Are Sandisk SD cards from Argos always genuine?

4 months ago by TheEmpireStrikesDak to c/ukcasual

My second microSD card has corrupted :( I have a feeling I was sold a fake.

I've watched enough Atomic Shrimp to know external storage is a minefield. Argos is an authorised sandisk seller, but so is Amazon and I know they get counterfeits mixed in due to 3rd party sellers. Afaik Argos would only sell their own stock if I buy a card from their stores, right?

shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit 6 points 4 months ago

If you buy from Amazon or Argos but NOT marketplace sellers on there, you should be fine.

Test cards are the stated capacity with https://h2testw.org/

Lastly, there could be other reasons your cards are corrupting:

interrupting the power during write operations
using a normal micro SD card in a dashcam, doorbell cam, raspberry pi. These make frequent writes to the card which wears out the memory cells. For purposes with constant writing of data, buy high endurance SD cards.
using too small a card for the frequency of write operations. Again, the memory cells wear sooner than in a higher capacity card where the writes can be more distributed.
when the price is too good to be true.

If you provide more detail about the card brand, capacity, and what you're using it in, people can give you a better idea of where the problem originates.

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DakRalter 1 point 4 months ago

Thanks. This is for my phone. It's meant to have 14GB free, but files are corrupting and it's now acting read only on both the phone and PC. Similar thing happened with the first card (got from a registered business seller on eBay, the postie delivered it to someone else entirely so I got a replacement, then the person got back from holiday and gave me the card so I had 2).

I have h2testw and I kind of remember using it with the first card after it corrupted but I can't remember if it took too long or what. I bought this card in like 2022.

Apparently Kingston cards are meant to have a hologram on the back and neither of mine did.

So I'm assuming it's fake

Also I've heard that Amazon dumps all their stock in the same bins as "fulfilled by Amazon" third party stock, so you never know if you get official stock or fakes.

I've had to end my boycott of Argos (they sold me a faulty tablet in 2017, refused to refund it, sent it for repair and I never saw it again) in order to maintain my boycott of amazon (into my 6th year!).

Thanks for the info, I'll order the card :)

Edit: https://www.argos.co.uk/...

This is what I'm thinking of getting. It's for photos and mp3s on my phone.

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i_am_not_a_robot 2 points 4 months ago

I've never had a fake from Amazon but I don't fully trust them for the reason you state (all the stock which is apparently the same gets mixed up). Argos only have their own stock, I'd be very surprised if you got a fake from there.

I've not bought a Kingston in years*, apparently they use spare capacity on other manufacturer's lines so you don't know exactly what you're getting (this is not to say they are bad, but the quality can vary considerably).

I had some experiences with them corrupting when being used in a Pi, I changed a number of things - one being the card brand - and haven't had any issues since. The Pi is will known for being rough on SD cards so if it's going into a phone you are unlikely to have problems of this nature anyway.

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DakRalter 1 point 4 months ago

Yeah I'm going to stick to sandisk this time.

The only time I've had issues with SD cards before this is with my acekard. The first one just died and the current one needs formatting every now and then but apparently that's common with acekard. The ones in my old android 2 that I use for mp3s and my old tablet have never had issues.

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shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit 2 points 4 months ago

SD cards aren't forever. I found out after backing up a bunch of files to the card in my android, ready to move onto a new phone. Those writes were enough to kill the card - not even read only, I had to run recovery software to salvage files. My card was about 4 years old like yours. After that, I've paid the extra for high endurance cards even for normal usage.

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DakRalter 1 point 4 months ago

Yeah I know, but I've had microSDs in my other devices for a lot longer. The one in my android 2 has been there more than 10 years at this point, my acekard one even longer (it corrupts, which is apparently normal for acekard, but doesn't die. I just put it through the formatter and it's fine again).

Those two cards barely lasted 2 years each.

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reddig33 0 points 4 months ago

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