Author Topic: SD Card recommendations? (Read 6645 times)

eviLjazz · « **on:** December 11, 2003, 07:34:23 pm »

Hi,

I\'m planning on buying a new 512 MB SD Card, because my 256 MB SanDisk is soo damn slow when creating or deleting new files, it\'s unusable for small files.
SanDisk SD Cards seem to be crap in general so I\'m definitely not buying another SanDisk product.
Do you have any recommendation on other SD Cards? Lexar Cards seem to be quite good, but they are also quite expensive. I would like to go for Kingston as the 512 MB card is relatively inexpensive here in Germany, but I don\'t know how speedy they are...

Any recommendations greatly appreciated. TIA!

Regards,
eviLjazz

Foxdie · « **Reply #1 on:** December 11, 2003, 07:38:08 pm »

I\'ve heard that Lexar and PQI are good, and yes I read somewhere that someone has somehow totalled his SanDisk SD card..

zack · « **Reply #2 on:** December 11, 2003, 07:39:43 pm »

I have Panasonic. They are quite fast and very reliable. Lexar makes decent cards too.

cavit8 · « **Reply #3 on:** December 12, 2003, 09:40:53 am »

I have a 256M Lexar SD card and it seems to be fine thus far...

pedro-escobar · « **Reply #4 on:** December 12, 2003, 11:17:37 am »

I\'ve a 256 mb SanDisk card and that card works fine with sharp, thc and now OZ roms. My new 512 mb card it\'s on the way :-)

Happy Chanukah,

Pedro

jpfaff · « **Reply #5 on:** December 12, 2003, 01:05:41 pm »

I read in Linux Journal a while back that there were serious issues with San Disk cards becoming unusable after formatting. If I may quote:

Quote

You will need more than the 32 or 64MB of RAM that comes with the Zaurus, because the system uses most of that memory even if you haven\'t installed anything. With a stock 32MB 5000d using ROM 2.37, only 600k of memory are free without any application installed or started. You have two places to put more memory: the SD/MMC slot or the CompactFlash slot. You need the CF slot for a network card, but SD/MMC can be tricky.

SanDisk cards, the most popular and cheapest SD cards, are prone to failure. Sharp even had to release a new driver to fix some problems with the less than $50 US 128MB SanDisk cards that would fail after repartitioning or work only once. The real problem is SD drivers can never be free software because of the copy-restriction system. Get an MMC card instead; free drivers are available.

Remember, this was written for the January 2003 issue about the 5500, and I\'m not sure if any of this has been resolved.

offroadgeek · « **Reply #6 on:** December 12, 2003, 02:04:58 pm »

I personally have SanDisk cards, both a 256mb SD and a 512mb SD. They have both worked out great for me, not a single issue yet (cross my fingers). I have read *many* threads about people having troubles with the cards. I guess I\'ve just gotten lucky?

pedro-escobar · « **Reply #7 on:** December 12, 2003, 02:28:17 pm »

Well, i think about it and maybe the problem it\'s format, exactly the pc with made the card format (/ext2). Always use my linux box for that (i work with SuSE 9.0). Some people uses windows and we know m$ os made bad and the card formating with win maybe can\'t uses with Z. I know that\'s possible reason.

Pedro

Anonymous · « **Reply #8 on:** December 12, 2003, 02:46:09 pm »

The issue with SandDisk was supposedly resolved. The Tiwan MFR had bogus product and SanDisk will swap it out for a Chinese version.

zaurusbs · « **Reply #9 on:** January 09, 2004, 06:02:22 pm »

I know this is a little late, but I have a SanDisk 256MB card that works fine. Bizarrely, a Crucial 64MB CF card isn\'t recognized at all.

zbones · « **Reply #10 on:** January 09, 2004, 06:49:48 pm »

This thread started before I defected from the sharp dev forums

I have had two sandisk sd cards (256 mb) both have had the same problems with large writes, and having to be re-formatted every other day.

my lexar 256 card has never had any issues at all.

In terms of speed, I have proved that the 5500 reads/writes at nearly the same rate regardless of the card.

the 5600 and clamshells seem to have a faster bus and read/write many times faster than the 5500 with the same card.

ie 20/30 seconds to write a 30mb file as opposed to over 2 minutes.

My problems with the sandisk cards have only been when they have been formatted to ext2, they seem fine as fat format. This may be why some people don\'t seem to have an issue with them and others seem to have loads of grief.

I have yet to see a post complaining about lexar sd cards being unstable.

Peter

nitup · « **Reply #11 on:** January 09, 2004, 08:27:22 pm »

I\'ve had a 64M lexar mmc card since I\'ve had the 5500, I tried a 128M sandisk card, formatted it ext2, it died, rma\'d it, got it back and tried ext2 again, same results. I gave up on that, still have the dead card, I should rma it again and give it to a ppc user at work, it\'ll probalby just work with it\'s original fat format.

That experience made me not like sd cards. I don\'t know what the problem was though, some said it had to do with the controller being changed in the card.

I would like to have a larger sd/mmc card though.

twocargar · « **Reply #12 on:** January 09, 2004, 08:43:10 pm »

I\'ve had 2 SanDisk 256MB SD cards go bad on me with my 5500. I traded the last one in for a PNY and haven\'t looked back since.

soycap · « **Reply #13 on:** January 09, 2004, 10:40:30 pm »

1st SanDisk 256SD RMA: could not format ext2 then it after 1 month just running vfat; 2nd SanDisk 256SD still no ext2.

Bought 2 Lexar 256SD ext2, no problems. I bought a $120 mp3 player to use the SanDisk SD for something.

Zuber · « **Reply #14 on:** January 10, 2004, 05:20:36 am »

Here Panasonics are good. But can confirm that Lexars are good. have 2 (digicam + zaurus) swap from camera to z fine. no issues.

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Author Topic: SD Card recommendations? (Read 6645 times)

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