The days of saying Sandisk cards aren't suited to dashcams are now over

[Nigel]

the samsung pro 64gb card is selling for about $46 w/ prime shipping, so if they have high write cycle rating, i may go with that one instead.

As long as it is one of the new grey ones then it is an MLC card with a 10 year warrantee (I think invalid if the maximum write cycle count is exceeded, eg 2-3 years in everyday use in a dashcam). I've been using one for about 9 months with zero issues, I wouldn't try one of the older black ones as they are mainly fakes.

 

[dedlewamp]

What's the overall opinion on using these? I've seen several threads in the past recommending to stay away from SanDisk, but I find that kinda strange since SanDisk is one of the leading manufacturers of solid state memory.

 

[Gibson99]

What's the overall opinion on using these? I've seen several threads in the past recommending to stay away from SanDisk, but I find that kinda strange since SanDisk is one of the leading manufacturers of solid state memory.

the main reason people said to avoid sandisk, particularly on novatek chipsets, was software incompatibility. something to do with the way the firmware of the camera mounts the "disk", and the way sandisk presents the low level format info to the device. the camera simply refused to use the card at all, or sometimes would use it, but it would be very flaky and unreliable.

that said, i used a 64gb sandisk ultra in my novatek-based a118c without any issues (granted, it was very short term use - filled the card about 5 times to record a road trip), so maybe the latest NT firmwares have fixed this issue.

then again, as i said, that card died after spending a couple of weeks in my wife's CF-100 (with parking mode). i can see that there are files on it, but can't open most of them, can't format it, can't run h2testw, or much anything else. even the files that i CAN watch, i CANNOT delete. it's really weird. even tried some low level format utils to try to revive the card, but it's toast. and sandisk's warranty clearly states that your warranty is void if the card is used in any sort of constant recording device like a car DVR, surveillance system or cable-tv dvr. many other companies say the same thing - warranty void or greatly shortened when used in a DVR-type situation. so to replace this card, i bought one of sandisk's "high endurance video monitoring" cards. $40 for a 64gb, so not too bad: https://www.amazon.com/gp/B00V5Q1N1I - hopefully it'll last more than 2 weeks

 

[jokiin]

there's two issues with Sandisk cards, their controller chipset is a bit different to others, some cameras have a problem with this, the other problem is if they get a bad sector they can set the card to write protect mode and it effectively fails and no longer works where other cards might just mark the sector not to be used and continue to be useful, they are great cards in their own way, just not ideal for this application

 

[Gibson99]

the other problem is if they get a bad sector they can set the card to write protect mode and it effectively fails and no longer works

this seems to be what happened to mine. a bunch of bad sectors/clusters, and now i can't write to or modify anything on the card. any way to unlock that write protect?

 

[jokiin]

any way to unlock that write protect?

not that I'm aware of

 

[Dionic90]

the problem with Sandisk is its a highly popular card, and thus lots of fakes are produced.

my first dashcam was with a novatek chip. had ZERO issues with it in that cam. The cam was 25 bux if i recall? had no issues with it.

I was the only person on this entire site who used sandisk. everyone was doggin' out sandisk--even manufacturers. threads here will prove this.

sandisk is a highly reputable company. been using sandisk for decades, and never had a bad card.

i use sandisk cards daily in audio production and production for film,tv, and online content. the issues here are firmware inside these mass produced Chinese/asian cameras--again threads over time here prove as firmware gets more mature, issues with sandisk started to diminish, and ironically, other highly sought after cards started getting a bad rap (threads here will confirm this).

I encourage anyone who wants to get sandisk to purchase from a reputable company (i have never had any issues with cards SHIPPED and SOLD BY AMAZON (not just "fulfilled by") )

TL;DR -- Sandisk cards are perfectly fine. I have 4 dashcams and all work just fine with sandisk.

 

[jokiin]

I've used hundreds of them with Ambarella A2 cameras, never had an issue, some platforms are a bit finicky though, even some of the more expensive cameras, it's not just a cheap camera problem

 

[Gibson99]

so i did a little digging around, trying to find a way to unlock the card. then on sandisk's own forums, i found several folks who said that since they weren't able to securely delete their files, sandisk allowed them to cut the card in half before sending it in. after i filled out the RMA request online and got the actual RMA number, i called them to make sure it was real, and it was. the guy said they get that a lot and it's OK. "just don't cut the part where it says 64gb and you'll be fine". so i did. so now they'll have no way of knowing it was used in a cam.

my beef is, it shouldn't have failed so quickly. it had been used in a smartphone for a year or so leading up to the time i put it in the cam, but that was just to store photos and music, so really, very few write cycles. putting an SD card in a dashcam for a couple of weeks shouldn't kill it, even if it IS recording constantly. must have just been a bad card to begin with, and using it like this killed it much quicker.

i'm just glad i noticed it when i did, since the cam itself wasn't complaining about a bad SD card - it just wasn't recording. thankfully nothing happened that i would have needed DC footage.

 

[Gibson99]

i bought one of sandisk's "high endurance video monitoring" cards. $40 for a 64gb, so not too bad: https://www.amazon.com/gp/B00V5Q1N1I - hopefully it'll last more than 2 weeks

and here's the h2testw from that high endurance card:

Warning: Only 60873 of 60874 MByte tested.
Test finished without errors.
You can now delete the test files *.h2w or verify them again.
Writing speed: 21.2 MByte/s
Reading speed: 20.5 MByte/s
H2testw v1.4

matches advertised specs nicely - 20mb/sec read AND write. will put it in the cam tonight after formatting as fat32, and hopefully it'll be the last time i put a card in that camera for a while.

 

[reverend]

Nice - you're the first person I know who's trying one of these cards!

Fingers crossed they do the job - I can't see why they wouldn't as they'll have fixed whatever the problem was in the other cards hopefully

 

[Gibson99]

i tried formatting using diskpart but it complained it was too big. windows won't format anything over 32gb in fat32 natively, even though fat32 can handle up to something like 1.8TB. so when i put it in the cf-100, it had a raw, unformatted partition. at first the camera said "SD Card has an error" then started repeating "please insert SD card" over and over. hold emergency button for 10 seconds, it asks "do you wan to format SD card?" then before i can press up to confirm, it tells me "please insert SD card" 2 more times. once it registered the button press, it says it's formatting then rebooting, then begins recording normally. i should probably pull it again to verify that it recorded something in the driveway, but i have a date with my wife tonight.

 

[Gibson99]

just a quick update. no issues with this new sandisk card so far. only corrupt file happened when my wife pulled the card while the camera was still powered on, so of course that last file was corrupt. but it was just her pulling into the driveway anyway, so nothing important was lost.

 

[Shell11]

The quality of the controller, the NAND and the firmware determines the total life expectancy of the flash media.

While consumer grade MLC cards such as the ones listed in this thread are a step above TLC, they are still consumer grade and are not going to withstanding constant video recording over a long period of time. Additionally, even though the SD consumer product datasheets state high tolerance to temperatures, (e.g. -13ºF to 185ºF ) the reality is these figures are way blown out. Consumer grade cards are highly susceptible to charge leakage above 130˚F (54˚C). The dashboard of a car parked in full sun in summer can heat up to 140°F (60˚C) within 15 minutes, which will degenerate the SD card's life expectancy very quickly.

To put it into perspective. An enterprise MLC (industrial grade) SD card costs about 3 times more than standard MLC but will last at least 5 times longer than any consumer grade MLC card. These are also designed to withstand more extreme temperatures.

Companies such as Panasonic, ATP, Swissbit, Transcend and Apacer offer these higher quality MLC cards.

 

[Gibson99]

just a quick update. no issues with this new sandisk card so far. only corrupt file happened when my wife pulled the card while the camera was still powered on, so of course that last file was corrupt. but it was just her pulling into the driveway anyway, so nothing important was lost.

Card still going fine, running nearly constantly since the dashcam is hardwired. I even overheated the dashcam to the point that the case melted and the lens got some weird film on the INSIDE due to a failed case/mount mod. But the card's still just fine.

 

[Dionic90]

been using sandisk in the cams i use since their launch well over a year ago. have not had any issues.

using 2 X128gb and 2 X 64gb for constant recording 24/7.

 

[kamkar]

Thou shalt not go unseen

I had a pretty standart 32 Gb sdxc card from lexxar survive a long time in my old analog system, first in the car for a while and then running the same system at home.
The DVR died in the end, and the 32 Gb lexxar card still soldier on

 

[wozzzzza]

well for me once burnt, second time 1st degree burns, third time was my lesson, 3rd degree burnt, NEVER AGAIN, they will take one hell of a lot to make me a sandisk customer again. I wouldn't even take free cards from them for many years to come.

 

[Rajagra]

Surely the problem with flash memory is that individual locations have a limited number of write cycles.
Even if you are filling the whole card 5 times a day, individual locations are only being written to 5 times. That's hardly intensive use!
Now the directory, FAT, etc can take a hammering, but my understanding is that memory cards dynamically map where data is stored. If a storage area is heavily used, this is noted and it is remapped to be a different address, and be used less often. If done properly it should reduce the problem greatly.
And it has to be said, sequentially writing big files (like video) is pretty easy on the directory structure, etc.

I think we're being fobbed off with excuses when they say don't use them for video recording.

 

[kamkar]

@wozzzzza Thats what we need in the world, more ppl who put ther foot down and say,,,,, O helll no