What I Ended Up Doing

Despite the hand-wringing of the past few days, I ended up buying SanDisk cards anyway.

Dan Ariely, in Predictably Irrational, a book about consumer choice, says that consumers like to follow other consumers. If a lot of people buy Canons, then a lot of people will buy Canons. But we also "follow ourselves," in effect, because we have a pretty strong tendency to do what we've done before. If you've owned several Nikons in succession, then you're likely to think of yourself as a Nikon person and "get in line behind yourself" to buy another Nikon.

In that sense I guess I'm still a SanDisk guy, even if the new SanDisk isn't quite the old SanDisk.

The card I bought is called the SanDisk 64GB Extreme PRO UHS-II SDXC. The V60 version. It seemed to push all the right buttons for me, plus it's the same old brand I usually buy. I settled on V60 as the "overkill" level for write speed for a stills photographer who doesn't shoot bursts (it should also do bursts pretty well, although you might want to go with V90 if you do a lot of that for action or sports—buffer clearing in particular should be better). V60 usually has a maximum write speed of 90–130 MB/s, more than enough for me with my particular camera. As an aside, however, check the maximum write speeds of V30 cards against those of V60 cards. The maximum write speeds could be quite close to each other; V30 and V60 refer to the mimimums. If you're not a "power user," the V30 cards could be plenty, and within any particular brand and type they're usually significantly cheaper.

Point two: it has great reviews on B&H Photo: 34 reviews with an average score of 4.91—about the highest I encountered in my shopping—with zero one-star reviews. Thirty four is just barely a large enough sample, but it's adequate.

Third, I have faith that B&H won't sell me a counterfeit, even though we've heard secondhand from a SanDisk engineer that up to 25%(!) of all SanDisk cards out there could be counterfeits.

Fourth, the price is right, which suits my cheap gene—at only $27 a pop, it gives good bang for the buck. I could probably do better if I waited for a sale, but I'd like to stop thinking about cards now.

SanDisk might be getting ripped here and there on the internet for poor customer service since Western Digital bought them out, but there's that bathtub curve to think about—most failures happen either right out of the box or at end-of-life. The period in the middle is usually pretty stable. I'm very likely to take each new card to the backyard and fill it up and download it to check that everything's working properly, because that's what I do with all new gear. That should serve as proof of non-failure at the outset (and give me an idea of actual capacity, and I'll check the number of frames till the buffer fills). Beyond that, I'll trust in the general reliability of cards, because they're mostly very reliable despite the few exceptions prominently highlighted in online reviews.

I also got one of these to replace my old off-brand card reader:

It's a Wise Advanced CFexpress Type B / UHS-II SDXC USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 card reader. Why choose that one? No reason, really. Aside from the fact that it looks clean and it appealed. And I figured any card reader I buy is going to be made in Asia anyway, no matter what name it's sold under, so why not get one from an Asian name brand? And, I tend to have good luck with stuff made in Taiwan. And I like pool players from Taiwan, such as Chou Chieh-Yu and Ko Ping-Chung. But I'm not supposed to write about pool so forget I said that.

Ingesting 175 image files of ~26 MB size, the new Wise reader needed 18 seconds. My old card reader took 2 min. 6 sec. [UPDATE: Whoops—miscalculation. I'm now one USB-C port short. I'm going to have to plug and unplug to use the new card reader. Oh well.]

They came today! The spoons are for scale.

One other nice little thing: I still had that $200 B&H gift certificate floating around, and the bill for four cards and the Wise card reader came to $200.42. Shame about that 42¢.  :-)

Mike

Original contents copyright 2024 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

Featured Comments from:

Mike Chisholm: "Heh.... Three long and informative posts out of buying a new SD card. Good going, Mike: what is the sound of one hand wringing?  ;-)

"But, wow, you really don't believe in tempting fate, do you? You'd better touch some apotropaic wood right away!"

Mike replies: I was actually kind of retroactively embarrassed by my first post ("Where Do All the Cards and Pens Go?"). It was lazy and outdated because it was written off the top of my head. I figured my readers deserve a better effort than that.

Peter: "Thank you, Mike. A most helpful and entertaining post. These are the cards I settled on—buying a set of four for each of my cameras (Canon and Lumix). The 64 GB size is right—I've never filled a 64 GB in a day of shooting. I selected the V60, as in the Goldilocks 'buy the one in the middle' rationale. Can you answer one more question? Do I need to have a separate set for each camera? Is there a reason to use SD cards only in the camera in which they were formatted? Or could I format the SD card in one camera and use it in the others?"

Stephen S. replies to Peter: "Every camera I know of follows the Design rule for Camera File system specification from the Japan Electronics and Information Technology Industries Association, so they all use the same, compatible file system, making them perfectly safe to interchange. Anyone claiming cards shouldn't be interchanged between cameras seems to say so based on fear, uncertainty, and doubt [FUD], with no proper technical reasoning behind it.

"For testing memory cards, I used H2testw from Heise.de to write to every single block of the card, and then read it back to ensure it wasn't corrupted. That will also detect fake cards mis-reporting their size! It's only for Windows, however."

Stephen Cowdery: "Great series of posts. Almost every purchase of photo gear is a balance of features/cost and you really gave me some insight into something I otherwise wouldn't think about."

Niels: "I work in the back office of a camera store which sells SanDisk among many other card brands. The front office personnel often talks about what products used to be better, are of poor quality, and give them bad customer interactions and headaches, but I don't recall SanDisk cards ever being mentioned as one of those products. When we do recovery services on SanDisk cards, it has always been due to formatting or overwrites. I have never experienced card failure with SanDisk. I sometimes wonder if the often repeated reputation of declining quality is an effect of the many counterfeits in circulation?

"Glad to see you got a good card-reader. Few people realise how much it matters to pay the premium a until you have tried it. I use and can highly recommend the ProGrade equivalent of what you have (also made in Taiwan)."

dogman (partial comment): "I've shot digital since 2007. Not a long time, admittedly. Over this time I've used SanDisk, Lexar, Delkin, Transcend and Kingston cards in various cameras. I've only had one card go haywire--a SanDisk SDHC. Later, after reading about counterfeit SanDisk cards, I checked that old dead card and, yep, it fit the description of a fake. I didn't even know SanDisk was owned by WD until reading this article."

John Krill: "My complaint with all these SD cards is the write protect switch. I’m always having to put it in its proper position. Write anything you want and erase it all thank you. I’m thinking of gluing that damn switch somehow."

Mike replies: The Delkin Black and Sony TOUGH cards do not have write protect switches. The Sony cards inspire many complaints that they are too large and do not physically fit in the card bays of cameras, so Delkin Black is your best bet.

Ken Bennett: "Despite the fact that my most recently bought camera is a Canon (R6), I still think of myself as a Nikon shooter—and I feel the siren call with every new Nikon or third-party lens for Z mount that is in the news. It is hard for the brain to give up on something that is not only useful but tactile. Not for nothing the satin finish, the curves, the 'fits like a glove,' etc."

robert e: "As others will surely have noted, several ducks have to be in a row for a card to deliver close to its spec speeds. So, a little overkill in each component is good, but too much in any one is a waste. Excess capability is not much of an investment when that capability will cost you half as much to buy by the time you actually need it. There's also something to be said for going with the most popular reputable cards, both in terms of massive user base and knowledge, and the likelihood that these are the cards that device manufacturers use for testing and optimizing their products."

Comments

[Jayanand Govindaraj]

Best of luck. I have a handful of old (5 years +) SanDisk UHS I and UHS II SD cards which still perform flawlessly, admittedly on very sporadic use. OTOH, I have SanDisk CFE (B) card which I got tempted into buying at a sale at B&H a couple of years ago, and it sucks big time - it is as slow as molasses and it heats up at the drop of a hat. It has now been relegated as the backup card for my regular back up cards, in other words, the last ditch option, to be used only when truly desperate!

[Bob Johnston]

I am sure that you will be OK with your choice. Why is it assumed by some that when a company changes hands something terrible will happen to it? Remember all the doomsayers when Olympus became OM Systems? As it happens,the only card that failed on me was a Lexar.

[Kye Wood]

Penny wise. Pound foolish.

My father in law owns some incredible digital cameras and lenses. More for the act of possessing them, then in the using.

Having spent enough to buy a lovely brand new car on his latest photo purchasing splurge, he mentioned to me that he was having trouble with one of them.

The problem was the card. In fact, all of the cards. He only owns the cheapest, nastiest, almost guaranteed to be fake Amazon sourced cards. And of course, write errors are their raison d'etre.

So, I gave him a couple of 64gb Sandisk Extreme Pros. Problem solved.

Funny how some people know the price of everything but the true value of almost nothing.

[Thom Hogan]

Congratulations, you're now a proud member of the lowest common denominator group. This group perpetually wins the "most units sold" category.

The thing you don't get into in your analysis is that there are multiple sources of chips involved with cards. While the stated ability may be the same, the actual abilities differ under stress (heat, speed, etc.). They also differ in projected lifespan.

[But where is such information found? I read what I could find at your site. Did I miss it? --Mike]

SD cards have one advantage over CFe and other modern cards: they're mostly "dumb". So you don't get into the logic control aspect (another chip), because that's built into the device using the card.

[Joseph T]

Your gift card reminds me of my employer's cash gift to me on my work anniversary, just as Apple announced new iPads. The gift was *just* short of the cost of an iPad Pro with a keyboard and an Apple Pencil. Is the universe trying to tell me something? If I were smart, I'd get the cheaper iPad Air (it's fine, and a huge upgrade to my 2015 iPad Pro), skip the keyboard (my old bluetooth keyboard is fine), and spend the rest on a new lens.

[Dogman]

I've shot digital since 2007. Not a long time, admittedly. Over this time I've used SanDisk, Lexar, Delkin, Transcend and Kingston cards in various cameras. I've only had one card go haywire--a SanDisk SDHC. Later, after reading about counterfeit SanDisk cards, I checked that old dead card and, yep, it fit the description of a fake.

I didn't even know SanDisk was owned by WD until reading this article. Doesn't bother me--I always buy SanDisk these days and I buy from B&H or directly from Amazon Prime to avoid potential fakes. Not a video shooter, not a high quantity shooter and I don't need speed. The lower speed SanDisk cards are cheap and reliable and a perfect fit for my needs.

[Eoin]

Ironically, Dan Ariely has been engulfed in controversy recently - for dishonesty in his research methods...

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2023/08/gino-ariely-data-fraud-allegations/674891/
https://www.npr.org/2023/07/27/1190568472/dan-ariely-francesca-gino-harvard-dishonesty-fabricated-data

[That's interesting, because I remember when I read the book (quite a few years ago now) I got the impression that the writing was pretty glib. When people are being careful about data there's a certain caution and carefulness that can be detected just in the way they write. --Mike]

[Gordon Lewis]

As you hinted in your post, another reason to opt for faster SD cards is because (assuming you have a fast card reader) they can transfer photos and video to your computer more quickly. The difference isn't always significant though, and is most noticeable when you're dealing with large files and/or a full card.

[Ken Tanaka]

"The card I bought is called the SanDisk 64GB Extreme PRO UHS-II SDXC. The V60 version."
This SanDisk SD card has been a mainstay of my memory cards for a long time. (Its predecessor, the 170mb read version before that.) Never had one fail. (In fact, in 22 years I've only had one memory card fail.) Excellent price. Plenty fast for (my) photography. I've never come close to filling one.

[Dave]

It sounds like that Wise card reader is just the ticket. An impressive improvement. Plus, it was only 42 cents out of your pocket!

Despite the warnings about lower quality since the Western Digital buyout, I've had reliable service from my SanDisk UHS-I cards. I've only filled up a card once. (I was making copies of my dad's old slides, in RAW and jpeg.)

The info about Angelbird, ( https://www.cined.com/angelbird-factory-tour-this-is-how-your-memory-card-is-made-cined-exclusive/ ) mentioned that "The manufacturing and production of all of the above (Excluding [sic] SD cards) are also being made in Austria."

Two of the four cards are just backups and I've formatted the cards I use in the camera about four times. My computer seems to have a slow card reader like you used to use -- usually a few minutes for less than 75 36MB files (plus the associated (20MB?) jpeg copies). Eh, I don't sit and stare at the computer while it's reading the files.

I would have to look at the cards to get the capacity. I just don't concern myself, since I figured out how big a card I needed when I ordered them. (I had to look at the specs of the K1 II online to know that I have UHS-I in the camera.)

[Jeff1000]

These SD card posts had me battling torpidity. Gratefully, reader Mike Chisholm roused me with "apotropaic," and sent me scrambling for the dictionary.

[David Bennett]

On the subject of "But we also "follow ourselves," in effect, because we have a pretty strong tendency to do what we've done before." - from what I understand, the underlying reason is that we like to believe we are consistent and do not wish to run counter to the image of ourselves. That self reinforcement was used in the Korean War to move prisoners along towards a desired point of view. They would be asked to write something that 'everyone could agree with' such as the pain of being separated from loved ones, and then having written a series of statements they would be confronted with the 'inevitable' conclusion of where their written statements had led them.

[David Bennett]

Despite the fact that my most recently bought camera is a Canon (R6) I still think of myself as a Nikon shooter - and I feel the siren call with every new Nikon or third-party lens for Z mount that is in the news. It is hard for the brain to give up on something that is not only useful but tactile. Not for nothing the satin finish, the curves, the 'fits like a glove' etc.
Did you know that there is no one-button press to swap from centre focus to subject priority on the Z5, 6, 7 models and, I am told, only partially addressed on the 8.
Wheres on the R6 there is a one-button hold and swap focus.

[Kye Wood]

I found this "Congratulations, you're now a proud member of the lowest common denominator group" to be a bit savage. Especially for TH.

Since the dawn of digital, I have used multiple brands, some of which failed. But, the only brand never to have failed is Sandisk.

My first Sandisk card was 1gb. And it cost me just under $1000. Holy shit. The money I've spent on this hobby.

[Peter Williams]

Get a decent USB C hub, then your port juggling needn't happen. I've got plenty of Sandisk cards, CF, SD and microSD, never had an issue with them.

[Jez Cunningham]

So glad you included the SD cards for scale - I was really asking myself what size those spoons were.

[Exactly. How else are you supposed to know that the spoons are actually quite small and delicate?

By the way, those two spoons crossed the Atlantic with my first American ancestor on my mother's side, A.D. 1750. --Mike]

[Jeff1000]

I meant to mention Mike, I've never had issues with Sandisk cards, both CF and SD. It's a good thing since my Z50, Z6, and Z7 have single card slots.

[David Dyer-Bennet]

The write-protect switch is actually the thing I love most about SD cards. I can let someone copy my photos to date at a convention, or I can copy their photos to date at a convention, without much credible risk of being accused of messing up the card. I don't recall that it's ever caused me a problem.

Transferring *to* the computer is always after the fact, so I don't care if that's a bit slow. Write speed is so rarely an issue for stills that I can't remember a personal case. So video is the only place it really matters to me -- would let me shoot 4k with less compression (in the UHS-II slot; my camera is one of the mixed ones).

[James]

Tell me you come from a family with money without saying you come from a family with money.

Oh. Wait. The spoons.

[Rob de Loe]

After all that you bought the 64 GB version of the one I use (128 GB version). I have had no issues, and like a lot of folks commenting, I didn't know there were issues with SanDisk! I hope they work out for you.