Fake Sandisk cards?

GhostInTheRuins

Does anyone know how to tell if a sandisk card is a fake or genuine one?

I bought three CFs from a guy in dublin last year (off ebay, probably should have been a giveaway) and only really started using them lately.

They're three 4GB Sandisk Ultra 30mb/s, but when transferring from my D700 they are painfully slow. It takes about twenty minutes to transfer a full 4GB card. (I doubt it's a fault with the camera). My old D90 is five times faster with some sandisk extreme sd cards.

A bit of googling and I found this page that shows a comparison with the genuine cards and the fakes, and apparently the fakes don't have a serial number printed on the side of them. Thing is though, my ones do have a serial printed on the side, exactly like the one on that site (see attachment).

Anybody have any ideas?

Prenderb

Are you using USB or a direct card reader?

GhostInTheRuins

Camera connected to laptop with USB.

Kbeg3

I remembered reading something about fake sandisk cards before. One third of the cards on Earth are fake according to this article.

GhostInTheRuins

Kbeg3 wrote: »

I remembered reading something about fake sandisk cards before. One third of the cards on Earth are fake according to this article.

And 70% of the sandisk cards on ebay are fake? That's mental.

GhostInTheRuins

I just sent an email to sandisk with the serial number to see if they can clarify it's authenticity. Be interesting to see if they reply!

padocon

That is what I was going to suggest. I would not buy any memory cards off ebay, they have the batteries that are branded as Canon but are really manufactured by a 3rd party too.

padocon

padocon wrote: »

That is what I was going to suggest. I would not buy any memory cards off ebay, they have the batteries that are branded as Canon but are really manufactured by a 3rd party too.

To be fair, in the case of Canon batteries, the staggering price difference is usually enough to give you an idea how genuine it is (besides, the dodgy ones work just as well as the genuine ones anyway).

padocon

Deleted User wrote: »

To be fair, in the case of Canon batteries, the staggering price difference is usually enough to give you an idea how genuine it is (besides, the dodgy ones work just as well as the genuine ones anyway).

Yes but some times the price is the same as the official Canon ones. I know you can tell by the symbols on the battery etc but I wouldn't risk it on ebay. I have a genuine Canon battery and a 3rd party "Canon". I couldn't see any difference performance wise. In saying that I would hate to see a cheapy battery over heat or cause a problem in the camera.

aidanic

GhostInTheRuins wrote: »

They're three 4GB Sandisk Ultra 30mb/s, but when transferring from my D700 they are painfully slow.

I'd say that the CF and SD hardware in your cameras are different, and quite possibly very slow in the CF size.

Have you tried some sample copying from the CF cards in an External USB reader? Pick a big file, and copy from the camera and the USB reader.

I have a PCMCIA (PC-Card) reader from Sandisk, and it's really slow on my laptop, regardless of which CF card I use. I also have a Sandisk USB "Imagemage 8 in 1", which is way way faster.

Regardless of how fast the CF card is (and it's go faster stripes), you're looking at the CF-to-USB interface in the camera as the limiting speed (not the sensor to CF, which will be pretty turbo, looking at the D700 specs).

PS - if you're using the camera as an external drive in Windows and copying with Windows Explorer, it's possible that the Nikon Windows driver for the D7000 is inefficient for large transfers.

GhostInTheRuins

aidanic wrote: »

I'd say that the CF and SF hardware in your cameras are different, and quite possibly very slow in the CF size.

What's SF?

Have you tried some sample copying from the CF cards in an External USB reader? Pick a big file, and copy from the camera and the USB reader.

I have a PCMCIA (PC-Card) reader from Sandisk, and it's really slow on my laptop, regardless of which CF card I use. I also have a Sandisk USB "Imagemage 8 in 1", which is way way faster.

Unfortunately I don't have a card reader for compact flash so I've got no way to test it.

Regardless of how fast the CF card is (and it's go faster stripes), you're looking at the CF-to-USB interface in the camera as the limiting speed (not the sensor to CF, which will be pretty turbo, looking at the D700 specs).

Good point actually, I might test it on another computer later and see if that makes a difference, different usb and all that. It does seem fast enough from sensor to card, but I've got nothing to compare it with so I can't be sure. (It's fast enough for me anyway)

PS - if you're using the camera as an external drive in Windows and copying with Windows Explorer, it's possible that the Nikon Windows driver for the D7000 is inefficient for large transfers.

Nope! Using them on OSX and using the cards only as camera memory.

aidanic

GhostInTheRuins wrote: »

What's SF?

Sorry - that should have read "SD". Fixed above now.

GhostInTheRuins wrote:

Nope! Using them on OSX and using the cards only as camera memory.

On your own so!

LeoB

I bought 2 batteries for my Eos 40d from 7dayshop.com and they are as good as as the Canon battery if not better have them about 18months. Cant remember the price difference but the Canon was appro €65 for 1 but I got 2 for £12.50stg.

Would not buy a card on ebay but have got 1 from 7dayshop and it was fine.

GhostInTheRuins

Well i got a reply from sandisk

I have read your inquiry. Based on the serial number you have provided the memory card appears to be a genuine SanDisk product.

So it seems the serial number is genuine. I was fairly suprised that it was, so i went to look at the serial numbers for the two other cards, and wouldnt you know it, they're exactly the same on all cards.

That proves they're definite duds so.

Anyone want some sandisk cf cards? Rarely used! :P

kfish2oo2

My dads CF cards are painfully slow too - especially compared to my SD cards. On a multi-slot USB card reader, an 8GB SD card can dump all its files in about 3-8 minutes (depending on individual file sizes), whereas the 4GB CF card takes anything from 10 to 30 minutes to transfer everything.