Photographer Steve Huff has published a new video in which he subjects Sony's Tough SD cards to a variety of durability tests involving everything from a washing machine to a blender. According to Sony, it engineered this SD card model ‘for toughness,’ stating on its website that the Tough cards are ‘dust, dirt, water, mud, and grime-proof.’
The Sony Tough SD card has an IP68 dustproof and waterproof rating, as well as a rib-less and switchless design, which Sony says eliminates 'risks of breakage.' Ultimately, the company claims its Tough cards at shock- and crush-proof.
Of course, this doesn't mean the cards are indestructible, as demonstrated by Huff. The SD cards were no match for the blender, which immediately rendered them into small bits of plastic and metal. The Sony Tough cards were able to withstand the other tests, however, including cycles through a washer and dryer, being frozen in water, submerged in a pool and left out in sunlight.
While not generally a fan of Sony products, these have the best customer satisfaction rating on Amazon so I bought a pair. Slightly thicker than the standard, perhaps just 1/10th of a mm so they are difficult to remove from my Fuji X-T3. Finally gave up and copy files with the cable.
Next time I remove them, I'll probably use a 300-400 grit sandpaper on them. Might just need to remove some microscopic burrs. Have only recorded between 500-1000 images so far with no issues. Aside: I prefer Samsung flash media but they have abandoned the SD market and don't make V60 speed for their microSD cards.
A proper test would have compared the Sony Tough card's survival to that of other and cheaper brands. It would have also have included two realistic and plausible stresses: 1) submersion in sea water or sealed Coca Cola for 24 hours; and 2) on sun baked concrete or the roof of a car for six hours. Meanwhile, no one would expect any card to survive a blender. I imagine that some people accidentally swallow the cards. Do they expel naturally or do they get stuck in the intestinal tract?
On the other hand, all cards fail if you lose or misplace them.
Been using them for a year now. Certainly feels more sturdy then your regular memory card. As someone who is very rough with my equipment, its worth a few extra for the peace of mind.
Tough cards are fast, and they are marginally more expensive than Sony SD cards rated at 299MB/s write speed. So no reason not to get them, just to be safe. But at the same, you have to think how likely would you need all that over engineering.
I would rather have cards with plenty of empty writable space for my notes. All the ad space leaves nothing usable. What about the underside?? More important to me than if it will survive a blender.
I know it's an experiment and not statistics. My point is that you shouldn't draw conclusions from the results, they may not be representative of how another card of the same make and model handles abuse.
No doubt these cards are tougher than less expensive ones, but you shouldn't abuse them and always expect them to survive.
So basically it survived things that other cheaper but similarly performing cards have been known to survive, but failed in extreme conditions that other cards will fail in also.
all of the tests that he did except from the blender, would have also been successful with a cheap Sandisk or Samsung card.
Whilst the science of Solid State memory means they do have high G tolerance, I am doubtful it is completeness pointless, just the test itself may not have demonstrated the 'extreme' cases of normal uses. Like perhaps repeated compression by heavy load etc. Admittingly one shouldnt expect exceptional performance in physical toughness unless top dollars are paid, which isnt the case here. And I agree with others than it's stability electronically is also important factor not just physical toughness. And while fun to watch I doubt anything else the card meant to be used will survive the blender test, inc. human, the camera and/or the lenses.
@Roger65, well, I never heard 'thingy' before, but whatever it is I am not so sure you are correct: what I know for sure do exists is a credit-card-size SD holder that fits into a wallet... but anyway I do not get a meaning of barrym1966 statement: I am not a native speaker.
Sorry I didn’t mean to be rude or condescending. I am just a bit of a jerk sometimes, I can’t resist.
“Thingy” is American slang for “a thing or object”. The object referred to was one of the many small folding wallet like holders that are available, capable of holding many SD cards in small cutouts. They can be made of leather or nylon or textile. Here are a few:
300 MB/s reads and 299 MB/s writes. Makes you wonder the story behind the write shortfall. How hard must the engineers have tried to get that last 1 MB/s? How tempted was the marketing department to round it up to an even 300 MB/s?
True, but at the same time, things happen. Accidents happen. I'm sure even the most prudent photographer has accidentaly dropped something, or left something in a pocket, etc. It's easier to say if someone exercises the utmost care things should be fine, but at the same time, you can't control the actions of others. Maybe you're switching cards and someone bumps into you while you're doing it and you drop the card in a puddle.
True, there's a few reasons for doing it, one being that I like to ensure that after shooting a location or a particular event, I like to start fresh in case something does happen later on (camera problem or card problem). At least I haven't lost all my shots. Of course, once I've downloaded and backed up my images, then I reformat the cards and start again. Many professionals also follow this ideas as well.
Yep. I don't disagree. I wouldn't replace my existing cards just to get the added strength but when I eventually replace them, most likely due to speed limitations, I would pay extra for the Tough cards even though I've had no issues ever with Samsung's SD card durability.
My regular Sandisk and Lexar cards eventually crack and fall apart in a few years with just normal inserting in and out of my cameras and card readers. Usually the first thing to give in my cards are the write protection tabs.
Yeah that happens to mine too, although not the most recent batch (but I've only had them for about 3 years, and don't use them any more since moving to XQD). But this is where I think CF/CFEx/XQD are better, because they are in a more rigid casing versus the thin plastic that is used with SD cards. Now if someone could do even an aluminum body SD card that would be good but probably expensive.
My SD cards NEVER failed at all, they are all in good condition. One once was in the washing machine and worked after that, So I think that cards are strong enough to withstand normal use for years. Dropping has no effect on the normal cards, I never have frozen them though, what are the changes that that happens. The only thing I had with SD cards that made me loose my data was when I lost one, and when I formatted the wrong card once
I had the same thing, with two cards actually, but the one that went through the dry cycle didn't last too long after that (maybe a few months, and then started getting random card issues, so I'm attributing that to the dry cycle/heat The other one still works fine even today, a few years later). And that one that went through the dryer was the only one I can recall in the past 5-6 years that has gone bad (other than a cheap one that failed within two years or something, but it was a cheap $10 card so I don't consider that to be a major failure).
Two. One was a micro SD card in a cellphone and one was a regular SD card in the washing machine AFAIK those are the only two I got significantly wet. I also don't take that to mean every card will fail when wet
@golfhov Oh I didn't interpret it that way. Thanks for sharing.
The smartphone one really could be none of the cards fault. If the smartphone got wet, shorted and grilled the card there is really no way to protect the card from that.
Did you open the washing machine one, just out of interest
Correct. The phone could have fried the micro SD card vs the water damaging something . It was chlorinated pool water BTW. I don't disagree that without controls DPR didn't really "prove" anything . They didn't disprove anything either. I know your typical SD card isn't the most robust thing in the world. Then again they aren't usually subject to tough environments. To each his own. Toughbooks and cameras have always been niche products too
I have nothing against a tougher SD-card. I just think for about 10cents of extra tooling for the single block card, Sony charges way way above the market price, even for high speed cards. And plays a little with the paranoia of people to get away with it
Cheap cards can easily handle those tests (except for the blender which the Sony also failed). While anecdotal, I have an old PNY SD card that is on its last legs with some retention issues but for quick same day use, it can reliably store content for a few hours without corruption.
It is a card I do not care much since I typically just kept it in my watch pocket of my jeans, and one time it went thorough a full wash and dry cycle on the highest heat. (kept it there mainly if I happened across an interesting display model camera and wanted to just grab a few raw files from to mess around with.
Anyway, the card still functions with no new issues.
Due to how SD cards are designed, they are naturally weather sealed. Since the components are reflow soldered, they can physically handle temperatures far higher than the average dryer. Since no through-hole components are used and the surface mount component types have effectively no exposed contacts, thus no galvanic reactions.
Full size SD cards can take water inside, there is plastic case built around smalle chip conected to the contacts, sometimes taking only half of space of the physical format. This way I successfully shortened one Sandisk to use in Raspberry Pi which would have it otherwise sticking out and would fit in a small box.
MicroSD are different, they are usually sealed in their plastic which also serves as a case, although the underside can be the PCB itself and could possibly leak water a little small holes forming connection in it but any coating should take care of that.
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