They tested Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin.
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Analyzing the Results:
Performance results speak a thousand words and don’t need much of an explanation, other then how the tests were conducted. Below I’ve separated each group of test results with the purpose of explaining the test and mentioning which microSD cards were the top performers.
Memory card performance is crucial while utilizing a slot 1 linker device, as slowdown can seriously ruin your game play experience. All of these microSD cards will work in any DS linker device, however, most will cause serious lag and slowdown. By specifications and performance results the microSD of choice is by far the SanDisk Ultra II. The SanDisk Ultra II 1GB provides lag free performance on any linker device, meaning all of your movies and games will perform flawlessly. However the SanDisk Ultra II is only a 1GB and if you need something larger then you should purchase the Kingston/Toshiba 2GB. I say Kingston/Toshiba because they are the same device packaged under different brand names. Both devices share the same manufacturer part numbers and memory packing methods. The Kingston/Toshiba performs great for a 2GB model and has the best read speeds of all of the devices. The 2GB Kingston/Toshiba models are actually much faster than their 1GB counterparts, which is really odd for flash memory standards. I would definitely stay away from all of the other contenders or you’ll end up getting frustrated with lag and slowdown.
The popular DS game, Castlevania - Portrait of Ruin has been experiencing game play freezes during the warp point sections of the game while utilizing various linker devices and memory combinations. Personally I attribute the freeze issue to slow memory access times with several flash memory devices since the game significantly runs better with the faster memory. The top performers from these results are the Kingston/Toshiba (1GB/2GB) devices, which experienced no freeze issue whatsoever. The Generic OEM 128MB also preformed outstandingly, while the SanDisk Ultra II 1GB barely managed with the freeze issues happening only 50% of the time. All of the other devices experienced regular freezing, which basically makes the game unplayable with that flash memory.
File transfers to your flash media card will be done regularly so you’ll definitely want a microSD card with speed. Windows File Transfer tests measure real world file transfer speed with two different file sizes (128MB & 64MB). The chosen file sizes, 128MB & 64MB, replicates actual ROM file sizes so that the tests are more representative or normal daily use. This test measures the amount of seconds it takes to transfer a certain sized file from the computer to the designated microSD card. Results are measured in seconds with a lower time representing a better overall write performance. The top performer in this category was the SanDisk Ultra II 1GB, which boasts the best write speed of all of the devices and writes more then twice as fast as the competition. The secondary performer in this category is the SanDisk Mobile Premier 2GB, which has a decent write speed.
HDTach is a benchmarking application which tests the sequential read, sequential write, random access and interface burst speeds of an attached storage device (hard drive, flash drive, removable drive, etc). HDTach results are very easy to comprehend and the results are listed in an easy to read graph/text format. The top performer in the write speed HDTach test was clearly the SanDisk Ultra II 1GB, in which it nearly doubled the competitions results. Tied for a close second is the Generic OEM 128MB & SanDisk Mobile Premier, both of which recorded above average results. The top marks for read speed go to the Kingston/Toshiba 2GB devices, which doubled even the 1GB SanDisk Ultra II’s results. Beyond the Kingston/Toshiba 2GB model all of the devices results were nearly tied. The top Access time performer was the 1GB Kingston/Toshiba models, although the SanDisk Ultra II 1GB and Kingston/Toshiba 2GB devices also preformed well.
SiSoft Sandra is another benchmarking application but it’s a little bit different than HDTach as the application measures another aspect of the memory. SiSoftware Sandra measures the “Combined Index” and “Endurance Factor” of the selected memory. The “Combined Index” value is the memories “combined performance in terms of Combined Operations Per Second, with respect to a mix of write, read and delete operations". Basically this value demonstrates how many operations per second the tested memory is capable of doing within one minute. The “Endurance Factor" represents the overall "Wear and Life Expectancy" of the flash media. Flash media can only be written to so many times and upon each transfer some amount of wear occurs. This wear eventually results in performance degradation and ultimately, though not so quickly, media failure. SiSoft Sandra calculates the "Endurance Factor" by dividing the average performance, for example a sequential write, by the lowest performance, a rewrite of the same block of data initially written to. For all of the values, high is always better. The Generic OEM 128MB microSD was the top performer in the combined index test, with results that tripled the competitions. This is probably due to the devices’ low access time and high write speed. Tied for second are all four of the Kingston/Toshiba devices, which also preformed remarkably well. The SanDisk Ultra II 1GB was the top performer in the endurance factor test. The endurance factor test is an important one as basically it demonstrates the microSD cards life expectancy. Sadly the top performing Kingston/Toshiba 2GB models performed poorly in the endurance test, which means memory degradation will happen fairly fast. The SanDisk Mobile Premier 2GB performed the worst in the endurance factor test with a score that is more than half that of the device’s cousin, the Ultra II.
ATTO Disk Benchmark is yet another type of memory benchmark that provides a detailed view of overall data transfer speed and a detailed evaluation of the read and write data speeds. ATTO measures the basic read and write speed of the tested memory and then displays them in an easy to read format. The top performers in the ATTO tests were the SanDisk Ultra II 1GB & Kingston/Toshiba 2GB models. The SanDisk Mobile Premier was ranked third with decent performance that was still much greater than the competition.
Conclusion & Final Thoughts:
Purchasing memory is a very important task and selecting the wrong speed, size, or performance can end up costing you in the long run. When purchasing a memory card for your linker device it’s always better to spend the extra money and get a name brand card with good specifications. When viewing the test results you can easily see the emerging pattern between the microSD cards and their performance. The top two overall performers were the SanDisk Ultra II 1GB and Kingston/Toshiba 2GB, which had the best results throughout almost all of the tests. Purchasing either model and using it in your DS linker of choice will garner you near perfect results, which is why it’s the “Moddz.com microSD Memory Roundup” recommend card of choice. The SanDisk Ultra II 1GB has better write performance while the Kingston/Toshiba has better read performance. In addition both devices share the same access times, which is an extremely important number to know when purchasing flash memory. The Generic OEM 128MB card tested had great overall performance, although it was included with the Datel Games 'N' Music device and its unknown whether this card can be purchased separately or in larger capacities.
The average performers in the group were the SanDisk 1GB, SanDisk 2GB, SanDisk Mobile Premier 2GB, Kingston/Toshiba 1GB, and the A-DATA Super 2GB. These devices were consistently reliable and had decent results throughout the tests. Purchasing any of these devices will garner you fairly decent results, which will keep you satisfied unless you are a perfectionist like myself. The top performing middle class device is the Kingston/Toshiba 1GB devices, which performed basically identically to the others although with much faster access times. The troublesome microSD cards were the Samsung OEM 1GB and the ATP 2GB. Both of these cards performed horribly in just about every test, and if utilized will definitely cause device performance degradation.
Performance wasn’t price matched, as most of the expensive devices were actually the worst performers. The SanDisk Mobile Premier 2GB and ATP 2GB are both supposed to be rated at 60X or higher, yet their results were far less than satisfactory. Not to mention both devices are the most expensive on the market, with both costing more than $50. I was really hoping that the SanDisk Mobile Premier’s performance would at least be least equal to the SanDisk Ultra II 1GB, yet the results demonstrated otherwise. The worst performer of the bunch is the ATP 2GB microSD, which coincidentally enough is the only device rated at 80X. This device performed horribly in each test category and didn’t even come close to the manufacturer’s specification of 80X (12MB/sec). I also tested the ATP twice as much as all of the other devices thinking that I had made a mistake. I even contacted ATP about the issue and they sent me another device to review, as I originally thought that the first microSD card was defective. I have purchased many ATP devices in the past and have never had these types of results, which is truly disappointing.
Also a questionable new performance bullet point for future memory purchases is manufacturing location. It seems that many users claim that the flash memory manufacturing location has a direct effect on performance, and some say that flash memory “made in” Japan performs better than memory built-in in Taiwan? Is memory made in Japan more reliable than memory made in Taiwan? Whether this is true or not has yet to be determined but there is significant performance data to suspect this is true for at least the Kingston/Toshiba brand, which experiences horrid performance from the Taiwan manufactured models.
I seriously recommend that Moddz user’s pickup the SanDisk Ultra II 1GB or Kingston/Toshiba 2GB, as these devices will garner users the best reliability, compatibility, and performance. If a 1GB capacity is enough then users should pickup the SanDisk Ultra II, however if a 2GB capacity is necessary, then the Kingston/Toshiba models are the next logical choice. It’s always best to spend a little more money when purchasing your memory, as it will usually result in fewer troubles in the long run. Cheap memory is something that I hope no one ever has to experience, and there is nothing more dreadful then trying to access your precious data only to be notified that the memory is corrupted. This is not always the case as the Kingston/Toshiba models are actually some of the most inexpensive yet have the best performance. I performed the tests, explained my results, and now I’ll let you interpret the results for yourself.
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