I done a bad thing: I bought a SanDisk.

[Dave Beauvais]

Is it possible to be happy, but ashamed of oneself at the same time? If you're me, the answer is yes. See, some time ago, I vowed that I would never, ever purchase a SanDisk product again as long as I lived, no matter how attractive the price may be. Well, I'm ashamed to report that I just purchased a 512 MB SanDisk SecureDigital card today. "Why?! Why would you do such a thing, Dave," you may be asking yourself. (Or not.) Because it cost me a mere $89 without a rebate and no shipping charge. 8O

Sears (http://www.sears.com) just had a two-day sale on the SanDisk 512 MB SD cards (SanDisk part number SDSDB-512-768). Normally priced around $200 or so, Sears had them on sale for $99. I tried to order one online only to be told -- after submitting my credit card info -- that they were out of stock for delivery. Someone I know who works at a local Sears was able to check the inventory of all the Sears locations in this area. He found only one mall store that had two in stock. Total price after associate discount and before tax for half a gigabyte of storage: $89.

I still detest SanDisk's "customer service" and continue to make semi-weekly backups of all data on my SD cards in case they spontaneously die (http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=16942). For this price, however, I think I can tolerate the annual warranty exchange that I am expecting to have to deal with. :lol:

I reformatted the card with a FAT32 file system and just completed copying the data from my current 256 MB and 64 MB cards onto it. I filled the rest of the space with some random files of varying sizes just to ensure that the entire card could be written to. So far it works fine all the way up to its formatted capacity of 483 MB. (483 MB = 512 Marketing Bytes)

I assure you, I'll be here to complain <strike>when</strike> if I have data corruption problems. ;) Do I feel like a hypocrite? Yes, a little bit. I know "you get what you pay for," but that was too good a deal to pass up.

[delfuhd]

Hmm well I have a 128 meg SanDisk SD card and a 256 meg SanDisk CF card, and zero problems..
But anyway, Congrats on the good deal you got! And good luck with the card I guess

[Kingstan]

Well, the Sears $99 price was too good to pass up.

I kept getting an error mesage on their web page, so I called last night and they're holding 2 for me at a Sears not too far out of town. I got one for my wife and one for me, and I don't even HAVE a pocket PC...........yet!

Heck, if it gives you problems, you can always re-sell it or trade for two 256MB cards. :)

Joe

[dh]

I tried to order the Sandisk from Sears yesterday but gave up and ordered the Kingston after getting the errors on their site.

As luck would have it, my 256MB Sandisk decided to quit last night. I've had to format it several times but this time it failed very quickly. I'm hoping I can get it working again because I wanted to use it in the e355 I've bought my daughter for Christmas. I hoping it'll work better there than in my Axim which is well know for Sandisk problems.

So I'm quite happy that Sears wouldn't let me order the Sandisk. One Sandisk SD card to contend with is quite enough at the moment thanks. :D

Of course, knowing my luck I'll get the Kingston only to discover it's a relabeled Sandisk!

[David Prahl]

There's a thread going about a 512 MB PNY SD card for $100.
http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=21472

Any experiences with PNY SD?

[i_spock]

FWIW, I just did a warranty exchange with SanDisk and it went very smoothly. They paid for all shipping and I didn't need to have my receipt either. It took 2-3 weeks total but I'm happy with that. I wouldn't keep apps or critical data on a SanDisk card but for anything else they're fine. I picked up one of those $99 512MB cards also, we'll see how that one works out...

[Jerry Raia]

My SanDisk 256k SD card has worked fine. Never had a problem...yet. :roll:

[CoreyJF]

I have been using my 128 sandisk card for well over a year with out any problems. I occasionally back it up, but then again I occasionally back my my hard drive as well. I have most of my apps load to the card...

[sublime]

I have most of my apps load to the card...

That's what scares the bejebus out of me. I keep on hearing about bad Sandisk cards, and I worry about how screwed I will be if mine crashes, since I have everything loaded on my 1GB card.

:(

[i_spock]

Yours must be a CF card though right, not an SD. As far as I know the CF cards aren't famous for going bad. And I've heard that a lot of the problems with the SD cards are caused when people use them in a USB reader/writer.

[maximus]

Some time ago, I vowed that I would never, ever purchase a SanDisk product again as long as I lived, no matter how attractive the price may be. Well, I'm ashamed to report that I just purchased a 512 MB SanDisk SecureDigital card today.

Welcome back Dave,

We made great products. Some of our users have 10+ sandisk SDs without any error.

-- Sandisk Marketing.

Someone I know who works at a local Sears was able to check the inventory of all the Sears locations in this area. He found only one mall store that had two in stock. Total price after associate discount and before tax for half a gigabyte of storage: $89.

Any chance for getting me the last available 512 SD in stock ? :mrgreen:

[toxostoma]

Maximus, did I read your post correctly? Do you work for Sandisk? 8O If so, you have guts posting... I've got one of the Sandisk 512 MB cards coming (I couldn't pass up the good price), but frankly I'm scared that it'll go screwy on me. And even worse, if it does, I'll have a nightmare getting it exchanged. (Personally, I always thought companies should send you a new unit or a temporary replacement before you send something defective back to them. I mean, if it's defective, it's their fault, not yours...). The card's not worth crap, no matter what the price, if it isn't reliable. I hope I'm making the right decision.

If you do work for Sandisk, I'd love someone to comment on what the problems are, how widespread you perceive them to be, and what the company is doing to correct them.

[Jonathon Watkins]

DO you work for Sandisk?

I'm afraid I have a few choice things to say after I have had 2x 256Mb SD cards and a 1Gb CF card die on me. I'm still trying to get Sandisk to send me a 1Gb CF Ultra II instead of the standard 1Gb CD card back. I'll happily pay the £45 price differnce, but I don't want to trust any more of my digital photos to a device that has previously died on me.

Lets not talk about the 256Mb SD card in my Axim. :evil:

[Ripper014]

Me too... 2 dead SD Sandisk cards... actually make that 3 I forgot about the latest one to go bad. In this case I was able to take it back to my retailer and exchange it for something else. At the time it was the only sd card they had available but because I was truely desperate to get a card I purchased the Sandisk and prayed (I had just purchased a HP2210).

Obviously I either did not pray hard enough or I am not in his good graces... well less than a few months later... it failed. By the way the first SD card failed shortly after a month of use and the replacement card failed on the first use. SO AS YOU CAN SEE I HAVE HAD LOUSY LUCK WITH THEM.

The worse part of it is the first two cards failed in a card reader... guess who's the manufacturer.... SANDISK...

I guess maybe its my fault for not being smarter... lets see how long my Lexar SD Card lasts me...

On a side note.. my Kingston CF Card is 4 years old and doing great... my Microdrive ditto... I do have a 64mb and a 128mb SD Card by Sandisk but am afraid to put any pertinent information on them. The last fiasco cost me 2 years of unrecoverable data... and countless hours to reload software.

[maximus]

Ok, before this is getting too far, I do not work for sandisk or any other sandisk-affiliated companies. I was just kidding when I posted the above. In fact, I was referring to myself when I mentioned about 'a user with 10+ sandisk SDs without any error' ...