SD cautionary tale

**kabeyun** · 08-22-2006, 11:21 AM

I thought I was a pretty savvy e-consumer, but I'm in the embarassing position of posting this warning:

We all (should) know about the abundance of defective, bootleg SD cards out there. The advice to only buy from a reputable e-merchant is all over these and other forums. So I did. I bought a SanDisk Ultra II 2GB card about 3 months ago. Paradoxically, the problem was that it worked.

The reason that turned out to be a problem is that I only recently tried to use the card to write an audio stream, and my write rate was well below spec. I used CardSpeed (a read/write tester that comes bundled with Audacity) and it turns out that the data transmission rates were from 1/4th to 1/20th what the card should've been! I called SanDisk and, sure enough, the serial # confirmed that it wasn't one of theirs. Fortunately American Express is taking care of me.

SO... if you buy an SD card don't just see if it works; check the data transfer rates right away. Malicious e-merchants are probably counting on you not discovering the fraud until much later. According to SanDisk, even well-reviewed e-merchants can end up with knockoff media stock. My solution: I bought from B&H, a discount e-merchant with an established physical store in New York.

-K

"Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."
- Chinese proverb

**TrippleOptics** · 08-22-2006, 11:38 AM

Damn, how can I check that? I just bought a new 2Gig SanDisk card from Antonline.com through Amazon and a SanDisk Card Reader ImageMate yesterday. The price that I got it [SD Card] at seemed like a steal too, enough that now I'm supicious after reading this.

**kabeyun** · 08-22-2006, 11:56 AM

Originally Posted by TrippleOptics

Damn, how chan I check that?

You can download the card speed testing utility separately (free) and simply tap the "Test" button. It'll rate the card performance. When interpreting the numbers, don't forget: 8 bits per byte and 1,000,000 bytes per megabyte.

-K

**TrippleOptics** · 08-22-2006, 12:01 PM

Great, Thanks, I'm on it. Hopefully everything is all good!

**TrippleOptics** · 08-22-2006, 01:27 PM

I ran it on the 128MB SD card I have & it passed with the following message Card Speed is Good Avoid 22KHz ADPCM

**kabeyun** · 08-22-2006, 07:50 PM

Sounds fine. Test the 2GB card when it arrives.

-The Rube

**TrippleOptics** · 08-23-2006, 02:44 PM

fo sho !

**Stillrockin** · 08-24-2006, 05:21 AM

Appreciate the good warning kabeyun. For what its worth, I read the other day about a lady who writes articles for a large newspaper about internet scams, and how not to get scammed. She got caught up in a phishing scheme herself!! Talk about embarrassing!!

I picked up a 2 gig ultra sandisk for my camera @ CircuitCity last Friday for $80 with two $20 rebates! $40.00 after rebates put a big ole smile on my face!!