So I read some of the reviews about this microSD card and I wanted to chip in my experiences.
I purchased mine from Amazon.com via the vendor "MemoryMogul." It arrived at my porch in a small envelope package and did not have any of the bulk packaging that one would find from a retail store. Inside this envelope was just a small plastic case holding the microSDHC card as well as a SanDisk microSD card adapter. This was surprising to me since it wasn't advertised that this microSD card would come with an adapter. I guess that's good in my case since I was going to purchase a separate adapter. The package did not come with an instruction manual, or any SanDisk packaging for that matter. [Please see the customer image I uploaded]
Apart from the unexpected package and its contents, everything about the microSD card works as advertised:
1. My Macbook and Dell laptops both recognized that 31.90 GB of space are available to use in my card. Some people have reported that they received cards with less available space.
2. Also relating to people's complaints, some have said that they cannot write more than 10 GB of data onto their cards. I am happy to report that I can in fact write more than 10 GB of data to my card (right now I have about 17 GB of music and JPEG files loaded onto my card).
3. Still relating to peoples' reported issues, my card has a read/write speed of 4.0 MB/s or higher, as it should since it's a class 4 microSD card. Some have reported that the read/write speed is less than that. To put it to the test, I did many benchmark tests and compared it to other SD cards I have. If you are interested, I included them at the bottom of this review.
All in all, I am satisfied with my purchase. For $28 USD, this 32 GB class 4 microSDHC card is worth every penny. I will be using this product with my
SanDisk SDMX22-004G-A57P Sansa Clip Zip 4 GB, Purple portable media player as an expandable memory option. Everything about the microSDHC card itself works as advertised according to the benchmark tests as well as practical file transfers. The included microSD card adapter was also a nice surprise to me and I no longer need to purchase a separate adapter.
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And now for the boring stuff. You may skip this if you don't care about the benchmark tests and comparisons.
To be honest, I don't completely understand the results of the software benchmark tests, so if you can interpret them, more power to you. Because of this, I decided to do a bunch of real-world file transfers (copying) to test the write speeds of the [micro]SD cards. I chose various batch sizes for my tests to see if the size affected the cards' write speeds.
That being said, all tests were done using the same SD card reader, microSD card adapter, music files, source for files, and up-to-date software:
Targus USB 2.0 SD card reader
SanDisk MicroSD card adapter
Macbook 5.1 running Mac OS X 10.6.8 (for file copy, AJA, and Xbench tests)
Files were copied/transferred from an Other World Computing On-The-Go Pro portable external hard drive via USB 2.0 (500 GB Seagate 7200.4 RPM Momentus hard drive)
Dell Vostro 1400 running Windows XP Home Edition SP3 with the latest updates installed (for ATTO, CrystalDiskMark, and Flash Memory Toolkit [free] tests)
I'm not sure if it matters or not, but while doing these tests, I left the computer alone so that no other computer processes would interrupt the tests.
SanDisk 32 GB Class 4 MicroSDHC, brand new
Mac OS X 10.6.8
Music File Copy Tests:
10 MP3 files, 109.1 MB total, 26s = 4.20 MB/s
15 MP3 files, 167 MB total, 41s = 4.07 MB/s
15 MP3 files, 164 MB total, 40s = 4.10 MB/s
10 Apple Lossless files, 299.5 MB total, 71s = 4.22 MB/s
10 Apple Lossless files, 308.6 MB total, 73s = 4.23 MB/s
12 FLAC files, 375.3 MB total, 87s = 4.31 MB/s
14 FLAC files, 456.1 MB total, 105s = 4.34 MB/s
14 FLAC files, 543.4 MB total, 125s = 4.35 MB/s
47 FLAC + 15 MP3 + 6 JPEG files, 1.46 GB total, 342s = 4.37 MB/s
64 FLAC + 12 MP3 + 6 JPEG files, 2.12 GB total, 498s = 4.26 MB/s
129 FLAC + 10 JPEG files, 3.24 GB total, 757s = 4.38 MB/s
AJA Tests:
128 MB 720x486 8-bit video: Write 4.0 MB/s Read 18.3 MB/s
128 MB 1280x720 10-bit video: Write 3.8 MB/s Read 18.4 MB/s
Xbench Disk Tests:
Sequential:
Uncached Write 4.30 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 4.04 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 3.63 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 19.48 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Random:
Uncached Write 0.93 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 0.56 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 2.80 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 19.05 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Windows XP Home Edition SP3
ATTO Tests (1 MB to 8 MB, total length 256 MB, queue depth 4:
1 MB Write 4.86 MB/s Read 17.70 MB/s
2 MB Write 4.92 MB/s Read 17.69 MB/s
4 MB Write 4.92 MB/s Read 17.83 MB/s
8 MB Write 4.93 MB/s Read 17.66 MB/s
CrystalDiskMark Tests (50 MB, 9 test average):
Sequential: Write 5.392 MB/s Read 19.21 MB/s
512k: Write 1.511 MB/s Read 18.70 MB/s
4k: Write 1.053 MB/s Read 2.578 MB/s
4k QD32: Write 0.846 MB/s Read 2.933 MB/s
Flash Memory Toolkit [free] Tests:
File Benchmark
1 MB Write 13.21 MB/s Read 15.80 MB/s
2 MB Write 14.45 MB/s Read 16.30 MB/s
3 MB Write 14.77 MB/s Read 16.46 MB/s
4 MB Write 11.46 MB/s Read 16.56 MB/s
5 MB Write 12.12 MB/s Read 16.58 MB/s
10 MB Write 7.98 MB/s Read 16.46 MB/s
15 MB Write 6.64 MB/s Read 16.49 MB/s
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SanDisk 8 GB Class 2 SDHC, 2 years old
Mac OS X 10.6.8
Music File Copy Tests:
10 MP3 files, 109.1 MB total, 23s = 4.74 MB/s
15 MP3 files, 167 MB total, 29s = 5.76 MB/s
15 MP3 files, 164 MB total, 24s = 6.83 MB/s
10 Apple Lossless files, 299.5 MB total, 56s = 5.35 MB/s
10 Apple Lossless files, 308.6 MB total, 58s = 5.32 MB/s
12 FLAC files, 375.3 MB total, 74s = 5.07 MB/s
14 FLAC files, 456.1 MB total, 86s = 5.30 MB/s
14 FLAC files, 543.4 MB total, 117s = 4.64 MB/s
47 FLAC + 15 MP3 + 6 JPEG files, 1.46 GB total, 270s = 5.54 MB/s
64 FLAC + 12 MP3 + 6 JPEG files, 2.12 GB total, 399s = 5.44 MB/s
129 FLAC + 10 JPEG files, 3.24 GB total, 591s = 5.61 MB/s
AJA Test:
128 MB 1280x720 10-bit video: Write 5.0 MB/s Read 9.9 MB/s
128 MB 720x486 8-bit video: Write 4.4 MB/s Read 9.2 MB/s
Xbench Disk Tests:
Sequential:
Uncached Write 5.31 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 5.08 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 2.44 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 9.84 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Random:
Uncached Write 0.02 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 0.94 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 2.34 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 9.86 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Windows XP Home Edition SP3
ATTO Tests (1 MB to 8 MB, total length 256 MB, queue depth 4:
1 MB Write 6.24 MB/s Read 9.48 MB/s
2 MB Write 6.28 MB/s Read 9.65 MB/s
4 MB Write 6.28 MB/s Read 9.55 MB/s
8 MB Write 6.28 MB/s Read 9.55 MB/s
CrystalDiskMark Tests (50 MB, 9 test average):
Sequential: Write 6.402 MB/s Read 9.772 MB/s
512k: Write 2.004 MB/s Read 9.786 MB/s
4k: Write 0.022 MB/s Read 2.359 MB/s
4k QD32: Write 0.036 MB/s Read 2.455 MB/s
Flash Memory Toolkit [free] Tests:
File Benchmark
1 MB Write 2.49 MB/s Read 8.82 MB/s
2 MB Write 5.30 MB/s Read 8.86 MB/s
3 MB Write 4.00 MB/s Read 9.10 MB/s
4 MB Write 5.37 MB/s Read 9.17 MB/s
5 MB Write 4.63 MB/s Read 9.03 MB/s
10 MB Write 5.03 MB/s Read 9.12 MB/s
15 MB Write 4.78 MB/s Read 9.10 MB/s
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PNY 2 GB Class ??? MicroSD, 6 years old
Mac OS X 10.6.8
Music File Copy Tests:
10 MP3 files, 109.1 MB total, 26s = 3.90 MB/s
15 MP3 files, 167 MB total, 49s = 3.41 MB/s
15 MP3 files, 164 MB total, 49s = 3.35 MB/s
10 Apple Lossless files, 299.5 MB total, 74s = 4.05 MB/s
10 Apple Lossless files, 308.6 MB total, 75s = 4.11 MB/s
12 FLAC files, 375.3 MB total, 86s = 4.36 MB/s
14 FLAC files, 456.1 MB total, 101s = 4.52 MB/s
14 FLAC files, 543.4 MB total, 128s = 4.25 MB/s
47 FLAC + 15 MP3 + 6 JPEG files, 1.46 GB total, 342s = 4.98 MB/s
AJA Test:
128 MB 1280x720 10-bit video: Write 6.2 MB/s Read 20.3 MB/s
128 MB 720x486 8-bit video: Write 6.1 MB/s Read 19.9 MB/s
Xbench Disk Tests:
Sequential:
Uncached Write 5.30 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 5.45 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 4.12 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 20.07 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Random:
Uncached Write 0.04 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 1.62 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 3.33 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 19.46 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Windows XP Home Edition SP3
ATTO Tests (1 MB to 8 MB, total length 256 MB, queue depth 4:
1 MB Write 7.40 MB/s Read 17.74 MB/s
2 MB Write 7.46 MB/s Read 17.66 MB/s
4 MB Write 7.43 MB/s Read 17.63 MB/s
8 MB Write 7.50 MB/s Read 17.65 MB/s
CrystalDiskMark Tests (50 MB, 9 test average):
Sequential: Write 6.746 MB/s Read 19.43 MB/s
512k: Write 2.929 MB/s Read 19.16 MB/s
4k: Write 0.039 MB/s Read 3.414 MB/s
4k QD32: Write 0.051 MB/s Read 3.585 MB/s
Flash Memory Toolkit [free] Tests:
File Benchmark
1 MB Write 3.88 MB/s Read 15.
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