SD Card Write Speeds

[Toph]

Hey guys. I'm curious how many of you are actually recording much in full 4K due to how large and cumbersome the files can be. I'm guessing more are downgrading a bit for ease of use and sharing (unless you are using this for truly professional use and have the needed gear).
That being said, what kind of write speeds are adequate if your doing most of your recording under 4K? Do you need a 30mb/s (write speed) card if your not recording much in 4K? I'm looking for a couple 64mb cards and want to spend the money on an adequate card, but not more than I'll need for my typical use.

Thanks in advance.


Sent from my iPhone using PhantomPilots mobile app

 

[msinger]

All you really need is a class 10 memory card. You can find some commonly used memory cards here.

Many people don't consider that they'll be manually transferring files to/from the memory card. Since I don't like to wait around, I prefer to spend a few extra bucks on memory cards that are faster than the cheapest class 10 memory card.

 

[henick]

Get a class 10 UHS-1 card, they'll do 80mb/s (advertised). It's the best the phantom hardware can handle and amazon has 64g ones on sale for about 20 bucks.

Not many reasons to get anything else unless you want a bigger capacity one. I'm guessing here but I think 4k video requires this. P3P comes with a 16g UHS-1 card for example.

 

[Dacon Productions]

Anything else is better than the micro SD card that came with the P3P bird. Read the specs on the card and run to the closest store to get something better...

http://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail...b32QjQ67pQ==&gclid=CIGKlfv_gcsCFRIoaQodQ0gM1g

 

[Shammyh]

And while the bird may not care too much... You definitely want a "UHS" type card over the regular class 10.

Technically, they may have similar "specs", but the actual bus data mode they're using to communicate is quite different. And a faster card will save you time downloading content from the bird (especially if you use a dedicated card reader, which I'd also recommend).

 

[DenHighFlyer]

I would recommend a UHS-3 rated card to be safe. You spent $500-1200 on the bird, what's a couple extra bucks for a better card?

 

[Juventino]

Definetly get a good card, I have a Sony Action Cam X1000V and it does 4K at 30 fps with a write speed of 90 MBit/s so obviously you need a card that can write that fast if you want to do 4K with that camera at full speed which is nice because it gets very clear and a lot less noise than the lower ones.

The Phantom 3 Professional and 4K does 60 MBit/s so make sure the card you get does at least that. And if you want to "future proof" or reuse that micro SD card then maybe it's wiser to go with something that can do 90 or 95 MBit/s... But certainly not necessary for P3P

 

[185EZ]

.

 

[msinger]

The Phantom 3 Professional and 4K does 60 MBit/s so make sure the card you get does at least that.

Just to clarify, that means you'll need a memory card that can write at least 7.5 MB/s.

 

[Dacon Productions]

This is what came with my advanced
I thought the U3 was good?

Still like it?

 

[185EZ]

.

 

[4wd]

I can't resist using the 4K since I have it.
The files from the P3 are not filling hard drives as fast as my Hero4, not least because the actual time flying and recording is relatively brief.
My desktop is reasonably fast at rendering provided only one or two filter effects are applied.
It actually takes longer if I downsize at rendering so not much point doing that even if the finished file is a bit smaller.

 

[Dacon Productions]

You showed mine at 45MBs
The one you showed is 12 MBs
I guess I'm missing something here.

........................
My fault. In the thread is a pic of the supplied SD card and specs. For 16Gb it sucks...

 

[Oso]

There is a bottleneck on the P3 between the camera buffer and the card that severely limits write speed. This has been tested and discussed too many times on the forum.

With regards to write speed, the test data shows that there is no value in purchasing cards faster than Class 10 because that is already faster than the maximum speed the camera is capable of writing.

@msinger has a good point however that you shouldn't forget read speed as well if you want faster transfers. IMHO, that's a legit reason to look at faster cards.

 

[neven]

Still like it?

View attachment 44201

That is still more then 5x faster then 4K video P3 records.


Sent from my iPhone using PhantomPilots mobile app

 

[Meta4]

Buying a faster, more expensive card won't do much for you.
The speed bottleneck is the Phantom itself.
As long as you have a card that meets spec you're good to go.
Supported SD Card Types Micro SD - Max capacity: 64 GB. Class 10 or UHS-1 rating required

So many people get dazzled by the (not always true) idea that bigger, faster, more expensive = better
Sometimes good enough is good enough

I can't see the point in 64 GB cards either.
Do you want to store the work of many flights on one card and keep sending it out and risk losing it all?
My preference is a number of 16 GB cards in different colours so I don't get them mixed up.

 

[msinger]

Buying a faster, more expensive card won't do much for you.

The read speed on some of the cheap memory cards is atrocious. It took me twice as long to copy data from them onto my computer.

 

[Suntana]

I bought this outfit, I guess I should of read more into it before buying.

Sent from my iPad using PhantomPilots mobile app

 

[Toph]

Great feedback guys. Thanks for taking the time to lend your input. Open to additional info. Thanks!


Sent from my iPhone using PhantomPilots mobile app

 

[Toph]

Most of the Class 10 UHS-1 cards I see on Amazon don't write faster than about 20-25mb/s. What am I missing here?


Sent from my iPhone using PhantomPilots mobile app