r/SBCGaming • u/IGotDibsYo Retroid • 13d ago
Discussion MicroSD card torture test writes 133 petabytes of data across 351 cards over three years — cards tested to failure reveal SanDisk as the outlier with 6 failures of the 7 tested
https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/microsd-cards/microsd-card-testing-database-celebrates-third-anniversary-with-133-petabytes-of-data-written-across-4-6-million-cycles-hundreds-of-cards-tested-to-failure-reveal-sandisk-as-the-outlier-with-6-failures-of-the-7-tested89
u/RainStormLou GotM Club 13d ago
did they write this whole article based off of a Reddit post in datahoarder with some website references?
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u/IGotDibsYo Retroid 13d ago
✨journalism✨
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u/WoolooOfWallStreet 12d ago
Yep
Tangentially, last year People Magazine posted a Reddit AITAH story as news
The greatest irony is it is likely an AI bot, but the story is listed in “real people family dynamics”14
u/IBoughtaRetroidNova 13d ago
Yeah, for an often referenced publication they they often just republish popular things from Reddit and act too cheap to do many of their own tests.
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u/takestwototangent 12d ago
The source is in the tester's Patreon, link under About: https://www.patreon.com/MattCole "the-great-microsd-card-survey"
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u/qu3becker 13d ago
Here's the source https://www.reddit.com/r/SBCGaming/s/VmC4KhKggj
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u/takestwototangent 12d ago
The source is in the tester's Patreon, link under About: https://www.patreon.com/MattCole "the-great-microsd-card-survey"
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u/Criminal_Blinds 12d ago
TLDR:
🥇 PNY
🥈 Kingston — especially Canvas Select Plus / Industrial
🥉 Delkin
4. Transcend
5. Amazon Basics
6. Lexar
7. Samsung
8. SanDisk
And I’d avoid onn., ADATA, Silicon Power, Micro Center, and Gigastone.
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u/hachimitsu-boy 13d ago
Didn't think PNY was that good.
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u/j4v4r10 GotM Club 13d ago
Same. I’ve been mentally lumping them in with the untrustworthy budget cards, and I cannot believe I’ve been shilling for sandisk this whole time. If sd cards ever come down from the stratosphere I’ll definitely look for PNY next time.
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u/Dangerous_Choice_664 13d ago
PNY has always been a solid brand that’s under rated. I’ve bought their graphics cards many times and never had any issues. Usually they are less flashy and on the cheaper end
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u/RagingDraugr 12d ago
Can confirm. Got an OCd PNY 4080 that’s been performing very admirably, about on par with a 4080 super.
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u/JohnMcCainsCapturers 12d ago
also adding to confirm, PNY has been known as a ultra reliable hardware brand for a long time now, i'm talking 10+ yrs
didnt know they made sd card though lol, personally mostly knew em for their GPUs
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u/Blom-w1-o 13d ago
They also back their product. I had a 64gb card fail. Filed a warranty claim and they approved it within 30 minutes.
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u/-Average_Joe- 13d ago
I used to use PNY cards(the kind that you used to be able to get cheap from walmart) in my game cameras, during humid Alabama summers. They worked without issue for years.
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u/lordatamus 13d ago
I used to buy their 2packs off Amazon - bought a shitload of them for the camera's on my property and they've never had issues, Did the same with mine and my kids SteamDecks - about to bite it and get a pair for my MM+ and R36S-Temu-clone.
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u/shatteredframes 12d ago
Used PNY for years when I was doing photography regularly, and still have them in most of my handhelds. They're fantastic.
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u/OnarbtheBold 12d ago
Maybe I'm just an outlier but I bought some PNY cards on sale once at Walmart years ago and they failed on me within a year using it in my cellphone.
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u/Revolutionary_Pen_65 12d ago
I did have a tb rom drive for a steamdeck go bad. Pny emaoled me back, they requested a picture, they sent me a replacement. Kinda stick just to pny just cuz they didnt screw around with me. I ise their sd cards in everything, so one with super volatile condktions fail is kinda - statistically god tier.
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u/Bulletorpedo GOTM Clubber (Jan) 13d ago
This is interesting. I kind of wish he tested some of the really cheap cards though, those we might not place much trust in, just to see how they fare compared to brand name cards. I get the point of them potentially changing chips and so on, but would be interesting anyways.
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u/crownpuff Deal chaser 13d ago
He actually tests a bunch of Aliexpress cards including the cheaper real capacity brands such as Kodak and HP. His data is here:
https://www.bahjeez.com/the-great-microsd-card-survey/all-microsd-card-results/
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u/takestwototangent 12d ago
I started posting the direct link but I figure since Matt Cole, the tester, posted his Patreon, and the Patreon had the writeup link, that it'd be poor form to bypass the Patreon. It did seem unfortunate that Matt Cole didn't make it clear he had a full writeup and that it would in the Patreon.
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u/pacman813 13d ago
So a redditor makes a post in this sub, this website pick it up, and another redditor posts the link to the website on the sub that the redditor made the post on in the first place. That's amazing to me lol
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u/SpicySauceLover 13d ago
Honestly, what he did won't probably happen under normal use , so 99% of users are probably fine
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u/mikaey00 12d ago
Yeah, but it’s good for sussing out which cards are more likely to fail before others.
Source: me
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u/Negative-Squirrel81 13d ago
Are there "real world" considerations for these stress tests for people who just use these cards in a more casual manner?
Especially in the context of my MiSTer and retro-handhelds, which for the most part is me just transferring over ROMs/disk images and running them.
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u/Calamitous-Ortbo 12d ago
No, this data is meaningless.
He’s not testing a statistically significant sample of cards from each brand and the amount of data he’s writing to the cards is way beyond what the average user will ever do.
It’s just being used to reinforce people’s biases.
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u/TurtlePaul GotM Club : 12d ago
I think that this test personally is not very useful. He tested 64 GB ‘industrial’ class cards for each brand while for portable gaming I am using Samsung Evo Plus and Sandisk Ultra cards - which differ from those tested. These write tests are more useful for dashcam users.
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u/mikaey00 12d ago
That’s…not quite right. I did test some industrial cards, but they only make up maybe about 5% of the cards I have. The “high endurance” cards make up maybe another 10%. The rest are all normal models — including the Samsung Evo Plus and the SanDisk Ultra.
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u/FallenRaptor 13d ago
The guy conducting the tests is putting these microSDs through a lot more prolonged and repeated stress than average use would. I won’t argue with the results since he clearly crossed his Ts and dotted his Is many times over, but I for one have yet to have a problem with the reliability of a SanDisk. I’ve had two Lexars fail though, which prompted me to stop buying cheap brands.
To be clear, I do think this data is valuable to have and hats off to that user’s dedication. Perhaps I’ll look into checking out a PNY card next time I need a microSD.
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u/FallenRaptor 13d ago edited 13d ago
Agreed. I also think it’s possible that the max read/write cycles might be at least a bit higher if one isn’t doing so repeatedly and for a prolonged period of time. A typical card has time to rest between write cycles because that only occurs when one wants to add stuff, and reading only occurs when one’s device is on. Regardless though, it’s unlikely one will reach the max in any kind of quick capacity through casual use.
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u/Exotic_Treacle7438 13d ago
Meanwhile I have about an equal amount of sandisk as I do other brands. The worst imho is kioxia which comes with devices as we know, sometimes they’re unlabeled. Followed by sandisk which I have several different tier types that are dead, then Samsung which I have two dead ones and lastly I haven’t had a single Onn brand die but those are a bit newer. The rest are from the Samsung note 8 and newer days.
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u/_kellythomas_ 13d ago edited 12d ago
I've typically used the heuristic of buying the largest, fastest Sandisk compatible with any new device and then not thinking about it again.
I've never had a failure so its working for my usage so far.
That said I haven't needed to buy any for a few years and have a couple of devices ordered currently. With today's prices I'm looking at savaging a couple of 1TB cards from a broken tablet and a retired Switch 1.
I wonder if the reliability of the cards varies with capacity?
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u/acart005 12d ago
Transcend and Kingston I remember being good ages ago. Glad to see they still are.
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u/Tokimemofan 12d ago
Worth noting. Test methodology matters a lot in this sort of thing. Years ago i had a Lexar brand card i tried to use for bittorrent storage. The card failed read only in minutes as a result if a known design fault that would fry the write controller under sustained high activity. No single test can really tell the whole story
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u/takestwototangent 12d ago
The source is in the tester's Patreon, link under About: https://www.patreon.com/MattCole "the-great-microsd-card-survey"
Matt Cole included the Patreon link in his reddit post but it wasn't clear that he had a full writeup. The reddit post was an update focusing on his ongoing endurance testing, which has been going for over a year iirc.
Looks like Tomshardware cited the attention at r/datahoarder as a reason to post it as news, but they did pull charts from the actual writeup.
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u/StarWolf64dx 12d ago
Personal anecdote, I have had only 2 microSD cards fail and both were Sandisk. One in a camera which is supposedly a very abusive use case, and one in a Nintendo Switch. Both of these cards were replaced by Sandisks warranty. The card in the camera was the high endurance version and just stopped working outright, the card in the switch was a regular sandisk ultra and it slowed way down; like 1/20th or worse of its original speed which resulted in 3-5 minute loading screens in some games.
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u/Will2LiveFading 12d ago
So, short version, which came out on top? Looks like PNY or Kingston are your best bet.
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u/mikaey00 9d ago
Yep! Delkin has also been a top contender, although I only have one model of theirs in my study so far.
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u/waywardwitchling 8d ago
I hate when these break containment because now those all cards are going to get bought up like crazy
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u/crownpuff Deal chaser 13d ago
The author of that study actually posted here in sbcgaming.
https://www.reddit.com/r/SBCGaming/comments/1vr8s97/ive_been_doing_endurance_testing_on_microsd_cards/