Don't be afraid to go all the way to 32GB

[jjbond]

So last week, in an attempt to mitigate any hassle or chaos when my SD cards fail at the wrong time in the near future as has happend to so many others. I ordered 2 Samsung PRO Endurance 32GB micro SDHC cards. They're a good high endurance card, great for dash cams and not impacted speed wise by them being high endurance, theoretical speed of 100MB/s they say, but I've never seen or probably will, but they'd be a lot more dependable thatn the OEM Uniden supplied 8GB no name, bulk bin ones that are failing everywhere.



The cards came in, I went through the motions, and hit a roadblock, Sentinel could not connect to the server to do the firmware update after you do the clear data step.... 1.5 hours later, after all sorts of network troubleshooting on my end, to see what was going on, I noticed Uniden's letter saying they and their servers would be down this weekend.... ok, glad I have backups....

Cards went in..and while the Uniden provided bulk brand micro sd did not do so shabby on the 'reading' files section..... the 'writing' files to the card area is where the Samsung (or probably any name brand card) blew the Uniden provided one out of the water.

For kicks I did an unscientific test with the iPhone stop watch, from start of turning on the 200 till the display lit up in full colors, on the original card was 16.38, with the new Samsung high endurance and speedier card, it was 16.80, yup, a hair longer for the new Samsung card. This was with only a couple favorites lists loading, a couple of Phoenix ones, not super full.

But here's where that virtually identical time is actually a win..... the OEM no name toss upon opening card was 8GB, this "just a hair slower" time was pulled in with a 32GB card, the largest that the current bios will allow.... So go big gentlemen, it's not going to impact your loading time if you get a reasonably fast card (but more importantly your intention should be a high endurance card, most of them are fast anyways as they're meant for 4k video cameras etc.

Ok, I did some speed tests outside the scanner today... my laptop has a micro SD slot on it which was handy, there is no induced latency due to a Micro SD to SD card adapter etc...

The first one is running a suite of read/writes with the 8GB Uniden supplied card, this was a 3 pass tests using file sizes of 100mb to a targeted folder on the SD card. Note the write speed, you'll be comparing that later

Keep in mind, the numbers you're seeing here, and further down are not a measurement of time, as in seconds, it's the number of MB/s that card was able to process/get written into the card including digitized audio tracks from the playback feature, larger is better.

For those wanting to learn the specifics around the tests included and the numbers, here are a couple of links:

How to check drive read and write performance speeds on Windows 10 • Pureinfotech

The manual is half way down this page:
CrystalDiskMark

UNIDEN PROVIDED SD CARD


The second chart, below, is with the Samsung Pro Endurance, the reads are a touch slower, which is in line with my unoffical power on timer test but take a look at those write speeds.....

SAMSUNG PRO ENDURANCE, 32GB SD



I just found two more screen shots I want to include, the first is the Uniden shipped 8GB micro SD card, take not of the consistantly low write speed on the graph.

UNIDEN PROVIDED SD CARD



The second one is the same test using the Samsung, notice how much smoother and less chopping, not to mention how much higher the write speed is.... it's important to remember these aren't every now and then write sessions, it's doing it almost constantly if the buffer is full.

SAMSUNG PRO ENDURANCE, 32GB SD


And that right there is what we care about not only during our file transfer work but more importantly, during the times that the system is constantly writing to the card as it does the audio recording for playback (if you have that turned on). This card is going to dump it's buffer and be ready for more a lot sooner than the one shipped with the unit.

Purely unscientific but it was interesting to see, if nothing else, should have comfort that with a few bucks outlay, you can have up to 32GB of storage for approx the same read/write times you're getting now, the higher speed in the quality card, negates any negative impact to using a larger card. If this has already been done, then disregard.

Have a good evening...
Jen

 

[w2lie]

Nicely done with all the images and graphs! Nothing like putting a little hard data behind your findings!

Thanks for sharing!

 

[jjbond]

Another interesting thing to keep in mind if you're on the fence about "will it happen to me, or can I have faith in this original Uniden provided SD card". Despite a Google search for the only searchable item found on the card, it's model number of USD00 returning COUNTLESS pages of people having problems with these OEM, "provided in an item they purchased, disposable" cards.

I cracked out a tool that does a bit of a deeper dig into the SD cards for specifics... I wanted to see how was making these for Uniden, the only other time I've seen an absolute blank, unable to determine was counterfeit SD cards from China. I'm not saying that's what these are, I'm saying they're in the same quality if you want my opinion..... get yourselves new cards boys.... it's only a matter of time till these mystery cards bite you in the butt.

First we'll show you the Samsung, so you can see what the Uniden cards SHOULD looke like...








Now we'll take a look at the mystery cards......






And with that.... I adjourn.... g'night all.

Jen

 

[jjbond]

Nicely done with all the images and graphs! Nothing like putting a little hard data behind your findings!

Thanks for sharing!

Thank you, very much appreciate the comment, PS, I signed up and have been listening, but didnt see the excel file on the episode 65 page that you mentioned in the "Understanding Uniden's DMA programming, #65" I'd love to see a copy of the file if you created one, if not, no worries.... love the podcast...

 

[N4DJC]

Nice I use the same card in my Kenwood TH-D74A. Works great. I’ve had very good luck with Samsung USB drives, SD and microSD cards.

 

[jjbond]

My apologies to all who had to suffer through all the typos in my posts above, apparently I should cut out the 2am drunk forum postings.

It would be nice if the edit button didn’t disappear so quickly or I’d fix them... take care.

Jen

 

[Rikbirdradio]

Thanks Jen for your analysis. In your opinion, is there any downside to a larger capacity Samsung PRO Endurance card? Perhaps a 128G?

 

[kc2kth]

Thanks Jen for all of your continued contributions here!

 

[jjbond]

Thanks Jen for your analysis. In your opinion, is there any downside to a larger capacity Samsung PRO Endurance card? Perhaps a 128G?

Hi Rikbirdradio, thank you for the thank you... to me personally I don't do much in the way of audio recording of calls and have a fairly small requirement so stuck with what was "officially" supported which is 32gb. That being said, there have been people on other forums formatting the cards in such a way to get the bios in the scanner to recognise it but personally didn't have the need. As to downsides, it may be a bit slower to initially load etc like a larger card size would be for any use (but my testing shows this to be minimal) and the added expense and being told any issues related to that are out of warranty due to card size but no not really. That's a HUGE card for these radios but give it a go, it's not going to hurt the scanner but you may want to read some of the posts on the site like these ones which discuss this topic:

https://forums.radioreference.com/threads/micro-sd-cards-and-the-sds-100.373394/

https://forums.radioreference.com/threads/sds-100-sd-card.372680/#post-2956706

Thanks Jen for all of your continued contributions here!

Thank you VERY much for saying that kc2kth, it's much appreciated.

 

[Rikbirdradio]

Jen,

You do know that your experience and explanations with great detail are going to take you places within the RR Forums. Someone may very well nominate you as a PS/SDS expert.

Thanks, once again, for your input!

Rik

 

[jjbond]

Jen,

You do know that your experience and explanations with great detail are going to take you places within the RR Forums. Someone may very well nominate you as a PS/SDS expert.

Thanks, once again, for your input!

Rik

I was afraid of going places in RR that's why i almost didn't post it.. (kidding). I've been here since 2003 just have been selective about what I contribute. I own both the SDS100 and the 200 and they're awesome radios, you'll have fun with yours for sure.

Thank you for the compliment, however there are many here with much more experience than I and we each add value in different ways, apparently yours is in making someone feel appreciated, thank you.

 

[b52hbuff]

Thanks for posting all of the data. I also wanted to use a high endurance card, but decided on the SanDisk. It has been working well since August. The only downside is that with all of that room, you can get lazy about cleaning out old recordings. I have some pretty old stuff to review, and clear out of the radio.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00V5Q1K3O/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1