Which Micro SD card to buy

[Toni Mathias]

im really liking that Lexar 128GB one that Jesse posted about

 

[Zog1971]

Can anyone tell me what how the jump in speed from a 45mbs card to 90mbs card would benefit me in real world use? I simply plan on storing music and some HD movies to the card. Is the 45mbs fine for this or would I see better performance from the upgrade to the 90mbs. Obviously, in theory the 90mbs is the better performer, I just am not sure if it is something I really NEED for my usage.

 

[Jesse San Nicolas]

In the real world, transferring should theoretically be twice at fast going from 45MB/s to 90MB/s. The speed you see advertised is usually for faster transfer of data, and to record HD video, and if you want, even do 4k recording. It's nice to be able to transfer a 6GB movie from your computer to your microSD card in 5 minutes. Compard to an older microSD class 2 card, which would take 30-45 minutes to transfer that same 6GB movie. As for watching shows and music, even the old class 2, 4, and 6 cards usually have no problem playing back HD videos.

 

[VickiFL]

This is the exact card I purchased at Amazon. Does anyone have any experience with it? So far, I really like it. It says it was made specifically for the SP3. I didn't even know they did that.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/9973382420/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o07_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

[GreyFox7]

This is the exact card I purchased at Amazon. Does anyone have any experience with it? So far, I really like it. It says it was made specifically for the SP3. I didn't even know they did that.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/9973382420/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o07_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

From the description: Professional Ultra SanDisk 64GB MicroSDXC Microsoft Surface Pro 3 card is custom formatted for high speed, lossless recording! Includes Standard SD Adapter. (UHS-1 Class 10 Certified 30MB/sec).

So ... 'custom formatted' ... if you look at it in Disk Management is it formatted NTFS or something else? does it indicate the sector/block size 4k, 8k ???

But $68 for a 64gb 30MBps card seems a little high... depending on what the customization is worth.

 

[Jesse San Nicolas]

This is the exact card I purchased at Amazon. Does anyone have any experience with it? So far, I really like it. It says it was made specifically for the SP3. I didn't even know they did that.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/9973382420/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o07_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I hope you did not buy that card. That's a rip off. Cancel you order or return it for a refund ASAP. You overpaid big time.

Best 64GB microSD card deal you can get for your SP3 right now is this Samsung 64GB EVO microSDXC for $29.99. It is also faster than the SanDisk you ordered.

 

[VickiFL]

From the description: Professional Ultra SanDisk 64GB MicroSDXC Microsoft Surface Pro 3 card is custom formatted for high speed, lossless recording! Includes Standard SD Adapter. (UHS-1 Class 10 Certified 30MB/sec).

So ... 'custom formatted' ... if you look at it in Disk Management is it formatted NTFS or something else? does it indicate the sector/block size 4k, 8k ???

But $68 for a 64gb 30MBps card seems a little high... depending on what the customization is worth.

This is a copy and paste about the card: (under properties)

Device USBSTOR\Disk&Ven_Generic-&Prod_USB3.0_CRW___-SD&Rev_1.00\00000 was configured.

Driver Name: disk.inf
Class Guid: {4D36E967-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}
Driver Date: 06/21/2006
Driver Version: 6.3.9600.16384
Driver Provider: Microsoft
Driver Section: disk_install.NT
Driver Rank: 0xFF0001
Matching Device Id: GenDisk
Outranked Drivers:
Device Updated: false


Yes, I already purchased this card, and have been using it for a couple weeks now. No complaints so far.

 

[Jesse San Nicolas]

This is a copy and paste about the card: (under properties)

Device USBSTOR\Disk&Ven_Generic-&Prod_USB3.0_CRW___-SD&Rev_1.00\00000 was configured.

Driver Name: disk.inf
Class Guid: {4D36E967-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}
Driver Date: 06/21/2006
Driver Version: 6.3.9600.16384
Driver Provider: Microsoft
Driver Section: disk_install.NT
Driver Rank: 0xFF0001
Matching Device Id: GenDisk
Outranked Drivers:
Device Updated: false


Yes, I already purchased this card, and have been using it for a couple weeks now. No complaints so far.

Well, Sandisk does make solid products. It's just a regular microSD card, no different than one you would put in your phone. I'm 100% positive they just threw 'Surface Pro 3' in the title to get unsuspecting customers.

By the way, you can format that microSD card, and just about any other microSD to NTFS or FAT32 by yourself, and right clicking on it in "This PC" and choosing "format", then choose NTFS or FAT32, and even choose your allocation size.

 

[GreyFox7]

On the desktop right click or hold the start button then select Disk Management. use the sniping tool to grab a shot of the window.

D: is a 32gb SD card on my Surface 2

 

[guymalloc]

I would really recommend against formatting your microsd card to NTFS, leave it exfat if you're not going to use it for system images. I bought two sandisk 128gb class 10 cards, the first one was an ultra, had corrupt file problems with it. Now using a class 10 pixtor sandisk card, works flawlessly in my SP1.

 

[Kif]

I remember hearing that some SD cards stick out a bit and interfere with the kickstand. Maybe people can chime in if they've had that experience.

 

[mikejg]

Beware of used or older stock of SanDisk Ultra 64GB cards. Mine is frequently unmounting in my Surface 3. It happens every couple days, sometimes more than once. I've read there was a bad batch of these cards from SanDisk. The weird thing is my card worked fine for a year in my Acer S7. But very few other people have the same problem, and the ones who do often have the same SanDisk card, so I'm no longer blaming the Surface and will be replacing my card.