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[FifthE1ement]

It seems microSD has finally come to mature with almost all flash memory manufacturers having at least one or two models and sizes on the market. The biggest size is currently 2GB but I'm sure it’s only a matter of time until we see a 4GB model and possible higher. The fastest rated speed, I have seen, is 80X but you always have to check the access times which aren't always available. Currently the best names in memory are ATP, SanDisk, Transcend, and A-DATA. ATP has an 80X 1GB model which is super fast and should have great access times and performance. The SanDisk Ultra II is always a good solid choice and can usually be found cheap. Hopefully we’ll see faster 2GB models released soon since the fastest 2GB model currently comes from A-Data and from user data is rated at 60-80X.

microSD flash memory should range between $50-90 for name brand quality memory with good rated speeds and access times. Remember cheap memory usually corrupts easily, has slow access times, and can be problematic. If anyone has any memory questions please feel free to ask. I though it was a good time to bring up the state of memory for the upcoming round of flashcarts.

FifthE1ement  

[SuperCardStore]

Timely post  

The brand names you cite may be well known to you, but in other parts of the market other brands are better known - Kingston, for instance.  It would be good to see market share figures.  Sandisk are always reported as the clear market leader, but analysts have down-rated the company recently because of warnings that prices are going to fall.  In a price-sensitive market Sandisk do not do well, trying to pitch themselves as the 'Premium' brand, so maybe they will lose market share now that they failed in their attempt to keep others out by calling Micro-SD 'Transflash' as if it was some proprietary product when in fact all micro-SD  memory looks pretty much the same to me.  All brands of Micro-SD I sell seem to work fine in all SuperCards.

Also the success of those great people from Scandinavia has not only made Nokia a good name in cell phones, but also made Viking and Dane-Elec brands of Flash Memory with high name-recognition in some markets.  The very high cost of the factory plant has meant that only a few can actually make the stuff.  I get a lot of memory re-branded, but a search on the part numbers shows that a lot of it is actually made by Toshiba.

It may be that the USA is not the largest market for Micro-SD - I do not know, but here in Europe, demand seems to be driven by cell phones (and people buying memory for them) and so there may be more sold outside of the US than within it.

>>cheap memory usually corrupts easily, has slow access times, and can be problematic.

If only we could prove broad claims like this!  Isn't it a bit like saying the same about cheap cars?  You get what you pay for.  Buy cheap and you buy twice!  
There is room in the market for the cheap stuff too though.  The fault in my humble opinion lies with the SD association, who make sure that you cannot issue a product unless it conforms to the specification.  If we asked them, no doubt they would claim that there is no such thing as inadequate memory.

I got approached by http://www.topram.com recently - how can I tell if they have good stuff?  I saw on their site an adaptor from Mini-SD to Micro-SD memory.  I always thought that all SD, mini-SD and Micro-SD memory was identical inside and only the packaging was different - is that true?

I sell a lot of memory and the highest failure rate I get is with Sandisk - a higher proportion than the others are unable to be formatted when I get them - I do not know why.

Anywho if anyone has any hard numbers to put behind our impressions I would really like to read them.  Thanks for the useful post.

[M3LV1N]

I believe I have a fake Sandisk 1GB micro sd card. Currently, it works when I put it into my Supercard Lite and all my nds games boot up perfectly, but some of my apps; moonshell, beup, dsorganize, and ds85, dont work for me. My Supercard Lite was working perfectly, everything was doing what it was supposed to, until some homebrew apps randomly started to not load/work. Although the memory card reads in my Supercard Lite, it doesn't work when hooking it up into my card reader. Also, does the black sticker on the back of the micro sd card matter? Does it serve a purpose? Because it was coming loose so I just peeled the entire thing off and it revealed several metal dots. I was thinking that the sticker was non eleectrical so it was actually doing something and it had to do with these metal points. SO is it possible that this is the reason why my memory is messing up? Is there anything I can do to get everything up and running again and back to normal? Or am I stuck with a fake Sandisk memory card?

[FifthE1ement]

Kingston, PNY, Integral, or any other generic brand are crap memory and are known to be "cheap" memory manufacturers. SanDisk will also have the highest failure rate, or what it seems like, as they sell the most flash memory of any manufacturer. I know just about every name brand memory manufacturer from all over the world and they are basically all the same. But as you said many manufacturers re-brand some memory and sell it to many companies which is usually the generic brands or odd named companies.

BTW TOPRAM is good memory and yes there is a miniSD to microSD adapter. And all SD memory is virtually identical but the way they lay the memory layers can vary from SD type as the smaller microSD memory requires a different layer process due to the form factor.

FifthE1ement  

[SuperCardStore]

I believe I have a fake Sandisk 1GB micro sd card.

I thought I had some earlier this year, so I returned them to Sandisk as they would not format - I told them my concern and they first got me to send them photos, them the three cards I suspected.
They were not fakes - they replaced them under warranty.
So, why not do the same?
It is not easy to prove, but I don't think there is any fake memory available from legitimate sellers as I've never had any, nor have I ever had any reported to me.  The way I figure it, only Sandisk can really say for sure.

There are no holes in Sandisk memory and the only sticker is on the front of the adapter - the adapter is often made in a different country and does not affect the performance of the memory - is is a passive component.
The only thing that should be on the actual micro-SD memory card when it is removed from the adapter is the Sandisk name and logo, the size of the card and 'made in Taiwan' on the back.  FifthElement kindly told me some time back he'd contacted Sandisk who told him there were no regional differences in the parts they distribute.
Toshiba own Sandisk, so there is a lot of other memory that is labelled with the Toshiba part code SD-CO1G that I guess is actaully made on the same production line and to the same standards as the Sandisk - the only difference would be the labelling.  
Maybe if we reach far enough into it, we can find someone who works in one of the Flash Memory factories (there are very few around) who can tell us if Toshiba do what many other brands do - sell exactly the same thing under different brand names at different price points to give the idea that there is competition in the market.  I'd like to see this forum become a buyer of memory on behalf of all of the users - maybe brand it 'Developer' memory cards' - I would trust that brand to deliver good quality Micro-SD memory.
Hope that helps.

[Xyse]

Kingston, PNY, Integral, or any other generic brand are crap memory and are known to be "cheap" memory manufacturers.

Dude, the last I check, Kingston's microSD in asia region are assembled in Japan and have life time warranty. :wink:

[SuperCardStore]

Here in Europe, Kingston are a popular, well marketed brand (maybe we like the 'king' idea  

I sell Kingston and have not had any failures so far - they're good and the speed is good too - I measure them.  Also, no SuperCard users have told me that there are any problems (and they would), so I guess they are a good choice.

It would be helpful to be able to define what is and what is not good memory.  Micro-SD does not seem to be advertised as having any particular speeds and mean time between failure (MTBF) data is not available, so how is the buyer to tell?

Sure, you can trust your reseller (good ones stand behind everything they sell) but why can't we have some more objective basis?  The exhaustive tests that FifthElement did in his excellent work on FlashCarts is something I'd want as a buyer - an independent source who knows the truth, showing real-world results and comparing them with the maker's specification.

Anyone know of any way we can get facts about the different brands?  I use www.hdtune.com and www.hdtach.com but they are not Flash Memory specific - they treat Flash Memory as USB Disk Drives.  Are there any Flash Memory specific utilities?  Is there a way to add to a database of response times similar to that operated by the benchmarkers for motherboards? HAs anyone written any SuperCard code that would do real-world tests on the cards themselves?

Is it true that every single brand of Micro-SD is exactly the same in the standards applied by the SD Association?

[mescalin]

They aren't - Sandisk sell high performance versions under their 'Ultra II' banner.

[SuperCardStore]

Sorry, I meant:
"Are all standard speed Micro-SD brands the same as far as SD Certification is concerned"
Sandisk are the only ones so far who use the marketing term "Ultra".
"Ultra" Micro-SD cards are definitely not needed for SuperCards, although some people are prepared to pay the extra in case they get an advantage I guess.

[gopherbob]

My 1gb Dan Elec works great... and I love my KINGMAX 512mb so fast!

KINGMAX rox!

[SuperCardStore]

My 1gb Dan Elec works great... and I love my KINGMAX 512mb so fast!

KINGMAX rox!

I sell the Dane-Elec - they are a branding company as far as I know - they buy the actual memory from Toshiba, so it's Toshiba that deserve the credit.
I think everything marked SDCO1G and 'made in japan' is made by Toshiba -  I wouldn't be surprised if they're from the same production line as the Sandisk, as Toshiba own Sandisk.
I saw the Sandisk standard 1Gb Micro-SD advertised as 46x but I can't find anything from Sandisk to back that up.  Any ideas as to how to be real sure how different they all are?

[lenselijer]

kingston japan 1gb microsd is perfect, i had zero failures and you get lifetime warranty

[SuperCardStore]

>>kingston japan 1gb microsd is perfect,
Agreed - the only problems I ever have is with Sandisk. high % return rates compared to the others.
Is there any way to prove my feeling that all brands of Micro-SD are OK for flashcarts, and, apart from the 'Ultra' versions, it really doesn't matter which ones you get - get the cheapest.
I know for sure that there have been problems with different brands of Micro-SD memory in some cell phones, so maybe that was why people were careful in the beginning.

[sneef]

so far, kingston has performed decently for me, but not as fast as my kingmax microsd.  sandisk no problems too.  

I would not rate kingston microSD at the top.  However, they may have improved the media and simply not changed their packaging... maybe that's why i find it's a slower card.  It works much better when formatted to FAT16 with 64k clusters

[SuperCardStore]

>>It works much better when formatted to FAT16 with 64k clusters
Does the new DMA mode in the latest firmware make any difference to the speed?  
The average user does not want to have to learn how to perform a non-standard format.