MicroSD options, including MLC cards

We have sent our camera to the cards manufacturer to do the data write /read testing, we can confirm VIOFO cards is reliable.

About randing beep issue, 2 days ago, I found this issue on A129 pro, at that time I am using another brand cards, then I switch to Samsung 128GB EVO plus cards, then no recording problem.
Samsung Evo 64GB all seem good, but some of the Samsung Evo 128GB seem to run slow at times, I have one that does not work in the Gitup F1, and sometimes causes "Slow Speed" error in the Blueskysea B1W. Running h2testw.exe using the camera as a card reader I see it sometimes only manage 5.7MB/s. Some of those cards seem fine, maybe there is more than 1 factory for them.

I've never seen a problem with the Viofo card :)
 
Viofo doesn't manufacture cards so it's my guess that their cards are available under the maker's brand name. They're obviously going to be one of the better brands ;)
I do like his approach of having the card maker test their cards in his cam to ensure things are going to go as they should (y) I haven't tried a cam as a card reader- I just plug the cards into my laptop directly. Perhaps there's a speed restriction happening in the B1W read/write section? I don't know enough about that to say.

Phil
 
Viofo doesn't manufacture cards so it's my guess that their cards are available under the maker's brand name. ...
I guess not, although the same card is probably available under other brand names.

Thing is, Viofo have done the tests (or had them done), so that we can trust their card for use in dashcams, and I've not heard of anyone reporting a problem so far. We don't know what its lifespan is, but I guess it is good value long term. So if you need a U3 card for your 4K dual dashcam...
 
Samsung Endurance is only U1
“Only”? That delivers speed capacity so wildly above and beyond anything our dashcams can possibly use that I can’t imagine why you’d bring that up as though it were some sort of downside.

Whereas Viofo have gone for a proper MLC card, very fast, very consistent speed, long life?, only issue is that they are limited to 128GB:
What do you mean “proper MLC”? No one to my knowledge has ever managed to fit more than 64GB of old-school MLC NAND in a microSD form factor. Samsung’s V-NAND lets them stack MLC on top of each other to let them put more storage in the same space. And their 128GB High Endurance cards come with a 5-year warranty. Whatever Viofo is OEM’ing, they’re only offering a 1-year warranty.

Has anyone gotten any kind of actual confirmation on whether the @viofo branded cards are actually MLC, and if so then what kind of 3D NAND they’re using, who’s manufacturing it for them, etc? For such an expensive card it’s a shame it only comes with a 1-year warranty.
 
“Only”? That delivers speed capacity so wildly above and beyond anything our dashcams can possibly use that I can’t imagine why you’d bring that up as though it were some sort of downside.
U1 according to the SD Association gives 10MByte per second sequential write speed, or 80Mbit per second. I have a 4K dual dashcam (A129 Pro) that will write more than that when set to maximum quality, and I'm not sure if that counts as sequential since it is writing two video streams simultaneously, plus GPS data which may or may not be sequential. So U1 is too close to the limit to be comfortable!

Now a U1 card may actually write faster than 10MByte per second, but presumably less than the next class up which is U3 at 30 MBytes per second, so it may be sufficient, especially if I don't set my camera at maximum quality, but there is no guarantee, with Viofo's U3 MLC card I know it will work, and I can use maximum quality, after all why would you buy a best quality 4K dashcam and then not use full quality?
 
What do you mean “proper MLC”? No one to my knowledge has ever managed to fit more than 64GB of old-school MLC NAND in a microSD form factor. Samsung’s V-NAND lets them stack MLC on top of each other to let them put more storage in the same space. And their 128GB High Endurance cards come with a 5-year warranty. Whatever Viofo is OEM’ing, they’re only offering a 1-year warranty.

Has anyone gotten any kind of actual confirmation on whether the @viofo branded cards are actually MLC, and if so then what kind of 3D NAND they’re using, who’s manufacturing it for them, etc? For such an expensive card it’s a shame it only comes with a 1-year warranty.
Judging from the performance, I reckon it is real.
 
Now a U1 card may actually write faster than 10MByte per second,
That’s a minimum classification, not a max. Have you ever had any U1 card fail to successfully write whatever’s coming out of your cam?

Judging from the performance, I reckon it is real.
“Performance”? What “performance” does it provide that isn’t easily achieved with any regular TLC card? I doubt Viofo would be so shortsighted as to lie about it, but I haven’t found any actual tech data on it, specifically what 3D NAND they’ve selected (as that’s the only way they got someone to put 128GB of MLC on a microSD for them). And if so, it’s confusing and sad that they only offer a 1 year warranty on it.

We get it, Viofo hung the moon as far as you’re concerned. They check every internet box you were looking for, from 4K to U3. But a little more sober reservation never hurt.
 
That’s a minimum classification, not a max. Have you ever had any U1 card fail to successfully write whatever’s coming out of your cam?
It's supposed to be a guarantee of minimum performance, although in my experience with Samsung Evo, it seems to require use of the UHS bus, which most dashcams do not use, and so is actually no guarantee at all! Yes, I have a U1 card that quite reliably fails in the Gitup F1 after a few minutes use but works fine in lower bitrate cameras.

You are of course quite welcome to use U1 cards in any camera, maybe they will work, maybe they will work for the first 20% of the cards life, but will fail once it starts to slow down a bit, maybe they will work until they slow down because they are hot.

The reality is that we don't know what works, and will only find out the truth after a few years of experience, by which time technology will have moved on and that experience will be of no use in choosing a new card.

specifically what 3D NAND they’ve selected
I see no reason to think it is 3D NAND. All the cards that I have used that I know are 3D NAND have had very variable write speeds, the Viofo cards have a very consistent write speed, and a very high one at that, just what I would expect from traditional MLC memory. Traditional TLC has always been slow in comparison.

The only way we are going to discover the lifespan is to test it, hopefully we will get the result in 3 or 4 years time...

I can guarantee it works better than the Transcend cards, but beyond that, while it looks very promising, we will have to wait and see.
 
it’s confusing and sad that they only offer a 1 year warranty on it.
That might be a better warranty than you get with your Samsung Endurance, if you are writing 24 hours a day with sufficient bitrate!

Samsung warranty is limited by write cycles, not years. They calculate a year value, but put a note that it is based on a specified bitrate, about 1/3rd of what you may use in a Viofo A129 Pro dual dashcam! "Based on Full HD(1920x1080) video content recorded at 26 Mbps Video support", So your 5 year Samsung Endurance warranty used in an A129 Pro may be only 1.5 years, and Samsung Endurance is only U1 so it is not warranted fast enough anyway!
 
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