SanDisk High Endurance microSDXC storage card
Key takeaways
- SanDisk's High Endurance Video microSDXC Cards are on sale for $53 for the 256GB version.
- They're the perfect cards for continuous recording, and are fast enough to handle 4K video recording.
- They are more expensive than regular microSD cards.
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On Valentine's Day, 2023, I got it into my head to test the long-term durability of microSD cards. This idea came to me after encountering failures in a few Raspberry Pi projects that involved writing large amounts of data to storage cards over extended periods.
I had a handful of SanDisk High Endurance microSDXC cards , specifically designed for heavy use in dash cams, body cams, and home security cameras, so I decided to put them to the test.
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I grabbed three dash cams I had lying around (yeah, that's the sort of stuff I have lying around my place), set them up to point out a window into my garden, connected them to battery backups, and let them roll.
And roll they did. Day and night... spring, summer, autumn, winter... for three years.
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SanDisk High Endurance microSDXC storage card
These cards are purpose-built for demanding, high-endurance applications such as dashcams and home monitoring systems, with a focus on high reliability.
SanDisk manufactures two lines of microSD cards specifically designed for intensive usage in devices like dash cams and security cameras: the High Endurance and Max Endurance cards . As the name suggests, the Max Endurance cards are the ultimate choice, promising a staggering 120,000 hours -- approximately 13 years! -- of continuous recording.
Testing those to their limit was clearly out of the question, as I might very well be a ghost before those cards wear out. But the High Endurance cards, which the specs claim are good for up to 40,000 hours for the largest 512GB card, posed a much more achievable challenge. And since endurance scales linearly, the 256GB cards I tested are rated for only 20,000 hours.
After all, 20,000 hours is only -- give me a moment while I scribble some math on the back of a convenient envelope -- about two and a quarter years.
So, my plan was simple: run the cards until they died. But here's the thing -- they didn't.
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The SanDisk High Endurance cards turned out to be pretty impressive. They're rated Class 10, U3, and V30, meaning they can handle 4K video and boast sequential read and write speeds of 100 MB/s and 40 MB/s, respectively. While speed isn't the most critical factor for looped video recording in cameras, it's still good to know these cards live up to their claims.
These cards are also built to survive a lot. They're resistant to drops, water immersion, and even X-rays. On top of that, they're designed for extreme temperature swings, rated to handle -13°F (-25°C) to 185°F (85°C) even during operation. Whether baking on a car dashboard or mounted on the side of a house, these cards can take it.
This is on top of their high endurance, made possible by SanDisk's use of high-quality 3D TLC (Triple-Level Cell) flash, which offers much longer life (but slower read/write speeds) than the standard TLC flash used in more mainstream storage cards.
Side note: Whenever I talk about storage cards for cameras and mention that they're X-ray proof, someone always asks why manufacturers make such an oddly specific claim. The curiosity stems from the days of photographic film, which was susceptible to fogging or overexposure when passed through X-ray machines at airport security.
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Thankfully, modern storage media like microSD cards are completely unaffected by X-rays, so there's no need to worry about that anymore.
Anyway, the other day, I decided to pull the plug on the experiment. I estimate the cards have run for about 26,500 hours, all of them surpassing the rated 20,000 hours.
How is that possible?
It turns out this was due to the cameras I used. While they were set to record HD video, I hadn't accounted for their use of variable bit rate technology, which conserves storage space at the expense of some quality. Since my cameras were pointed at a garden with minimal movement (especially at night), they recorded less data to maintain the same level of quality compared to if they had been capturing a busy city with constant motion. As a result, less data was written to the cards.
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But still, these cards lasted three years of continuous use, writing an estimated 24 TB of data to that 256GB card over that time (another back-of-the-envelope calculation, assuming a low bit rate of around 2 Mbps). That's impressive endurance, and blasting past the 2-year limited warranty these cards come with.
But in reality, these cards could very well have a few more years left in them. I've run tests on these cards, and even after three years of use, performance is exactly the same as when they were new, and a scan of the cards doesn't show any errors. Not bad for a microSD card you can buy for $60.
's buying advice
The SanDisk High Endurance range of microSD cards gets two thumbs up from me. Even if you go for the 512GB card , which boosts lifespan out to 40,000 hours of HD video recording, that still only costs a very reasonable $110.
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If this isn't enough for you, go for Max Endurance , where prices range from $37 for a 32GB card with a 15,000-hour HD recording lifespan , to $99 for a 256GB card offering the full 120,000 hours (13 years) of recording lifespan .
Sure, you could throw a regular card into your dash cam, body cam, or security camera system and take a chance, but if one day you need that footage for something and it's not there because your card failed, don't blame me.
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