Hacking Class 2 MicroSDHC - Slow, but good enough?

[montymintypie]

I bought my MicroSDHC card (SanDisk 4GB) a loong time before I did my research...

It's only a Class 2 card, which from what I've read seems pretty bad actually.

I've read, however, that the Acekard (R.P.G,2,2i) can deal with this without a hitch, and still play games at full speed. How accurate is this statement? It'd suck if I had to buy another SD card...

Also, here is the results from a speed test, using an expensive ($30) card reader.

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CrystalDiskMark 2.2 Â 2007-2008 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/
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Sequential Read : 19.001 MB/s
Sequential Write : 6.988 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 18.755 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 1.310 MB/s
Random Read 4KB : 3.518 MB/s
Random Write 4KB : 0.014 MB/s

Test Size : 50 MB

Is this adequate?

 

[bowlofspiders]

I had a 4gb SDHC for a long time, I never experienced any slow down at all, except on one game, which I think is fixed now. So I think that card speed should be good.

 

[montymintypie]

I had a 4gb SDHC for a long time, I never experienced any slow down at all, except on one game, which I think is fixed now. So I think that card speed should be good.

Were you sure your 4GB one was class 2? You can buy class 2,4 and 6 4GB cards. Although that's promising hearing that it works fine

 

[bowlofspiders]

I had a 4gb SDHC for a long time, I never experienced any slow down at all, except on one game, which I think is fixed now. So I think that card speed should be good.

Were you sure your 4GB one was class 2? You can buy class 2,4 and 6 4GB cards. Although that's promising hearing that it works fine

I am positive it was a class 2. So you should be fine.

 

[montymintypie]

Thanks, and Merry Christmas!

 

[DaMummy]

and who the hell buys a $30 card reader? but yea acekard can handle it

 

[Rayder]

I have a 16gig Sandisk......it works fine and it's only labeled as Class 2, although when I bought it, the pic showed a Class 4 and that's what I thought I ordered. But I digress.

My tests on that microSD were very positive and went far beyond the Class 2 spec......more like Class 12 by what the "class" rating is supposed to represent, which is sustained read/write speeds.

My Sandisk 16GB Class 2 results:
12MB/sec write
19MB/sec read
0.8ms response time

I use two separate programs to test my microSD's with; HD Tach (read speed & response time) and ATTO Benchmark (read & write). Keep in mind that your readings could be limited to whatever card reader you may be using too.

I don't think the "Class" of an SD means too much to be honest, especially on brand name SD's like Sandisk. Even the crappiest microSD I have (some generic no-name 2GB card that came with I-don't-remember-what) has better speed than what a Class 2 rating would suggest. Most SD's rate better than Class 6, even if they don't say that on the card. Class 6 is as high as they went with the "class" rating anyway. I don't think there are very many SD's made today that don't actually rate way over Class 6.

It's my understanding that the response time tends to be more important than read/write speeds and I don't think response time has anything to do with the Class rating as far as I can tell. Response time is only important for a select few DS games anyway....Castlevania PoR was one.....if you're SD didn't have a 0.7ms response time or better, the game would lock-up a lot.

Long story short, you own a Sandisk microSD, you're fine. No worries.

 

[montymintypie]

and who the hell buys a $30 card reader?
It's an all-in-one card reader. CF,MD,SM,xD,SD,microSD,MS,MS Duo,miniSD,MMC and RS-MMC. Sure you can get them cheaper, but this one reads everything, and is built solidly. I don't reckon it'll break for at least 5 years.

And also, that's Australian dollars about half a year ago, so it's probably about $24 US.

QUOTELong story short, you own a Sandisk microSD, you're fine. No worries.

Sweet! Also, the response time on mine is 1.1ms, which should be fine for what I'm using it for (no in game videos in any of the games I own).

 

[OSW]

and who the hell buys a $30 card reader?
It's an all-in-one card reader. CF,MD,SM,xD,SD,microSD,MS,MS Duo,miniSD,MMC and RS-MMC. Sure you can get them cheaper, but this one reads everything, and is built solidly. I don't reckon it'll break for at least 5 years.

And also, that's Australian dollars about half a year ago, so it's probably about $24 US.

QUOTELong story short, you own a Sandisk microSD, you're fine. No worries.

Sweet! Also, the response time on mine is 1.1ms, which should be fine for what I'm using it for (no in game videos in any of the games I own).

Still, 2 bucks for an all in 1 at dealextreme lol.

And back in the day, response time was more important than read/write speeds, however I don't know if flashcards have solved lag issues, or whether people have better microsd cards these days, but I haven't heard this kind of issue in yonks!!!

I think its mostly due to better flashcard hardware...

 

[Leonidas]

Class just represents the minimum write speeds the card is able to maintain. This is mostly meant for capture devices like cameras, camcorders, which need to maintain a certain data flow. What flash carts need most are good read speeds, and good response times. Although personally I put reliability above everything else, and so far Sandisk hasn't disappointed me.