An interesting piece on the 'Hit & Miss' of Micro-SD cards

[David Markham]

G'day folks

Ok, now I'm sure most of us here have agonised at some point - if not been curious at the very least - over the seemingly huge range and choice of Micro-SD Cards , and which particular make and model is most appropriate for our individual device: The question for many of us invariably runs along the lines of the following:
"Shoud I pay through the nose for a proprietary SD-Card with its 'guaranteed reliability', or can I get away with a cheaper third-party brand of high renown?"

Upon purchasing a Thinkware dashcam myself about a fortnight ago, I have already shelled-out significant amounts of money on multiple non-proprietary cards, in the vain hope of actually saving some money on those very same cards. Today, however, I was effectively forced to purchase Thinkware's own proprietary Micro-SD Card, simply due to the compatibility issues I have encountered with several high-street models - specifically, the Samsung 64Gb EVO+, the Lexar 64Gb 633X, and the Kingston 64Gb Micro-SD. All were Class-10 UHS-1 (the EVO+ was actually rated at UHS-3), and yet, all three bummed-out. Whilst the EVO+ card worked initially, my Thinkware F770 started rebooting at random, telling me throughout any one trip to "...format the card for data integrity". The Lexar and Kingston cards, however, were rejected by the F770 altogether.

Clearly, then, alot more research on this matter is called for.

This is where I came across a very interesting blog post on Micro-SD cards, and the embedded firmware within them.

Here, two researchers reported on the staggering unreliability of internal flash memory, and the consequent need for most manufacturers to incorporate micro-processors into their cards, for error-correction purposes.
The blog post also discusses how a seemingly inert Micro-SD Card is vulnerable to be hacked at the micro-processor level, enabling arbitrary editing of firmware within the SD-card itself.

Now I would not be at all surprised if the likes of Thinkware or Blackvue have incorporated firmware-code into each and every one of their Dashcams, engineered specifically to communicate with the hidden firmware within their own proprietary SD-Cards, and theirs only - effectively blocking out competitors, in similar fashion to how Apple refuses to release TRIM-specific Firmware script to competing SSD-manufacturers.

This leads me to ponder to what extent - if any - the unique firmware from a proprietary Micro-SD Card such as that from Thinkware or Blackvue might be extracted, and then planted into a seemingly reputable third-party Micro-SD Card, such as the EVO+, thereby empowering the consumer to avoid the extortionate prices demanded by the original manufacturer.

Alternatively, some clever computer-smart might be able to write a firmware workaround for specific dashcam models, effectively forcing manufacturers to recognise non-proprietary Micro-SD cards - again, in similar fashion to the TRIMForce Command for Mac computers running on non Apple-branded SSDs.

I would like to read your thoughts and ideas on this subject. I hope you like the embedded blog post too.

Cheers.

 

[Zardoz66]

I would think if some dash cam did this it would not be around to long. as people will get wind of it and avoid the proprietary piece of junk.

 

[DT MI]

I would think if some dash cam did this it would not be around to long. as people will get wind of it and avoid the proprietary piece of junk.

Given the number of reported incidents of some cameras only working reliably with proprietary branded cards I suspect the practice is not unheard of.

 

[Zardoz66]

Given the number of reported incidents of some cameras only working reliably with proprietary branded cards I suspect the practice is not unheard of.

it would not be surprising I guess.

 

[jokiin]

Now I would not be at all surprised if the likes of Thinkware or Blackvue have incorporated firmware-code into each and every one of their Dashcams, engineered specifically to communicate with the hidden firmware within their own proprietary SD-Cards, and theirs only - effectively blocking out competitors

Quite sure they do this, there are some reasons aside from selling overpriced memory cards why they would want to do this, it would reduce their support related issues, even if a specific card appears the same cards change often (internally) which makes it more difficult to support

This leads me to ponder to what extent - if any - the unique firmware from a proprietary Micro-SD Card such as that from Thinkware or Blackvue might be extracted, and then planted into a seemingly reputable third-party Micro-SD Card, such as the EVO+, thereby empowering the consumer to avoid the extortionate prices demanded by the original manufacturer.

extracting the code from their cards and trying to run it on other cards would be an extremely difficult task I would think

Alternatively, some clever computer-smart might be able to write a firmware workaround for specific dashcam models, effectively forcing manufacturers to recognise non-proprietary Micro-SD cards

Modding the camera firmware to ignore this function is a far more likely way to achieve greater card compatibility, obviously has warranty implications etc


Ideally if their own cards were closer to market price then most people probably wouldn't even care, they wouldn't have the volume or sell through to be able to follow market pricing though so while ever they choose to restrict things to working with their own cards for support reasons it is going to come at an increased cost to the consumer, that's their business model I guess and something the consumer needs to consider when making purchasing decisions

 

[Edwin8484]

Unbelievable..