Are smaller / 64GB micro SD cards more reliable than larger / 128GB ?

[hinky]

I've got a 64GB micro SD card in my phone. It has been quite reliable so far and has performed well for 6 months. I'd like to replace it with a high quality U3 micro SD card that has a 128 GB capacity. It's hard for me to even understand how you could fit 1 GB into such a tiny space. 128 GB seems preposterous and 200 GB or 256 GB even crazier. Are we approaching atomic levels? I have to question whether reliability suffers in any significant way as you go larger with micro SD cards and would love to know the answer.

 

[smorizio]

if the vendors are now using bit stacking like ssd then the total wear life is less on larger sd cards then the smaller ones. in real life it might take you 20-30 years to wear out a sd card. most card ruined by water/shorting out.
if your going to cary that much music/movies at some point make a back up folder. if the disk goes south you wont lose much.

 

[USAFRet]

Personally, I don't care about the 'reliability' much. For either SD or microSD.

They are either fully backed up, or just transient for moving files to something else.
No long term storage.

 

[hinky]

Thanks guys. My main concern was having space for 4K movies. You go on a trip and these can eat up your storage space in no time with a 64GB. This is especially the case if you've already got music, movies, photos and other existing resources in storage. So having the extra space is a major boon.

Backup - absolutely. But my main concern is not having the card blow out on me as a result of some type of failure. And I have seen people lament using SD cards and losing great photos - which is why I only buy high quality brand name solutions to limit the possibility of failure due to cheap parts/components/build.

 

[USAFRet]

Thanks guys. My main concern was having space for 4K movies. You go on a trip and these can eat up your storage space in no time with a 64GB. This is especially the case if you've already got music, movies, photos and other existing resources in storage. So having the extra space is a major boon.

Backup - absolutely. But my main concern is not having the card blow out on me as a result of some type of failure. And I have seen people lament using SD cards and losing great photos - which is why I only buy high quality brand name solutions to limit the possibility of failure due to cheap parts/components/build.

Losing photos due to a bad SD/micro should (almost) never be an issue.

For my cameras, images get downloaded to the PC at most 48 hours after taking. When I hear of people losing "thousands", or "3 years worth", I just shake my head.

 

[hinky]

Losing photos due to a bad SD/micro should (almost) never be an issue.
For my cameras, images get downloaded to the PC at most 48 hours after taking. When I hear of people losing "thousands", or "3 years worth", I just shake my head.

Yes, that is crazy that they don't back up in any reasonable period of time. Still, my concern are those people who lose photos over a vacation or don't realize that their SD card is providing poor performance. You read those reviews online and just have to hope that it doesn't apply to you.

 

[Yu-Jin]

I've got a 64GB micro SD card in my phone. It has been quite reliable so far and has performed well for 6 months. I'd like to replace it with a high quality U3 micro SD card that has a 128 GB capacity. It's hard for me to even understand how you could fit 1 GB into such a tiny space. 128 GB seems preposterous and 200 GB or 256 GB even crazier. Are we approaching atomic levels? I have to question whether reliability suffers in any significant way as you go larger with micro SD cards and would love to know the answer.

My experience, which is admittedly anecdotal, is that your concerns are valid: 64 and smaller is more reliable. I've had two 128 GB microSD cards (a Samsung EVO and a Lexar) fail after about a year of average use. That's 2 out of 3 I own, and I'm kind of wondering how long the last one will go (it's younger than its ill fated brothers). By fail I mean partial to total data corruption and cannot be written to or formatted. On the other hand I have several considerably cheaper 32 and 64 GB cards that are years older and still working - the only other one I've had die is a Kingston 64 where the manufacturer straight up told me it was a defective run.