Cheap Ebay SD Cards
Author
Discussion

SMKurt

Original Poster:

2,856 posts

224 months

Monday 3rd May 2010
quotequote all
I need a SD card having lost mine. I want to spend as little as possible as im a tight arse. Bigger the better too i think, so 16 or 32GB. I could possibly do a 8GB as i dont think i'd max it out in a day.

Im very tempted by these unbranded cards as they're cheap. But i've done this before. I have a unbranded 2GB one, that worked fine at first i think. But now after the first 100 or so pictures they started to currupt. Does this normally happen with these cards?

I know you's are going to tell me, just bite the bullet and pay for the best but im a tight student.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/New-16GB-SDHC-Secure-Digital...

Thats the things im on about

Trevelyan

729 posts

219 months

Monday 3rd May 2010
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SMKurt said:
But now after the first 100 or so pictures they started to currupt. Does this normally happen with these cards?
Yep. They're crap fakes. If you're really lucky they'll corrupt in the way you've seen. If you're unlucky then they'll corrupt when you try to download them at the end of a days shooting and you'll lose the lot. Is it really worth the risk? I've binned several fakes (sold as genuine) over the years after losing pictures.

I buy my cards from http://www.mymemory.co.uk/SD-Cards You'll probably be able to pick up a branded one from there for a similar price. I've always gone for Sandisk and have never had a problem with them, but you'll probably recognise several other brands from there as well.

4hero

4,505 posts

241 months

Monday 3rd May 2010
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Just buy them from eBay if you want to save money. What is there to lose (apart from all your photos).

mcflurry

9,190 posts

283 months

Monday 3rd May 2010
quotequote all
play.com, 7dayshop, mymemory and others all offer cards for a reasonable price, with brands like Sandisk, Lexar, Samsung, Kingston, PNY etc to choose from too. Is it worth losing your pictures to save £2 ?

SJobson

13,836 posts

294 months

Monday 3rd May 2010
quotequote all
I was looking for a memory stick on eBay last night - turned out to be cheaper to buy the same thing on Amazon, with zero risk of a fake.

SMKurt

Original Poster:

2,856 posts

224 months

Monday 3rd May 2010
quotequote all
Cheers chaps. I guess your right, not worth risking a days worth of photo's to save a few quid.

Pot Bellied Fool

2,261 posts

267 months

Monday 3rd May 2010
quotequote all
http://reviews.ebay.co.uk/FAKE-SanDisk-Ultra-Secur... has some handy information.

Always buy from a well-known rated seller if using eBay, go for UK stock only & ignore anything coming from China! ( Pre-populated search done for ya!)

ALternatively, good deals usually on Amazon for SD cards.

dave328

347 posts

252 months

Monday 3rd May 2010
quotequote all
Yes - almost certainly a fake. They will report the full capacity in Windows etc but are likely to be much smaller than the quoted capacity.

Run something like H2testw on them. I learnt the hard way on a 32GB USB stick. Here are the results of the test:

The media is likely to be defective.
3.8 GByte OK (8088270 sectors)
27.3 GByte DATA LOST (57414962 sectors)
Details:0 KByte overwritten (0 sectors)
0 KByte slightly changed (< 8 bit/sector, 0 sectors)
27.3 GByte corrupted (57414962 sectors)
0 KByte aliased memory (0 sectors)
First error at offset: 0x00000000f6d59c00
Expected: 0x00000000f6d59c00
Found: 0x0000000000000000
H2testw version 1.3
Writing speed: 12.9 MByte/s
Reading speed: 9.78 MByte/s
H2testw v1.4


So its actually 4GB, not 32GB irked

Hunky Dory

1,095 posts

235 months

Monday 3rd May 2010
quotequote all
Don't do it - Cheap, nasty fakes.
They can be bought all over the place in China for peanuts and they don't work, (for long at least) and almost certainly don't have the capacity they claim to have. And don't fall for stories that they "come from the same factory" etc.
I've seen USB and CF memory for sale out there claiming up to 800GB storage (they'll even plug it in to "prove" it) and I could've bought either for the equivalent of a tenner, without bargaining too hard.
There's easy money to be made on Ebay if you're that way inclined and sadly it seems plenty of people are.

SMKurt

Original Poster:

2,856 posts

224 months

Monday 3rd May 2010
quotequote all
Cheers chaps, im going to go with a SanDisk 16GB one from www.play.co.uk £18, but i've got one of them £2 off Mcdonnalds voucher things for play.co.uk so i'll be getting it for £16. Happy days. Thanks for all the advice chaps.

Killwilly

446 posts

218 months

Tuesday 4th May 2010
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SMKurt said:
Cheers chaps, im going to go with a SanDisk 16GB one from www.play.co.uk £18, but i've got one of them £2 off Mcdonnalds voucher things for play.co.uk so i'll be getting it for £16. Happy days. Thanks for all the advice chaps.
You could also have got cash-back if purchased through quidco.com.