Memory card/stick: Genuine (Name Brand) vs Fake

[slipper]

*edit* Genuine refers to name brands such as Sandisk, PNY, Sony, etc. Fake refers to the fakes found on eBay made in China.

So i'm in the market for a Sony Memory Stick Pro Duo, 4 or 8gb. I was curious if anyone here has had any bad experiences with generic memory cards/sticks.

I purchased maybe one or two SD cards in the distant past from eBay and i assume they were both fakes but i didn't have any problems with picture or HD video.

I would love to support the manufacturers and retailers but BestBuy has 8gb Memory Stick Pro Duos going for $50 plus tax. Absolutely ridiculous.

 

[M-5]

I'm not sure if "fake" is the right word to use for a "generic" brand.

When I first bought my DSLR, I bought a PNY brand 8GB SD card with it because of how inexpensive it was at Best Buy compared to the other brands. I don't recommend this though, because after a couple of months, almost every time I would upload my photos from the card to my computer at least one photo (but often a few) would come out corrupt. I even reformatted the card numerous times, but the problem persisted.

I replaced the card recently with a SanDisk 4GB card, which was more expensive than the PNY brand, but my images are no longer corrupt, and I've also noticed that the images upload quicker ,and they delete from the card almost instantly when I choose "Delete all" in the camera menu, whereas there would be a considerable delay on the PNY card.

 

[TheReef]

I wouldn't risk it... go for a reputable brand, it's not all that much to pay for peace of mind. Sandisk also make them I believe.

(I will admit I was slightly annoyed paying $100 for a 128MB Sony stick around 7 years ago when SDs were a fraction of that...)

 

[madmaxmedia]

Generics may or may not be that bad, probably luck of the draw there.

But fakes is another issue- often these are lower capacity cards hacked to report a larger amount of memory. The user typically doesn't know this until they exceed the actual capacity of the card, and their data is corrupted.

http://fightflashfraud.wordpress.com/guide-to-fake-flash/
http://fightflashfraud.wordpress.com/2008/11/24/flash-fraud-on-ebay/
http://fightflashfraud.wordpress.co...ld-standard-in-detecting-fake-capacity-flash/

I am not a paranoid Ebay user, I've pretty much universally had great experiences as buyer and seller, both in the USA and overseas. But I only buy memory cards from reputable US sellers, after reading that much of the overseas 'too good to be true' flash memory deals often are.

 

[Policar]

I think I had a PNY card fail during a trip to Paris, but I don't remember, which is kind of disturbing, since I've only been there once and should remember.

I have two very old 1GB sandisk CF cards. Both have been reliable so far as I can remember.

I recently got a 16GB transcend card for my t2i. So far no problems with photos, but it will rarely halt recording video because the card can't keep up. This shouldn't happen on a class 10 card. It's an intermittent problem, and usually only occurs when the card is nearly full, but I've heard of others having it and the class 10 sandisk CF card I used on a 7d had no such problems, ever.

Take from that what you will.

 

[slipper]

I'm not sure if "fake" is the right word to use for a "generic" brand.

I was actually referring to the "fake" Sandisk, PNY, Sony, etc memory cards found on eBay.

 

[De Rocca]

I one bought a second hand 8gb card, which was a Fake. On the net there are some resources on how to identyfy the fake card. In my case the sony 8 gb card was packed in a hard plastic (looks like the original), but the plastick was welded together on 6 spots, while the original sony packaging has a welded seal all way around.

It was an 8gb Mark2 card which is a card that can be used in Sony Camcorders. It turned out that after a few short pieces of footage, the card became corrupted. Maybe for photographic use it was ok, but sure not for video.

I you have doubts about price / genuine brand. Do a bit of research about the specific product you want to buy (bar code number, packaging, order numer)
There are even fakes of unexisting memory cards. I've seen some pass with an part number Sony never made.

 

[jdavtz]

I (unintentionally) bought a fake Sandisk CF card from eBay - it looked a bit odd and got my money back from Paypal after emailing Sandisk who confirmed it was fake.

It ran slower and I'm guessing was lower-capacity (although 'fixed' to report a higher capacity).

I definitely wouldn't buy from any non-100%-reputable seller in future. That probably includes all eBay sellers. I'd rather pay a few extra ££ to e.g. play.com

It's not worth risking using potentially-dodgy memory cards for photos taken with expensive kit on trips that I had to work to afford.

 

[rusty2192]

I have a couple Transcend SD cards that i bought from Amazon. Haven't had any problems so far. I've had the 16GB class 6 for about a year now and just bought an 8GB class 10 for my T2i. I personally would stay away from the knock-offs on eBay. You can get good San Disk SD cards for so cheap these days it isn't worth taking the chance. These Transcend cards are as cheap as I'm personally willing to go.

 

[slipper]

Wow maybe i'm just really lucky. I bought two memory cards off eBay and both work perfectly.

 

[Anonymous Freak]

Yeah, "fake" implies it's one that is branded a name brand, but wasn't really made by them. "Name brand" vs. "generic" would be better terminology.

As long as it complies with the standard, it's not "fake".

When I had a Sony, I had both Sony and Lexar Memory Sticks. Never a "generic" brand.

Now that I have SD-card-capable cameras, I have a couple by Transcend, one by Patriot, and one Eye-Fi. All work perfectly fine.