The state of microSD memory!

pte · November 16, 2006, 04:07:54 PM

I've got a 512MB Kingston that is manufactured in Taiwan, it is awful. The access time is 2.0-2.5ms which sucks. My 1GB A-Data on the other hand has been perfect and it is also an extremely fast card in means of access times. My fastest access time has been 0.7ms. Never heard a bad word about the Sandisk MicroSDs, they probably aren't perfect but the quality must have been good.

Skyler0 · November 18, 2006, 10:32:24 AM

I have a 512MB Kingston from Japan, and it seems to corrupt very easily. I often have to recopy things multiple times to get it to work properly ><

iignotus · November 18, 2006, 10:48:41 AM

I have a 1gb Kingston that works great. I have only ever had one problem with it where I had to recopy the files over, and I've been using it every day for almost two weeks. I'm pretty sure that Kingston is a rebrander, so the quality of the product you get is a crapshoot.

bitblt · November 18, 2006, 11:22:35 AM

Both my 512MB Kingston microSD and 2GB Sandisk microSD work great. Note my 512MB Kingston has Japan printed on it.

Skyler0 · November 18, 2006, 11:45:50 AM

Think I should get a refund for mine via the warranty, and maybe get a better one?

This one has Kingston 512MB MicroSD SD-C5512 JAPAN written on the front. and it's a huge pain putting stuff on it.

SuperCardStore · November 18, 2006, 12:09:58 PM

>>Kingston is a rebrander, so the quality of the product you get is a crapshoot.
I'm sure that most brands are re-branders - it bugs me that we're being charged high prices when they're all selling the same stuff. Almost every Micro-SD I've ever seen (and I've seen a lot as I sell them) has the Toshiba part code on it as well as 'made in Japan'. I'm looking at TopRam.com at the moment - they're one of the few that claim to be made in Taiwan but who knows? Even if they have a big factory there, marketeers inside TopRam could easily round out their range by buying in some types of products from Japan, so, how to tell? I can't find out how to tell the difference between different brands of Micro-SD (apart from the 'Ultras') because there seems no granularity in the grading - either it's a standard speed Micro-SD or it's not, and there seems to be no definition of 'standard speed'. It's real lucky that, particularly with the recent improvements to the SuperCard firmware, even the slowest Micro-SD card I can find works really well with all the SuperCards!

I have just sold nearly all my stock of Kingston 512Mb Micro-SD. They had 'Made in Taiwan' and a part number on them - I looked but could not find any Micro-SD Flash Memory factories in Taiwan (except TopRam) - I would have thought that it would be possible to locate them as they would offer their production capacity for sale, but maybe I'm looking in the wrong places.

I just took delivery of a bunch of Kingston 1Gb Micro-SD this morning. They have SD-CO1G on them - that's the Toshiba part code I think.
I have stocks of the Sandisk 2Gb Micro-SD - they have SDSDQ in real small letters on them, together with a long part number. I think this is the Toshiba factory numbering system - model number, then part number.

The way I figure it is, Toshiba make most all of the Micro-SD memory sold and offer different levels of packaging customisation for the different brands. So, there's no difference between Kingston and other brands that re-brand Toshiba.
If that's true, then we could save this forum's users a whole heap of dollars they could spend on other pleasures...

iignotus · November 18, 2006, 12:26:05 PM

Mine says Japan on it if anyone's interested. I'm also about to buy a 512mb A-Data msd to compliment it.

Skyler0 · November 18, 2006, 01:00:16 PM

heh, I tried another computer, and it seems to work perfectly (I haven't tried all the games yet though). I also think that the only reason mine was having troubles before is this program I have, called FolderSize. I think it's making it mess up for some reason, so I'll try disabling it on this computer next time and see how things fare out.

bitblt · November 18, 2006, 02:18:57 PM

Quote from: "Skyler0"heh, I tried another computer, and it seems to work perfectly (I haven't tried all the games yet though). I also think that the only reason mine was having troubles before is this program I have, called FolderSize. I think it's making it mess up for some reason, so I'll try disabling it on this computer next time and see how things fare out.

It might also be a problem with your computers card reader.

Shinster · November 18, 2006, 03:48:24 PM

I never had a problem with my 1gb Kingston for 2 months now. Not even a single case of needing to reseat it to be read properly.

Skyler0 · November 18, 2006, 04:10:34 PM

Quote from: "bitblt"
Quote from: "Skyler0"heh, I tried another computer, and it seems to work perfectly (I haven't tried all the games yet though). I also think that the only reason mine was having troubles before is this program I have, called FolderSize. I think it's making it mess up for some reason, so I'll try disabling it on this computer next time and see how things fare out.

It might also be a problem with your computers card reader.

I don't think so, as I'm using a MicroSD to SD card adapter (came with MicroSD), and then on top of that I'm using a SD card to USB adapter. Which I used on both pcs (and then this adapter plugs into the USB, and I think my USB is working fine.

pte · November 18, 2006, 08:48:09 PM

Yep, the Taiwan-Kingstons appear to have a slow access timing. I also have to mention that I couldn't get DSLinux to work properly with my Kingston model but my A-Data card was perfect.

I already knew that Toshiba runs everything but didn't think it was that organized. Well, I hope we get better and cheaper microSDs in the near future.

SuperCardStore · November 18, 2006, 09:01:45 PM

>>appear to have a slow access timing.
All of the utils (like www.hdtune.com) can measure access times so maybe that's the only benchmark needed, because if the access time is slow, then maybe that indicates that every other measure of that card will be relatively slow too. I have read that anything above 4ms is too slow, but that was before the firmware I/O routines were improved.
I do not think that a slow access time would beat DS Linux though - it must have been run on memory with slower access times as it has been around since before this class of access time was available.

pte · November 19, 2006, 05:01:21 AM

Nope, not the slow access time. But to think of the Linux kernel not supporting the Kingston microSDs perfectly. I just couldn't get my WiFi working but with another microSD it worked out just fine. My Kingston has about 2.0-2.5ms access times and I consider that damn slow because every other card I've tested has been at least twice as fast.

SuperCardStore · November 19, 2006, 05:57:12 AM

Most SuperCard users do not have memory with sub-2.5ms access times. They can run DS Linux fine.