Which SanDisk cards support wear-leveling ?

Hi,
I’m looking to use SHDC cards as filesyastem and storage in Raspberry Pi and other mbedded linux devices. I had few SanDisk and other manufacturers cards fail quite fast, after only few days of usaga so my main concern is to get SDHC cards that have absolute best wear-leveling for maximum life time.

Speed and capacity of card is much less important to me.

Is there any list that shows which SanDisk cards have controller that supports wear-leveling? Also knowing which SDHC has just basic wear-leveling and which one has premium wear-leveling controller would also help a lot.

Cheers,

Valent.

I would be very much interested too!

I could only find this page mentioning Wear Leveling: “SanDisk Extreme Pro® SDXC™ UHS-I Memory Card”

http://www.sandisk.com/products/memory-cards/sd/extremepro-sdxc-sdhc-uhs-1-95mbs/

+1

I’m with the OP too. Using a Sandisk Extreme SDHC on our laptop and planning to use another on our next NAS.

Also my father has got one for his chromebook (in absence of information on wear-levelling bought a Verbatim). And I’m looking for a coiple of usb sticks for live OS and my coming Cb too. Not talking of Android devices.

Please include the type of wear-leveling implemented: dynamic or static.

Seems flash memories aren’t looked for cameras only these days.

I was using SDHC cards on rPi, and I am tired of burning cards every 6 months. So, I was advised to buy MMC, but I wanted to be sure they are better than SD. And I found this page.

https://web.archive.org/web/20140805113601/http://www.toshiba.com/taec/Catalog/Line.do?familyid=7&lineid=900195
states:
e-MMC products integrates NAND flash memory and a controller chip in a single package to perform error corrections, wear leveling and bad-block
This means, all eMMC cards include Wear Leveling.

So, in emergency, I have bought an eMMC card plus the micro SD adapter on Amazon. Now, I am still looking for wear leveling in SD cards. For now, I have found various contradictory peaces of information. For SD and SDHC, each manufacturer was free to do any mess; it’s said (but I have not found any proof yet) that SDXC implies WL.

This item states it can do WL:
Delkin Devices 32 GB MicroSDHC 660X UHS-I U3 Memory Card
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00NQX1F6G
(SDHC UHS-1 U3)

https://www.sandisk.fr/oem-design/industrial/industrial-cards
Sandisk Industrial are given for 192TB written …

Out of those OEM-industrial cards (which are not supported by the official chat room), using any standard end user Sandisk card ( https://www.sandisk.fr/home/memory-cards ) in an rPi breaks the waranty. Still, for booting an rPi, they recommend the High Endurance stream (which is also called video surveillance https://www.sandisk.fr/home/memory-cards/microsd-cards/high-endurance-microsd ). Both are SDXC white-white; but the industrial has the word industrial written on it.

I was said that eMMC probably includes a better WL algorythm than any micro SD card. I can’t proof check it.

Here is what I have been said by the Sandisk support chat:

  • all Sandisk cards do WL; but knowing which WL algorythm is used is an industrial secret. Ultra cards do it, even if it’s not mentionned on the product page (it’s officially written on the Extreme page).
  • here is the complete list of end-user items https://www.sandisk.fr/home/memory-cards  ; they all should include WL, and are all supported by the live chat
  • the OEM cards are not supported by the live chat; in example the Industrial range: https://www.sandisk.fr/oem-design/industrial/industrial-cards . For OEM cards, support should be seeked at the reseller.
  • any end-user card inserted in an rPi looses it’s waranty
  • when you have an rPi, and want to insert some stuff in the SD hole, it’s recommended to choose a High Endurance model (also called video-surveillance) https://www.sandisk.fr/home/memory-cards/microsd-cards/high-endurance-microsd . They are very similar to industrial cards, except they don’t have the INDUSTRIAL word.

I also would like to know!

 all sandisk products and all modern flash memory from any reputable manufacturer use wear leveling. sandisk products use dynamic wear leveling.  

There are different WL algorythms, with variing cost and efficiency. SDcards have a poor algorythm; eMMC chips are much better (I have bought true eMMC cards with MMC-SD adater); I am also giving a try to Sandisk cards certified for video recording (said to be 2y waranty, but with a much greater write cycles).

I had bought a Transcend Premium 3y ago; used it less than 10y; it died yesterday while I was trying to wirte 1G on it; it was a rescue storage (backup) for critical file (there is no data loss for me because those data are store on 5 disks); so in short, I wrote 2G 3y ago, left the card in a safe for 3y, and tried to update the content. The card burnt after 5mn. The presence of card is detected by adapter at electrical level, but the volume has 0B (zero byte). After checking, Transcend have only 1y waranty; that’s why I prefer Sandisk: Ultra cards are given for 5y, Extreme for 10y. And even if high endurance are only 2y, they have 10x bigger write cycle.