DSandisk vs. Transcend vs. hoodman Raw SDHC cards
 

Is there any consensus at this point about which 16G cards are the most reliable for the MxR adapter.

I just upgraded my EX-1 firmware (the at home method) and am ready to join you guys.

I'd like to support Ross with the MxR cards but have read that the Sandisk cards are not so reliable. Anything to that?

Are the raw cards built the same as the MxR ?

I'm not interested in the 32G cards. One hour is plenty on a card as far
as I'm concerned. Easy to continually recirculate smaller cards than big ones.

Lenny

I'm using the mxr adaptor before that the kensington adaptor, i'm using transcend 16gb cards with the adaptors, so far fautless performance, that goes for me and my colleagues all using the same combo without faults.

Paul.

I am using Sandisk. 3 x 16 GB Ultra II and 1 x 16 GB Extreme III.
They all work perfectly BUT I have had to exchange TWO 16 GB Ultra II cards that did not work!

My conclusion is that Sandisks QC is poor but IF the cards are OK they work perfectly.

ALWAYS test a new card before you start using it professionally!

8 Transcend cards working fine for me so far.

Seems there is some confusion in the sandisk camp over class 2,4,6.

I have easily found the 16gb transcend class 6 cards on amazon and newegg. Make sure you buy from amazon direct, not a re-seller. Some resellers seem to be selling knockoffs that are not class 6.

Transcend has a website to verify the authenticity of their cards
Welcome to Transcend Website

Ed - thanks for the info on that transcend link - I registered all my cards and verified them all - no problems. Bought from Amazon direct.

I use MxR and Kensingtons with Transcend 16gb cards - no problems. It seems to be more of a gamble with Sandisks. Have only bought from reputable suppliers no ebay or Amazon 3rd party sources.

I've used Kensingtons, now MxRs. I have 7 Sandisk Ultra IIs, and 1 Transcend, never had a failure with either card.

the RAW Scoop
 

Hi Lenny,

Hoodman here with the reply to your question. The Hoodman RAW SxSxSDHC adapters are built by the same factory as the MxR adapters... who wants to call Australia for customer support? ... who wants to pay freight from Australia? RAW SxSxSDHC adapters are already in many of your dealers throughout the USA and Canada. You can also purchase adapters on line from Hoodman for $49.99...
RAW SxSxSDHC Memory Adapter-Hoodman Corporation

The best advantage Hoodman has to offer EX users is that we have been making very high end memory cards for professional photographers for 4 years now. If you have questions about the RAWSxSxSDHC adapters and our RAW memory... we can help you out with the whole SxS memory solution. Other memory card companies will not know about EX adapters… Other adapter companies will not know about memory.

We are the only company making memory cards in the USA. Yes, building the cards in the USA costs more... but our customers cannot afford failures... Our customers require the extra time, attention and testing that we spend on each card before it is ready to hit the professional market... Hoodman guarantees compatibility with the RAW memory and its RAW SxSxSDHC adapters... Yes, you can Use Sandisk ultra II and Transcend cards in the RAW adapter.
Now from reading the threads... you can see that one person stated that he had Sandisk cards that would not work for him... Ultra II cards are also slower at downloads at just class 4.

You are preparing to leave the specialized SxS memory land and are entering into the SDHC land where you can find yourself in a quagmire of want-to-be-reliable SDHC memory producers all for $2 per gig. Did you ever wonder why you will not find Transcend memory cards or Sandisk Ultra II cards in your professional photo dealer??? These cards are mass merchant channel cards...Mass merchant cards are for consumers who will never take a $25,000 photo and do not care if the card fails on them in 6 months or a year or 2 years... the cards are cheap enough so that they will just buy another card and move on. Mass merchant cards run a 3 - 5% failure rate. Which EX user can afford to be the guy who gets a card failure? Which camera dealer will sell a card that disappoints its customers?

It is learning curve for EX users saving a few dollars on memory... It will catch up with them. I encourage you to check out what top professional still photographers, who have had other brands fail on them, have to say about Hoodman RAW memory... you will find that pros who have been around long enough, do not view memory as a commodity.
Pro testimonials... Hoodman Corporation

Lastly, Hoodman has a RAW Turnkey Kit deal that saves you $10 on the adapter if you buy the RAW SxSxSDHC adapter and RAW memory at the same time...
RAW SxSxSDHC Turnkey Kit Deal-Hoodman Corporation

Lou Schmidt
VP Marketing
Hoodman Corp.

I use MxR adapters with Sony EX1.
2 weeks ago we used 20 Sandisk 16GB (+4 were backup and re-used again) & 2 Trancends 16GB. ONE sandisk gave "media restore" msg.

Thanks for the pitch Louis.

I have to say that from my reading and understanding, there are many users of sandisk and transcend that arent having any problems at all.

In fact, the first place an EX owner will go to when they have an EX related issue is to a forum like this. Look through the threads...They arent full of 'wow this is great' headings, they are full of 'whats going on here', 'why wont this work', 'problem with that' etc. Quite rightly too. Forums like this are a great resource for users to troubleshoot with other users, get new ideas, ask questions etc.

Im sure Sony would also come up with a similar pitch to yours as to why we should all pay more for their memory products.

Im in Australia and Im VERY grateful to Marek for selling his product here at a price that is fair (as against the other half of the old partnership who is clearly hoping for a 'get rich quick' outcome when it comes to selling here in Australia).

Im not going to write off using sandisk or transcend cards though because occasionally we hear from a user having a problem with one of them. If that was 'smart thinking', none of us would buy an EX1 or EX3 either (or any camera) as we are always going to here about things that go wrong with them when we frequent these forums.

cheers

Jamie

Well, I'm not sold on Louis' argument about the need for the more expensive Raw cards, but I must admit I find Jamie's response less than compelling and frankly a little insulting to Louis.

First , I don't think many of us are in a position to know what the failure rates of conventional brands are. However the number of people I've read on these pages documenting bad Sandisk cards recently gives me very serious pause.

Second, to treat Louis as someone trying to "pitch us" for something we don't need, doesn't make sense to me. Sure I can see why Sony would want to sell expensive cards because they had a monopoly at first. But why in the world would any company like Hoodman decide to invest in trying to convince the world they needed a card that costs double the competition unless there was some kind of compelling need? It just would be an incredibly stupid business plan wouldn't it?

I mean if your cards weren't really any more reliable and it was just a marketing ploy wouldn't you just price them 10- 20% higher than the competition? But 50%?
Either Hoodman is completely bonkers or it is a more reliable product.

I've been scouring the web to find examples of people who've had failures from bad cards and haven't found many, so as yet I'm not convinced. But I have seen some and maybe that's enough.

Apparently I think card reliability is more critical than Jamie as well. I am still convincing clients that cards are as safe as tape. Its got to be a bigger stretch to say, "Hey I've got these new cards are that way cheaper than Sony, its the same thing you put on your point and shoot."

If you can't be sure its 100% as reliable as Sony than you shouldn't be doing professional work. If the Hoodman cards are actually 3% more reliable that's easily worth $50. Frankly 1% is worth $50 when you think about it.

I'd like to see Louis provide more data to back up the failure rates of other cards.
Also is there any noticeable difference between the cards. i read somewhere that the hoodman cards were heavier and seemed more solid . Anything to be said about that? Some more detail about what specs are different in the manufacturing process would be helpful - if there are any.

There's a thread here about SDHC cards losing their write protect tabs - Have the Raw cards had that problem? Is this a manufacturing quality issue?

BTW - Louis, I think that Turnkey discount rate should include a plastic case as well.

Oh yeah, one more question:

What is the difference in download time between using the expresscard card adapter for downloading in say a Macbook pro or using a USB adapter?
Do the cards affect the download speed (class 4 vs 6)
Are different USB adapters faster than others?

I was going to get an extra card just for downloading but if USB is fast enough I'll save my pennies.
Lenny Levy

Transcend seems the way to go
 

I have a Kensington adaptor and I recently had to return a Sandisk 16gb Ultra II card Class 4 because of media errors. I should point out that this particular card came in bulk packaging. I didn't think that would make a difference, but maybe it does. I purchased it from a third party dealer through Amazon.

I replaced it with a Transcend 16gb in retail packaging and so far so good with that one.

I believe Sandisk MUST have changed something regarding their manufacturing process and/or QC.

My 32GB Sandisk Ultra II CLASS 2 cards have been ROCK SOLID DEPENDABLE since January. All the Sandisk cards people are having issues with seem to be recent purchases.

I haven't seen any reports of Transcend issues.

FWIW I think Hoodman is selling better QC. Apparently Transcend has good QC too though. I don't fault Hoodman for standing behind their QC but I'm not sure anyone can make negative claims on Transcend yet. Sandisk is another story. In fact I've even heard at least one story of a Sandisk branded SxS card failing. My Sandisk cards have been reliable but current cards seem to have poor QC (at least). Based on what I've seen on this and other forums, Transcend do seem to be reliable though. No fault to Hoodman for attesting to the quality of their cards publicly though. For all we know, Transcend could go the way of Sandisk in the "next round." Currently though, Transcend have proven reliable.

in my case, the Sandisk card was in bulk packaging.

Maybe the lower yield cards were sold as bulk ?

Has anyone confirmed that the SDHC cards have actually failed?
Taking Hoodman's claims at face value at best what they have to offer is going to reduce the risk of one of the possible causes of the problems some are having. Claims of zero in field failure of the cards in still cameras are cold comfort until we know exactly what is going wrong. Still cameras do not write data continuously for extended periods of time and until Sony give their blessing to using the cheap solution that we've put together we're all taking some risk, more reliable SDHCs cards may only be reducing one of the risk factors.

Leonard

We are all entitled to our own opinions and allthough I disagree with yours, Im not going get too sensitive about it and begin feeling insulted or get too dramatic about it!

Cheers

Jamie

Jamie,

I don't have any problem with strident disagreements or any of your opinions. They were well stated and perfectly valid. I'm skeptical myself. However I think its important to show respect for company representatives when they join our forum. Their input is valuable and its to be expected that they have a slant.

This is a recurring issue on all these forums and periodically a moderator will appear to remind people not to cross the line. In some cases threads have been deleted.

In my opinion "Thanks for the pitch" crossed well over that line. In fact Sony has made the same "pitch" about the reliability of their cards, but its a legitimate argument. I also recall threads being deleted here for criticism of Sony in the past.

Advertisers pay for these forums. Make it personally unpleasant and they will leave taking the forum with them.

By the way I welcome Louis to describe in more detail what kind of QC or standards differentiate their cards. The recent failure of Sandisk cards unfortunately makes me worried about all of them. On a gut level I trust that Sony has put a lot of effort in making these cards reliable as they have an entire product line based on it. So I'd like to feel that same confidence about the SDHC cards. Most users share those same concerns.

Lenny Levy

Well stated, Lenny. And it would still be nice to have some specs regarding the better failure rate of the hoodman raws. I'd be willing to pay double for them if they really did give better peace of mind.

No problems Lenny.

Allthough I dont believe I crossed any lines in calling a pitch a pitch, I accept your points without reservation.

Have a good day!

Cheers

Jamie

Just to point something that you have maybe not heard of:

It seems that a lot of fake Sandisk cards are being sold out there in the net, just do a quick google with "fake sandisk" to read some testimonials and photos comparing fake and original cards.

It's getting really hard to tell fake from original cards, because the design of the stickers and packaging is such a barefaced copy of the original Sandisk products that nobody would notice it without comparing with a real card.

I would be good to know if users having troubles with Sandisk cards have in fact being faced with those fake things.

Confirmed. And not only fake; also some "real" things from Sandisk do not seem to keep the standards (some people assess the failing units ratio to be as high as several percent).

Piotr--does it matter that the Hoodman's are class 6 and the ones Marek offers are class 4?

Suppose it will become moot when the sdxc cards come on the market.

Re Mike's question about class 6 vs 4. I gather that it doesn't matter re: recording, but what about download speed? Will class 6 cards download faster?

Also what kind of download speeds are people getting and does it matter if you use a USB adapter directly with the SDHC or use the MxR adapter in yout card slot.

I tried a sandisk card and got 1G/min using the adapter in my expresscard slot vs. 2 Gs/min with SxS. Using a radio shack "Targus" USB adapter it was slower, closer to .66G/min.
That's on a Macbook Pro. Does that sound right or can I get fster downloads. This is all; new to me with a borrowed card. I've asked hoodman the same question BTW.

Leonard,
In theory, the class 6 should be faster for write/read, for Sony EX camera the write is max out. However, the read will be faster.

You got 1G/min => 15 minutes to read (transfer) a 16 gb SDHC card is very good. Typical it will take 20 minutes for the adapter I have been using. (previously 2 other usb cards would take 30 minutes for 16gb).

Class 6 Vs Class 4
 

If you can believe anything you read on the internet then I've read something that would indicate that one difference between Class 6 and Class 4 is in the wear levelling algorithm.
Wear levelling I also read is an issue as these cards are FAT32 and the FAT has to be written to a fixed location. Without smarts in the SD cards they'll wear out very quickly. Also these cards use ECC to handle failing cells. Presumably as these two algorithms kick in performance has to suffer and both will be doing more work as the cards are used more.
From my own experience with USB thumb drives not all are exactly the same. I've found at least one brand that would not let me boot Linux off it, major frustration trying to update a camera's software. Changed brand and the boot loader worked first go. Both cards work perfectly otherwise.

I'd also throw into this mix the considerable dramas Panasonic had with their P2 cards and corrupted clips. Final result seems to have been OSX was messing with something on the cards. I find that hard to believe without more details. At the same time Hoodman were going to build P2 cards at a competing price point but that seems to have not happened.

Several days ago I put a Sandisk / MxR empty combo into the EX1 and it tells me the media needs to be restored. No media on the card, all clips had been deleted. Previously the same card went into the EX1 with no error. This is troubling, what changed, card mounts OK, take card out, leave for a few days, try to mount again and problem. I'd done nothing to the card in the interim.

Also worth a mention that the EX's USB card interface is designed to work with a HDD recorder. HDDs are very different devices to flash memory, they don't use wear leveling, they do use ECC but they also have signficant RAM caches.

I'll gladly give Hoodman USD1,000 to replace all my SDHC cards if they can backup their claims by demonstrating that they have analysed what the EX cameras are doing and their cards will be 100% dependable in this specific application. I'm not concerned about 100% reliability. Anything can and will fail, even Sony's SxS cards, no matter how well built, I am very concerned about how dependable the design is in this specific application.

Bob,
Could you place that as an email to Lou Schmidt directly? I have no idea at all what your talking about, but it sounds meaningful, and his reaction would be valuable.

Email sent. Lou probably doesn't have the answers at his fingertips, he may well have already read our concerns and is trying to get the answers for us.

Reply from Lou.
 

One of the most detailed replies I've ever received, I'm quoting it here with his permission as I believe it is of value to all of us. I had included an addition question in reply to a previous email from Lou, I include it only to avoid confusion over some of his comments:

Lou's reply follows:

My thanks to Lou for taking the time to write such a detailed reply.

And in this ring Ladies and Gentleman Lou's response to my questions yesterday:


Q. I was hoping you could give me any more information about what makes your cards different and more reliable that the mass produced versions. Is it simply quality control, different materials, etc. I notice one of your testimonials said they were actually heavier - is that accurate?

A. Components and Quality Control are the two variables that you have to work with to make trouble free memory. We only use Samsung Flash-Speed class 6 and SMI controllers.... you can buy cheaper, slower, Flash and less reliable controllers to save money... We use the best components available to build our RAW memory cards. The Build is where the QC comes into play... The job setters know that reliability is of huge importance... since we do not have production pressure to produce 100,000 cards at a time... we can stay on top of the machinery... tweeking so that we build better cards than mass merchant card makers can afford to build. Each RAW memory card goes through $5,000,000 worth of testing equipment three seperate times throughout the production process. It takes time to do all the testing and time is money as we all know well. [We are members of the] Pro Photo Dealer Channel... you get kicked out of pro camera stores because of card failures.

(Lou sent me a list of pro camera shops in my area that were members of the Pro Photo Dealer Channel and suggested I call them to ask about card failure rates. A good idea I thought.)

Q 2. I have read reports of the write protect tabs breaking on Sandisk and Transcend cards recently. Have you had that problem at all?

A. We have received 3 cards in 4 years from customers with write protect tabs broke off. One drawback to SDHC formats is that the cards are delicate because of their small size. Most damage done to SDHC cards is from people placing the cards in their pockets and sitting on them or bumping their pockets into the something... keeping the memory cards in the adapters or their jewel cases eleviates those issues. You can bend an SDHC card and break solders. Forcing an SDHC card upside down into a camera can break the card. You can run the SDHC card over with your car and that will kill it too. SDHC cards are delicate and need to be treated with care... Our cards are guaranteed for life... if the card is broke in two you void the waranty. The flash and the controller will not fail on RAW cards.
>
Q 3. How long have you been making the 16G cards?

A. We have been making memory cards for 4 years now... 16 GB SDHC cards went into production... in April of 2008. We have a top knotch manufacturing partner that has been in Silicon Valley producing memory cards since 1991. >

Q 4. I'm interested in whether I need to plan on getting an extra Raw expresscard card adapter just to download cards to my laptop. To determine that I recently tested the Sandisk Ultra II class 4 cards on my Macbook Pro in an M&R adapter and they downloaded noticeably slower than my SxS Sony cards do. (about 1 G /min vs. 2G/min for SxS) It was even about 30% slower running the SDHC card through a USB adapter.

Do your cards download any faster and if so is that because they are class 6 or is it because your cards are designed to be faster?

A. Our RAW memory cards come with an SDHC to USB 2.0 reader bundled together... a $20 value for free. Your express card slot in your computer will be faster so you might want to have that option for your downloads.

You will find that class 6 cards download about 30% faster than class 4 cards.

Q 5. Is it any faster to download through the USB card adapter you sell, and is that adapter any different from the many SDHC to USB adapters out on the mass market.

A. For SDHC cards both readers that we offer... the free one and our UDMA reader will download SDHC cards at the same rate... your express card slot will be your key to speeding up downloads.

OK now here's my experience this afternoon. I've just upgraded my firmware and have been testing with a friend's borrowed M&R adapter with a Sandisk 16G Ultra II card. He has had no problems and in my tests I hadn't until today.

Yesterday I tested the card in my camera and recorded 14.5 G of info and tried various ways to download to test dpwnload speeds. There was good footage on the cards. All was fine.

Today I brought the card with 14.5G already recorded to a job with my producers EX-1 with the new firmware. I wanted to show him he could use the SDHC option.

I put in the card and it showed 2 min remaining available time (fine). I recorded a shot then went to look at it in playback - Uh Oh the playback only showed me the new shot, not the previous 14.5 Gigs!.. I tried it again, tried it in clip browser - tried it in XDCAM Transfer. Nothing sees the other shots! The card however is full and the finder does show over 15G on it. ( actually I haven't looked in the BPAV folder now that I think of it.)

I'm trying to think if I did anything weird. I may have removed the SDHC card from the adapter while in the camera. its also possible that I ejected the card from my laptop without hitting command E on the Mac. Also I did not remember to hit the write protect tab on the SDHC card like I would on an SxS card so I may have damaged the info. The camera has not said media needs to be restored though. I also have not put it back into the camera that the misisng files were shot in yet.

This is spooking me though.

Well today I put my money where my mouth is and ordered a Hoodman 16GB SDHC card. It'll be interseting to see how it performs against my Sandisk cards. I should mention by the time freight costs are added it's nearly three times the price of the Sandisk cards.
I'll be quite happy about the price if it avoids anymore hair loss. With my skills with a camera I've got enough to worry about.

Last notes on missing info on my card - Playing in my camera made no difference and the shots do not appear in BPAV folder.
I am assuming I made some error in handling, but it still makes me nervous.

Thanks, guys, for taking the time to get Lou to respond. He makes a good case for why his cards may be more reliable, but we'll probably just have to wait for field testing to see if the raw's come up with the usual lost clips, restore media message, etc.

New Transcend HD cards
 

Has anyone seen or tried these new cards from Transcend: Welcome to Transcend Website - SDHC HD video card

I wonder if they really offer anything more than the standard SDHC 16 GB Class 6 cards from Transcend.

I just purchased three 16gig Hoodman Raw cards and SXS adaptors, and tested them out yesterday. While doing so, a colleague spent a considerable amount of energy trying to make me feel like a moron for spending the extra money on Raw, vs Sandisk.

We'll see which one of us made the smarter purchase as time goes by, I guess.

The Raw cards performed flawlessly, by the way. I tried numerous formats on the same card, and no issues developed. I did not try to record time lapse on them. I have two SXS cards for that.

By the way: Hoodman gives you a free USB reader with each 16 GB card. They worked just fine, too. I like not having to plug the EX3 into the computer.

I wonder if the Transcend cards will work in the Hoodman and at less cost in these strange hard times.......

Amazon.com: Transcend 16 GB SDHC Class 6 Flash Memory Card with Card Reader TS16GSDHC6-S5W: Electronics

But thanks for your imput as I am glad they work. Just another source just in case.

I have one Transcend Class 6 16GB card that needs restored every time I use it - no matter how many times it is reformatted. Doing a restore on the job should not happen in my opinion. Too close to failure for me, I have 7 others that work fine.

BTW has anyone tried one of these:

Amazon.com: Sony MSACEX1 Adaptateur Memory Stick Duo Express Card: Electronics

and one of these

Amazon.com: Sony MSMT16G 16GB Memory Stick PRO Duo (Mark2) Media: Electronics

I think 30Mb/sec is a faster transfer rate than the other adapter cards...
Maybe this would over crank.

When I originally posted this question I did not expect to hear of card failures in the field.
However I have been alarmed thus far to read here and n other threads about multiple Sandisk problems and some (as above) Transcend problems.

I'm not doing this as a hobbiest and I assume that is the same for the most of us on this board. Thus I expect as close to 0% failures as humanly possible. I'm inclining to go with hoodman at this point as $50 is nothing to pay for security.

I did call 3 photo stores. My local store which is not a chain and a good place said they recommend hoodman's to pros because they are more reliable ( also another brand thats tarted with a P - don't remember).

2 other stores said they are all the same - buy the cheapest one. One of those said he has seen failures on hoodman but he was cavalier in the conversation and I don't know whether he really knew what he was talking about. He said they all have failures. The other store said they are all reliable but recommended Sandisk in particular. My local store (smaller) sounded more knowledgeable to me.

What about the Sonys Kevin links to? 32MB/s is a lot faster than Class 6 6MB/s. Is the comparison accurate?

Leonard,
I agreed with you when people use the sdhc card for photography. This is the quote I got when searching for sdhc: "Digital photography which is required a high speed sdhc card which can write a picture of 30MB" and not many sdhc cards can deliver it unless using smaller file size.

But we are talking about video. With Class 4: min @4MB/s or even Class 6: min 6MB/s.
With the sdhc specification (2.0), any manufacturing must follow it. I think the different between them will be the reliability of their cards. And time will tell which one will be the choice for Sony EX1/EX3.

Technology is changing very fast ... we are ready to use ssd for EX1/EX3 soon.