SanDisk High Endurance review: After 20,000 hours of testing, this is the microSD card to beat

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On Valentine’s Day, 2023, an idea came to my mind to test the long-term durability of the microSD card. The idea came to me after experiencing failures in some Raspberry Pi projects that involved writing large amounts of data to the storage card over extended periods.

i had a handful SanDisk High Endurance MicroSDXC CardSpecifically designed for heavy use in dash cams, body cams, and home security cameras, I decided to test them out.

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I picked up three dash cams I had lying around (yes, this kind of stuff is lying around my house), set them up to point towards a window in my garden, connected them to the battery backup, and turned them on.

And he did the role. Day and night… spring, summer, fall, winter… for three years.

SanDisk makes two series of microSD cards specifically designed for intensive use in devices such as dash cams and security cameras: high stamina And max stamina card. As the name suggests, Max Endurance cards are the best option, promising a staggering 120,000 hours – almost 13 years! –Continuous recording.

Testing them to their limits was clearly out of the question, as I could become a ghost before those cards wore out. But the High Endurance card, which the specifications claim is good for up to 40,000 hours for the largest 512GB card, posed a far more achievable challenge. And since endurance is measured linearly, the 256GB card I tested is only rated for 20,000 hours.

After all, it’s only 20,000 hours – give me a moment while I do some math on the back of a convenient envelope – about two and a quarter years.

So, my plan was simple: play cards until they die. But the thing is – they didn’t.

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The SanDisk High Endurance cards proved to be quite 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. Although speed is not the most important factor for looped video recording in cameras, it is still good to know that these cards live up to their claims.

These cards are also made to save a lot. They are resistant to drops, water immersion and even X-rays. Additionally, they are designed to handle extreme temperature fluctuations, rated to handle -13°F (-25°C) to 185°F (85°C) even during operation. Whether baking on a car dashboard or adorning the side of a home, these cards can take it.

This is on top of their high endurance, made possible by the use of SanDisk’s 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 are X-ray proof, someone always asks why the manufacturers make such a strange specific claim. This curiosity stems from the days of photographic film, which was prone 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 it anymore.

Anyway, the other day, I decided to stop the experiment. I estimate the cards have lasted about 26,500 hours, all of which are rated at over 20,000 hours.

how is that possible?

It turns out it was because of the cameras I used. When setting them up to record HD video, I didn’t notice their use of variable bit rate technology, which conserves storage space at the expense of some quality. Since my cameras were directed towards a garden with minimal movement (especially at night), they recorded less data to maintain the same level of quality as if they were 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 remained in continuous use for three years, during which time an estimated 24 TB of data was written onto that 256 GB card (another back-of-the-envelope calculation assuming a low bit rate of about 2 Mbps). That’s impressive endurance, and even beats the 2-year limited warranty that comes with these cards.

But in reality, these cards may 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 scans of the cards show no errors. That’s not bad for a microSD card you can buy for $60.

ZDNET’s shopping advice

sandisk high endurance I have two compliments about the range of microSD cards. even if you go for it 512GB cardWhich extends the HD video recording lifetime to 40,000 hours, yet it costs a very reasonable $110.

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If that’s not enough for you, move on maximum enduranceWhere prices vary from $37 for a 32GB card with 15,000 hours of HD recording timeTo $99 for a 256GB card offering a full 120,000 hours (13 years) recording lifetime.

Sure, you can throw a regular card in 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.