SD Card Write Cycles Overview

Every SD Card in the market has a limited number of write cycles. This is a measure of the cards hardware lifespan. Writing and deleting is done by current that it is transferred through the SD Card cells, which gradually cases them to wear out. The lower the voltage required the greater the life expectancy of the SD Card.

SLC require lower voltage levels compared to the other types. But even those are going eventually to fail. To give you some rough numbers, SLCs are estimated to have around 100,000 write cycles. Where MLCs range around 40,000 and TLC as low as 1500.

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Another parameter that should be taken in to account is the storage size. If you have to SD Cards of the same type ,lets say for example the one is a 32GB and the other 64GB, it will take twice as long for the second one to reach the write cycle limit resulting in a longer life span.

Conclusion is that you will still get a longer lifespan and you will be more secure with a higher grade SLC card. And since we are talking about security cameras data it is an unnecessary risk to take with a cheaper TLC card.

1 Like

Hello @Mx-MichaelS What is a good source for pSLC in the US? I can’t find any in-stock.

Thank you for the help and information on SD cards.

@RepLogix have you tried finding the ones listed in our white list?

I did @Mx-MichaelS but I can’t find them in stock in the US. What is the best source in the US to buy SD cards?

@Mx-MichaelS
With respect to the 4GB sd cards that Mobotix sends with each camera. What is the type SLC, aMLC, pSLC, etc, etc.

Also, with respect to the write cycles, noted within config file as “MAXIMUM_BLOCK_SWEEPS=2000” does this number represent the Max Block sweeps for the card supplied by Mobotix?

Kind regards,

  • mx-roland