Ok, so I purchased 3 of SanDisk's Ultra SDHC 8GB 20MB/s cards from T K Foto Technic, which I'm sure many of you guys know in Funan. I didn't know about the Vector Magnetics Seal thingy, but the thing is, T K Foto is listed as one of their authorised dealers, so it should be ok right?
Anyway, I'm facing a problem with ONE of the cards, and I don't dare to open the rest up yet, just in case it's all defective.
By right a class 6 card should be able to beat a class 4 card right? But my tests with this SanDisk Ultra SDHC 8GB 20MB/s card prove otherwise. It can't even beat my Toshiba 8GB SDHC Class 4 card in ANY aspect during testing. I first noticed that it wasn't performing up to standard when I loaded it into my camera and fired off using drive mode. I formated both cards using my Canon 450D to give them an even start. I then noticed, that within the same 10 secs, both could only take the same 13 RAW pictures, in bursts of 2 for 2 bursts, followed by single shots for the remaining 9 shots. So there wasn't any noticable difference at all. That's when I decided to plug it into my PC to give it a test.
I tested both cards 3 times with 3 different methods. First was a simple big file transfer test. I sent a 350MB movie file to my SD cards. I have TerraCopy installed in my computer, so it can tell me the transfer speed. The SanDisk Ultra gave a write speed of around 7.5 MB/s, while the Toshiba was doing 10.5 MB/s. That was definitely fishy to begin with. Copying back into my com, both cards performed the same, of around 18.5 MB/s. Since this test was not really very rigourous, I scoured the internet for testing software and found "H2testw", which I tested both cards with.
This is the test for the SanDisk Ultra SDHC 8GB Class 6 20MB/s card:
And this is the test for the Toshiba 8GB SDHC Class 4 Card:
The results show that the SD Ultra card returned write speeds of only 7.5 MB/s, and read speed of 18.4 MB/s, whereas my Toshiba 8GB SDHC Class 4 card returned a write speed of 10.6 MB/s and a read speed of 18.5 MB/s.
After emailing SanDisk, they asked me to use the ATTO software to test their cards, which I did. However, before I could test the cards, when I inserted the SanDisk Ultra card into my card reader in my computer, an alert popped up telling me the card was not formatted. This is rather suspicious. I did not do anything to the card between testing, and I ejected both cards using the usual "safely remove hardware" thing present on Windows XP. Yet, the card has malfunctioned. I had no such problem with my Toshiba 8GB SDHC card however.
This is the test for the SanDisk Ultra SDHC 8GB Class 6 20MB/s card:
And this is the test for the Toshiba 8GB SDHC Class 4 Card:
Again, the SD Ultra card returned write speeds of up to only 8.6 MB/s and read speeds of up to 19.8 MB/s, while the Toshiba 8GB Class 4 card returned a write speed of up to 9.8 MB/s and read speeds of up to 20.1 MB/s.
What is going on here? After emailing my results to SanDisk, it has now been 4 days, and no reply from them. I'm not sure if I can take these cards down to Vector Magnetics or T K Foto to demand a change (of the other two unopened packages) or a refund, because it has no Vector Magnetics Seal, but yet T K Foto IS an authorised dealer as stated on the Vector Magnetics website.
In case you're thinking that the card is working fine, when I emailed SanDisk the first time round, they said "SanDisk Ultra® SDHC cards, which are currently rated for 15MB/s read and 9MB/s write speeds, are recommended for high-megapixel, high-end digital point-and-shoot cameras. ", which is the 15MB/s version. That would follow that the 20MB/s version would have higher speeds, but there's no difference in the write speed, and it's also losing out to my class 4 card.
Anyone can contribute from their experience whether these cards are supposed to perform so slowly?
Anyway, I'm facing a problem with ONE of the cards, and I don't dare to open the rest up yet, just in case it's all defective.
By right a class 6 card should be able to beat a class 4 card right? But my tests with this SanDisk Ultra SDHC 8GB 20MB/s card prove otherwise. It can't even beat my Toshiba 8GB SDHC Class 4 card in ANY aspect during testing. I first noticed that it wasn't performing up to standard when I loaded it into my camera and fired off using drive mode. I formated both cards using my Canon 450D to give them an even start. I then noticed, that within the same 10 secs, both could only take the same 13 RAW pictures, in bursts of 2 for 2 bursts, followed by single shots for the remaining 9 shots. So there wasn't any noticable difference at all. That's when I decided to plug it into my PC to give it a test.
I tested both cards 3 times with 3 different methods. First was a simple big file transfer test. I sent a 350MB movie file to my SD cards. I have TerraCopy installed in my computer, so it can tell me the transfer speed. The SanDisk Ultra gave a write speed of around 7.5 MB/s, while the Toshiba was doing 10.5 MB/s. That was definitely fishy to begin with. Copying back into my com, both cards performed the same, of around 18.5 MB/s. Since this test was not really very rigourous, I scoured the internet for testing software and found "H2testw", which I tested both cards with.
This is the test for the SanDisk Ultra SDHC 8GB Class 6 20MB/s card:
And this is the test for the Toshiba 8GB SDHC Class 4 Card:
The results show that the SD Ultra card returned write speeds of only 7.5 MB/s, and read speed of 18.4 MB/s, whereas my Toshiba 8GB SDHC Class 4 card returned a write speed of 10.6 MB/s and a read speed of 18.5 MB/s.
After emailing SanDisk, they asked me to use the ATTO software to test their cards, which I did. However, before I could test the cards, when I inserted the SanDisk Ultra card into my card reader in my computer, an alert popped up telling me the card was not formatted. This is rather suspicious. I did not do anything to the card between testing, and I ejected both cards using the usual "safely remove hardware" thing present on Windows XP. Yet, the card has malfunctioned. I had no such problem with my Toshiba 8GB SDHC card however.
This is the test for the SanDisk Ultra SDHC 8GB Class 6 20MB/s card:
And this is the test for the Toshiba 8GB SDHC Class 4 Card:
Again, the SD Ultra card returned write speeds of up to only 8.6 MB/s and read speeds of up to 19.8 MB/s, while the Toshiba 8GB Class 4 card returned a write speed of up to 9.8 MB/s and read speeds of up to 20.1 MB/s.
What is going on here? After emailing my results to SanDisk, it has now been 4 days, and no reply from them. I'm not sure if I can take these cards down to Vector Magnetics or T K Foto to demand a change (of the other two unopened packages) or a refund, because it has no Vector Magnetics Seal, but yet T K Foto IS an authorised dealer as stated on the Vector Magnetics website.
In case you're thinking that the card is working fine, when I emailed SanDisk the first time round, they said "SanDisk Ultra® SDHC cards, which are currently rated for 15MB/s read and 9MB/s write speeds, are recommended for high-megapixel, high-end digital point-and-shoot cameras. ", which is the 15MB/s version. That would follow that the 20MB/s version would have higher speeds, but there's no difference in the write speed, and it's also losing out to my class 4 card.
Anyone can contribute from their experience whether these cards are supposed to perform so slowly?
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