I’ve benchmarked 4 different cheap 64GB microSD cards I got from AliExpress to check their actual read and write speeds, as well as their true capacities. The brands I picked were Taimi, Microdrive, Microdata, and Jaster. With memory prices on the rise, was it worth taking the risk? Here is what I found out.
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At First Glance
The captured listings placed these cards in the range of roughly $7-15, which is a little below the average price of a brand new 64GB microSD. This is precisely why I’ve chosen these for this little experiment.
The prices were reasonable enough to take the plunge, and I really do feel like if you’re trying to get a cheaper microSD card from a site like AliExpress, you’re likely to come across these models, or some version of them at least.
All of these were also fairly consistent when it comes to the contents of their product listings, which made me choose them from the sea of other microSD deals of varying quality that I’ve come across.
What Are We Checking For, and How
There are a few common risks associated with buying cheap microSD cards from unknown brands/manufacturers. These are:
- Fake capacity – e.g. the microSD reports a capacity of 64GB to Windows, but the real capacity of the card is significantly lower and all of the data saved to the card beyond the real limit gets corrupted and destroyed without any notification to the user. This is sadly still a very widespread practice among fraudulent manufacturers/sellers.
- Low quality of the card – the capacity of the card is legitimate, but the card has lower than usual read/write speeds (either sequential, random, or both), and the card has a non-zero chance of unexpected failure after repeated write cycles. This is a problem that’s widely known in the retro handheld community, as many cheaper handhelds ship with such “budget” cards included.
We will check fake capacity using H2testw and current speed performance using CrystalDiskMark, set to five test runs and a 1GiB test file. The speed benchmarks were done after the capacity tests, and none of the cards were formatted beforehand.
This can confirm the usable addressable capacity of each sample and show how it performs today. It cannot, however, tell us how many write cycles the flash will survive or whether another card from the same listing uses the same components.
The consistency with the card’s markings on the packaging is important here too. For reference, C10 and U1 categories should mean a minimum sequential write speed of 10MB/s, while U3 and V30 point at 30MB/s under the standard’s defined conditions. A1 is a separate application-performance class based on random I/O as well as sequential speed.
The Results
Here are the quick H2TestW and CrystalDiskMark results for each card, alongside the info and notes on each of the cards and the links to the exact AliExpress listings I got them from. Spoiler: Taimi is our definite winner.
A word of warning: Although I’ve included both the screencaps of the exact listings I got the cards from alongside the corresponding links, as always remember that nothing stops the sellers from: a) swapping the product available on the sales page with another one, b) silently switching to another supplier/manufacturer for the hardware sold via the very same listing. Take the results and sources for what they are, and always be mindful of the risks that come with the cheap electronics lottery.
1. Taimi 64GB
See the exact Taimi 64GB listing on AliExpress. The captured page, at the time of the purchase showed a price of $14.01, or $10.89 each when buying at least three cards. It was also the only listing here sold through a store carrying the same name as the brand.
Taimi definitely has the clearest brand presence of the four. I did find an active manufacturer website operated by Shenzhen Minder Semiconductor, and the company lists memory cards among its product categories. This is always reassuring.
The reported Windows capacity is a little below the roughly 59.6GB normally shown for a full 64GB card, but the controller luckily turned out not to hide a smaller physical limit behind that number.
No fake-capacity behavior or data errors appeared during the full write-and-verify pass. Taimi also recorded the highest sustained write speed in this comparison by a comfortable margin.
Its CrystalDiskMark result backs this up. It was the fastest card here for sequential writing and 4K random writing, and its measured performance was consistent with the U3 and V30 markings. And that’s pretty much it for this one. While I cannot vouch for its longevity, I would deem it a good buy for the price.
2. Microdrive 64GB
See the exact Microdrive 64GB listing on AliExpress. The captured page showed a price of $8.31 and included a full-size SD adapter.
The Microdrive’s print quality looked rougher than the Taimi’s, but there was nothing mechanically unusual about the card itself, other than it looked different from the card presented in the listing when it comes to its design. Its more interesting details appeared when I compared it with our next contender from Microdata.
Microdrive, Microdata – Same Manufacturer?
The Microdrive and Microdata packages use the same “High Speed Transmission” line, the same basic layout and very similar graphics. Packaging alone does not prove a common manufacturer, but the cards themselves provide us with another clue.
The matching identifier and date-style code strongly suggest that these two samples came from the same production source or at least used the same pre-printed card bodies.
The back of the packaging gives us even more info. Microdrive’s added label names Shenzhen Fengyutong Technology, while the original text below names Shenzhen Xinsen Technology.
The Microdata label names Shenzhen Xinruisi Technology, but Shenzhen Xinsen is also visible underneath the sticker just like on the Microdrive. This might suggest that the cards have been manufactured at the same factory, but later on repackaged and further labeled in different places.
After a quick investigation I was able to find a Spanish Amazon product sheet for generic memory cards that does connect Shenzhen Xinsen Technology with the same Taojindi address and an “MDTFCARDU3” test model commonly associated with Microdrive, but that still does not really identify who assembled the NAND and controller inside these two cards. That’s pretty much all we have.
As with the Taimi, the displayed capacity was a little below what I normally expect from a 64GB card, but still within reason.
The complete write-and-verify test found no false-capacity behavior or damaged sectors in the tested space. Its 28.0MB/s full-card write speed also clears the 10MB/s minimum associated with the card’s C10 and U1 markings.
CrystalDiskMark showed good sequential read speed for an ordinary UHS-I card. The random results were unremarkable, but almost identical to the Microdata’s down to the second decimal place, as you will see below.
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3. Microdata 64GB
See the exact Microdata 64GB listing on AliExpress. At $7.45 in the captured screenshot, this was the cheapest of the four listings.
Despite the different front print and design, its matching back code and near-identical benchmark behavior make it difficult to separate this Microdata sample from the Microdrive in any meaningful hardware sense.
This was the only card supplied as exFAT rather than FAT32 and it showed the largest Windows volume of the four, albeit by a rather small margin.
Capacity was genuine within the addressable space and H2testw reported no errors. The speed in the test as expected roughly matched the CrystalDiskMark results, as you can see below.
The short CrystalDiskMark run sequential writing just around 30MB/s. Its 4K Q1T1 result was again effectively the same as the Microdrive’s. All this, although it can’t be directly proven, points to the same manufacturer, factory or production line that both the Microdrive and Microdata cards came from.
4. Jaster 64GB
See the exact Jaster 64GB listing on AliExpress. With this one, the captured page showed a price of $15.23, or $10.06 each when buying at least three cards. Right away we can easily notice that the looks of the card paired with its “Extreme PRO” branding, let’s just say… alludes to both the branding and design of cards manufactured by SanDisk.
If I only saw the card itself without the adapter I might have actually been fooled for a few seconds, if not for the rather poor quality of the print.
Unlike the other three samples, the Jaster has a completely blank back. That leaves no batch, production or manufacturer code for us to see.
The Windows capacity closely matched the Taimi and Microdrive samples and was again slightly below the usual figure for a full 64GB card.
That left just 1MB outside the test files, with the default out-of-the-box card formatting. It is worth mentioning, but not enough to change the result. Virtually the entire available space was still written and verified without any trouble.
Jaster achieved reasonable H2testw read speed result and the second-fastest full-card write result. There was no sign of a programmed fake capacity within the tested space.
Sequential performance was good enough for the stated C10 and U1 ratings. The unusually low random writing speed was the weakest point of this card. 0.96MB/s was the lowest result in the testing group by a huge margin, making this my last choice of the four for an operating-system card or application storage.
So, Is It Worth It To Get MicroSD Cards From AliExpress?
The conclusion of this small experiment with a sample size of just four hand-picked microSD cards is that you can absolutely find usable cards coming from less-than-well-known sources.
Taimi is the easy winner in this batch. It was the fastest writer, had the best random-write result, met the important speed claims in my tests and was the only brand here for which I found an clear storage-manufacturer website.
Microdrive and Microdata cards would be my very careful second choices if you can find them for a good price. Jaster had respectable sequential speed but very weak random writing, so I wouldn’t really consider it for use cases like storing your retro handheld’s OS files on it, or running any kind of demanding software from it.
Of course, there is no easy way to tell how long these cards will last when heavily used. This is always going to be kind of a lottery when it comes to some more obscure brands and manufacturers.
Still, if you’re just looking for a cheaper alternative for a store-bought card and you can wait for a while for your package to arrive from China, I would say that these are reasonably good for what they are. I would use them for replaceable data with a backup, not as the only copy of photos, saves or other important files.
How To Lessen Your Chances of Getting a Fake microSD
Here is my word of advice on how to minimize your chances of getting scammed:
- Don’t fall for unrealistic pricing – if a microSD you’re planning to buy is sold with a price substantially lower than the market price of a brand new card of the same capacity, it can often point to non-genuine offers.
- Always check the genuine user reviews – many times over offers promoting fraudulent products feature comments showcasing capacity measurement results from tools such as H2TestW showing that the card is sold and marketed with a capacity larger than it actually has. This happens more often than you’d think, especially over on AliExpress. Watch for these types of comments as well as low product ratings with attached proof, it can be really helpful. Mind that fake-positive reviews also exist out there – in my experience for instance in the form of repeated positive result screengrabs from H2TestW with similar review messages.
- Test the whole card before trusting it – seeing the advertised capacity in Windows is not proof. Run a complete write-and-verify test with H2testw or an equivalent tool before moving important data onto a new card.
While you essentially can’t prevent the seller from sending you an item that’s inconsistent with what was advertised in the product listing, using these tips you can at least make sure that you’re not falling right into an obvious price trap alongside many less experienced buyers.
Cards from stores with consistent branding like this one (Taimi) can in general also be more believable sources of legitimate hardware, although once again, sadly nothing stops a seller from opening a store with the name of a brand that already exists on the platform.
Flashcarts.net has a great resource on counterfeit microSD cards, which lists both Microdrive and Microdata among generic or “non-existent” brands commonly seen on online marketplaces. It is worth reading if you want to learn more about counterfeit and fake-capacity cards.
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