This is an extremely verbose article, but for most people I would highlight the most important things (for SD cards at least):
Buy a real brand: people have there own opinions on this, but to me this means Sandisk, Samsung or Verbatim. Had a bad experience with Lexar once but as always ymmv.
Buy from a real retailer: this means B&H or Adorama or a not-shady brick and mortar store. Amazon will happily ship you counterfeit cards that will crapp out when you need them most, like ebay will. This is coming from someone that chooses to buy a ton of their electronics from ebay, Aliexpress or street hawkers.
Yup. The street bazaar in Amazon is quickly turning into a hawkers market where you have to know you’re buying a fake Rolex and negotiate accordingly. The problem is that no one in the general public knows this.
A cursory glance around AliExpress shows SD cards with “decorative” labels - and straight up fakes. The problem you get is that any joe blow can buy from Ali- resell on Amazon or elsewhere - and be truthful in saying that he was trusting his seller.
I tried a couple of FAT32 formatted 16GB SanDisk microSD that have a "Lifetime" warranty in an OpenWRT-based router that has a microSD card slot. I managed put them both into unrecoverable "read-only" mode by letting some daemon write to them unconditionally.
They were purchased from a large electronics retailer not Amazon.
I normally do not use SD cards or USB sticks for non-interactive, frequent writes. I usually write to them manually (i.e., interactively), either storing files or dd'ing bootable images. For example, I am not one of those people who tries to use an SD card as a substitute for a HDD in an RPi. I only use tmpfs for non-interactive writes.
Is there any reason I should not conclude that these cards are not suitable for high frequency and high volume of writes.
That's a good conclusion. You can buy cards that are actually specced for high-endurance workloads, they're usually marketed as either for video capture or industrial applications.
> Buy a real brand: people have there own opinions on this, but to me this means Sandisk, Samsung or Verbatim. Had a bad experience with Lexar once but as always ymmv.
I've had always bad luck with Sandisk, both CF and SD/microSD cards.
Buying from Amazon? You’re likely getting fakes. Genuine SanDisk memory cards are top notch.
Sure every brand will have lemons, but if you’re seeing consistently bad “SanDisk” cards.. you are pretty certainly not getting genuine product. Find a reputable supplier (which is absolutely not Amazon)
From what I understand, Amazon comingles their own inventory with third party sellers so although the cards they buy might be legit, you're not necessarily guaranteed to get what they bought vs what CheapMemoryAmerica1999 contributed even if you buy the ones from Amazon
I read that as well. But Amazon does have a good return policy with respect to that, and if you read recent reviews it seems like the problem is mostly over.
I've never had a SanDisk failure in over 10 years. At one point I was recording two hours of 1080p video a day, rotated between three cards, for a couple of years.
I haven’t had too many issues ordering from Amazon, but I go through much effort making sure seller is reputable every time and listing was not swapped.
Both Adorama and B&H sell on Amazon too, but for photo/video gear I would go to B&H direct.
Amazon will swap in fakes no matter what seller you're using, as long as they're using Amazon's fullfillment services. Search this site, there is like one article a month about it.
I keep hearing stories but am yet to be burned with a fake myself. Perhaps paying attention to the seller and the listing makes a difference after all (I don’t know how others do it), or Amazon US uses different procedures when shipping internationally, or I’m just lucky and haven’t been buying that much (fewer than ten tech items in an average year).
If anyone chooses to order memory cards or the like from Amazon US specifically for whatever reason, I find that at least an hour reading reviews and surveying listings is required for me personally to be reasonably hopeful I will get what I want. Trying to spot dishonest reviews or signs that older reviews are for a different product (swapped listing). I imagine if I were in the US I could simply order multiple product variations from different listings & sellers and then pick the most genuine-looking one, returning the rest, but that would be a major hassle when ordering overseas.
A quick informal survey confirmed my impression that most customers who care to identify sellers and resist going for the cheapest listing typically receive items with no issues (or within the margin of human error), but there does exist a vocal minority who were affected allegedly despite those measures.
Buy a real brand: people have there own opinions on this, but to me this means Sandisk, Samsung or Verbatim. Had a bad experience with Lexar once but as always ymmv.
Buy from a real retailer: this means B&H or Adorama or a not-shady brick and mortar store. Amazon will happily ship you counterfeit cards that will crapp out when you need them most, like ebay will. This is coming from someone that chooses to buy a ton of their electronics from ebay, Aliexpress or street hawkers.