directly from Kingston. I refuse to order from Amazon because I have been burnt by counterfeit goods (too many times!) too often. If Amazon has this problem I'm sure other outlets have the issue too.
This is a real concern. If brand name and model and external packaging can't be trusted, then the only way to truly determine endurance is to write enough to destroy the card, which is, of course, not practical because the testing has to be done for each physical card.
[1] https://www.kingston.com/en/memory-cards/canvas-go-plus-microsd-card#atc
Re: (Score:2)
The only trusted way to buy SD cards is to go in to best buy physically, or walmart or target or whatever trusted B&M store you have nearby.
Re: (Score:2)
> I refuse to order from Amazon because I have been burnt by counterfeit goods (too many times!) too often. If Amazon has this problem I'm sure other outlets have the issue too.
No the problem is Amazon. Amazon is not a reseller, Amazon is a flea market. Amazon does not care if someone creates a fake Kingston shop within their marketplace and sells them next to the official shop without regular people being able to tell them apart.
You need to buy electronic components from official resellers. I would trust those in the "industrial" category. If I select "USA" [1]https://www.kingston.com/en/wh... [kingston.com] then in between others, Mouser / Digikey appear and these one are of trust. The only probl
[1] https://www.kingston.com/en/wheretobuy/location/united%20states
yort (Score:1)
this kind of work is what actually pushes tech forward not vc pitches or crypto vaporware. matt cole’s survey is a public good built with care precision and transparency. it shows what happens when individuals apply persistence and open methods instead of chasing extractive profit. bitcoin is built the same way slow methodical trustless and verifiable. and communism would recognize this as labor serving the many not the few. cole isn’t selling hype he’s generating real value and sharing it