Too early to buy dual 32GB SD cards?

[second exodous]

I saw this and am tempted to buy them. I paid $47 US each on two 16GB cards a (few?) Novembers ago when I though I'd get my Pandora before X-mas. It was not money wasted though, I used one in my SLR and the other one has seen a ton of use on my multimedia box, one of those ones that plug into your HDTV and play like everything.


I know I should just wait, I just like getting things like this in the mail, it is like Christmas or something.

 

[frostedfires]

I saw this and am tempted to buy them. I paid $47 US each on two 16GB cards a (few?) Novembers ago when I though I'd get my Pandora before X-mas. It was not money wasted though, I used one in my SLR and the other one has seen a ton of use on my multimedia box, one of those ones that plug into your HDTV and play like everything.


I know I should just wait, I just like getting things like this in the mail, it is like Christmas or something.

I JUST bought that exact one like 2 weeks ago It works great by the way! Only bought 1 for now. Filled it full to 32gb to make sure it wasn't a scammed one. It is legit.

 

[Link]

http://www.microcenter.com/search/search_results.phtml?Ntt=sdhc&N=0&submit.x=0&submit.y=0


$110 plus shipping Class VI 32GB x 2


$120 plus shipping Class X 32GB x 2


Peace & Pandora,


Link


Edit: clarified 32GB x 2


ReEdit: Capitalized my B in byte

 

[Prometheus]

Filled it full to 32gb to make sure it wasn't a scammed one. It is legit.

I'm glad that you're aware there are fakes out there, and it's very rewarding to see more people mentioning it and knowing about it, but this is *not* the way to test whether a card is a fake or not - even a fake will appear to let you fill it to the maximum. Use H2testw instead.

 

[second exodous]

Can a flash card lie about it's capacity if you format it as another file system? Wouldn't whatever program you use to format it be able to tell that no, it isn't as big as it says it is? I always use my cards to move 720p movies back and fourth between PCs or watch them on my media box so I think I'd know. I also always buy new from newegg or Amazon, I don't think I've seen better prices anywhere else, or prices within the realm of reality anyway.


Uh, Link, those are really spendy. I know Transcend is not the fastest even with class 10 but they are a lot more affordable at half the price of other class 10 cards. The two 16 gigers I have are Transcend and couldn't be happier with them.

 

[elwing]

Can a flash card lie about it's capacity if you format it as another file system? Wouldn't whatever program you use to format it be able to tell that no, it isn't as big as it says it is?

nope, the controller on these faked card report a wrong size it's not a special/wrong partition, you can freely write to place out of the flash space, as long as you don't check what as be written you won't see a thing...

 

[second exodous]

nope, the controller on these faked card report a wrong size it's not a special/wrong partition, you can freely write to place out of the flash space, as long as you don't check what as be written you won't see a thing...

Well, I'll be checking from now on. I know the cards I have are good as I've used them to move a ton of stuff around and verified that data by watching, viewing, or listening to it but I'll get that program Prometheus linked and test from now on. I only buy from Amazon and Newegg but I'll still check.

 

[3jane]

http://www.microcenter.com/search/search_results.phtml?Ntt=sdhc&N=0&submit.x=0&submit.y=0


$110 plus shipping Class VI


$120 plus shipping Class X


Peace & Pandora,


Link

This brings up an interesting point. To handle speeds over C6 the Pandora would have to have been built with a "hi-speed" I/F bus, usually only found in high-end camcorders and such like (C6 can handle HD video already, so it's only the really exotic stuff needs/uses anything higher).


I figured that a "hi-speed" I/F controller would have been prohibitively expensive for this kind of device, especially a couple of years ago when the Pandora was being developed. Can anyone confirm which standard was used?

 

[frostedfires]

I used the program and got this from my 16gb card bought on Amazon (Transcend 16gb class 10 card)


Warning: Only 15378 of 15379 MByte tested.


Test finished without errors.


You can now delete the test files *.h2w or verify them again.


Writing speed: 14.0 MByte/s


Reading speed: 16.8 MByte/s


H2testw v1.4


Seems legit to me!

 

[second exodous]

I think Transcend is one of the better companies, even from what I understand that they buy their memory form another company and re-brand it. I'm sure Transcend has standards of what it accepts to buy and re-brand so they are really dependable.

 

[Grench]

I pre-ordered October 1, 2008.


A few months after that I bought a pair of Patriot 16GB Class 6 SDHC cards for @$100 each to go with my soon to arrive device.


About a year ago I bought a pair of Patriot 32GB Class 10 SDHC cards for @$100 each to go with my soon to arrive device.


I have purchased a quad-folding stowaway USB keyboard and a quad-folding stowaway Bluetooth keyboard and a 4 port + 100Mb networking USB hub.


I have spent more on accessories for a device I don't have than I spent on the device itself. I have, of course, found other uses for the gear. SDHC cards make great laptop-backup units for user data.


Occasionally I check 64GB SDXC prices - I'm not going there until they hit the $100 mark for class 15ish. That might actually be after I get my Pandora.

 

[second exodous]

I think around $50 is the sweet spot, I can't see spending twice that for an SD card. I paid $47 for each of my 16GB cards and now they doubled for about the same price so it is time for an upgrade. I still want full production to start when they get the next wave of nubs and boards before I buy though. It isn't like I won't use them if the Pandora hits another snag but I'm still painfully waiting for production to start up again.

 

[WizardStan]

A few months after that I bought a pair of Patriot 16GB Class 6 SDHC cards for @$100 each to go with my soon to arrive device.

I bought a pair of Kingston 16GB Class 4 SDHC cards for $16 each.

 

[AquaAnalogue]

Am I wrong in thinking that SD cards are NAND flash memory just like the Pandora's flash disk, therefore they're subject to limited read/write cycles?


If I am wrong I will reconsider this matter, but as it stands, I refuse to buy anything greater than 8 GB of storage in one unit. They -will- fail, and when I have to replace them, I can shell out small amounts of 10-20 dollars here and there instead of one great $100 dollar bill.


Not only that, but I'll lose less of my stuff too.


The only advantage to buying huge amounts of storage in one unit is up-front cost (i think it's cheaper to buy a 32 gig instead of 4 8 gigs). Possibly, there's also the fact you don't have to change them every time you want to do something different.


I don't know, I may be insane, but I'm looking forward to returning to the days of having several labelled disks for different programs. It'll be a bit of nostalgia for me.

 

[second exodous]

SD cards do have write limits, but it is in the thousands if not 10s of thousands. I use my 2 16GB cards pretty heavily, I think they are 2 years old, and no bad sectors yet. I wouldn't limit the size of the cards because risk of failure, if you do that then you'll constantly be switching out the cards wearing your cards out even more and worse yet your Pandora. If you're worried about failure then have a backup folder on your main computer for your Pandora, this way you can get larger cards and not switch them out so much and still be able to feel safe that you won't loose any data.


Nostalgia would be nice though, if you're going for that did you snag these SD lables? I'll probably just go for the Pandora logo for each of my 32GB cards.

 

[Yannick]

personally i feel like the *big brand* 16GB class 6 cards have the right price/features ratio


don't have my pandora yet, but those cards are nice to use on my netbook and desktop

 

[WizardStan]

Am I wrong in thinking that SD cards are NAND flash memory just like the Pandora's flash disk, therefore they're subject to limited read/write cycles?

They're NAND, but unlike the NAND flash in the Pandora, an SD card has special wear leveling; the controller chip inside the SD card stores your data in different places, and changes this every time you write. For example, you might write a file to what the file system things is the very start of the disk, filling in the first five 512KB blocks for a 2.5MB file, and you could then read back that file by asking for the first five blocks, however the controller chip has actually stored those five blocks not in the physical first five blocks on the card but randomly throughout the card. If you then open, edit, and resave that 2.5MB document, it will write the five blocks to different physical blocks on the card, even though they can still be accessed by asking for the first five: the controller is very smart about how it arranges things. In this way, the 10'000 writes you can do kinda get shared around: one file might be written 100'000 times, but there are 10 files that are written once and never read again, so it kind of balances out. As it goes along, eventually it will start getting bad blocks. When it does, it flags the block as bad and the size of the card simply gets smaller. If done properly, your card won't suddenly fail all at once: after a few years of use it will appear to be getting smaller, start to degrade, until one day a few months after that you won't be able to write to it anymore. You should still be able to read from it though, at least for a little while. So long as you're aware that this will one day happen, it should be pretty easy to tell that it's about to die. Every 6 months, run h2testw and it should tell you the actual size that your card says it is. If you notice a sudden drop one day, time to do a backup and prepare a new card.


One other thing: to do this wear leveling you need free space. If you fill up your card, it'll just be making writes to the same locations over and over again, so those blocks will wear out faster. To that end, if you are worried about the card dying, you may actually be better buying a 16GB card and only using 8GB: it'll last at least twice as long.

 

[AquaAnalogue]

SD cards do have write limits, but it is in the thousands if not 10s of thousands. I use my 2 16GB cards pretty heavily, I think they are 2 years old, and no bad sectors yet.


<snip>


[...] you'll constantly be switching out the cards wearing your cards out even more and worse yet your Pandora.


<snip>


Nostalgia would be nice though, if you're going for that did you snag these SD labels?

Thanks for that info It's a little bit reassuring (if you really do use them heavily, 2 years is impressive). Also those labels are AWESOME and I really should remember to use them! Thanks. Kudos to the designer.


You raised an interesting issue though; will swapping out SD cards really cause extensive wear to the Pandora? I mean, any more wear than swapping floppy disks to and from the Apple IIe when I was 10 to play those terrible edutainment games? If it will I'll just go the whole nine yards and rig up a USB-controlled 5 1/4" drive for my nostalgia purposes

They're NAND, but unlike the NAND flash in the Pandora, an SD card has special wear leveling; the controller chip inside the SD card stores your data in different places, and changes this every time you write.


<snip>


If done properly, your card won't suddenly fail all at once [...] You should still be able to read from it though, at least for a little while. So long as you're aware that this will one day happen, it should be pretty easy to tell that it's about to die.


<snip>


If you are worried about the card dying, you may actually be better buying a 16GB card and only using 8GB: it'll last at least twice as long.

Thanks so much for the info. I was unaware about the leveling-- do certain manufacturers do this better than others? Also, I wasn't aware that I'd slowly lose sectors, or even that I'd be able to read from the card after it died. I hadn't given it enough thought-- I thought the card would be completely useless one day out of the blue. That's what has always scared me about flash media, so thanks for shedding some light on the subject!


Your using half of the card idea seems like a really, really good idea. I may do exactly what you have said.


Something from second.exodus's post is still bothering me though and that is-- will swapping them out so often really cause non-negligible wear and tear on the SD slots? I don't really care about the wear and tear on the cards themselves-- they aren't made to last forever. Now, neither is the Pandora, but I want to minimise wear and tear from all angles. I know that realism must prevail and eventually the processor if not some other vital organ will fail-- do you think these vitals would survive the SD slots or vice versa? It'd kinda suck to have a dead NAND (will happen) and two dead SD slots, and a working everything else. :/

 

[WizardStan]

will swapping them out so often really cause non-negligible wear and tear on the SD slots?

Hmmm, that's actually a good question. Since SD slots are spring loaded and self locking, I want to say that it shouldn't be a problem: as long as the lock keeps working to hold the card in, and the spring works to hold it tight, it should be good, but I can't say for certain that that is true.

 

[second exodous]

Well, like SD cards the SD slots will last 10s of thousands of inserts I'm sure, not trying to make you worry. My nephew has a cheap MP3 player and it had a sticker saying 'this slot will last x-amount of card inserts' and the number was really high, so high that I though maybe they were exaggerating a little as the insert/eject wasn't as smooth as a high quality device.


Nothing lasts forever, but when there is a way to get things to last longer I usually do it, and if possible I'll move things through wifi or the USB port.


Does anyone know if the SD slots on the Pandora are pretty standard parts? If they are they will be replaceable anyway, so no need to worry that much.