Buying bulk microsd cards.

[forrestc]

I'm hoping someone has bumped into this problem before and has an idea about a source for these.

I'm about ready to start shipping a product in the next couple of months which will need a microsd card...  I want to install these in the "factory" before they go out to the customers, and I really only need a Gig or two card.   Because we're going to be installing them in the product itself before it ships (these will be more used as built-in memory than field-swappable), I'd like to buy these in bulk to avoid the labor of extracting these from individual packages  (which may cost more than the price of the card), and the waste of all of the stuff which comes around a microSD card, such as cases, often a SD to microSD adapter, etc.   Ideally I'd just buy these in bulk packages of 500 or 1000pcs at a time, in some packaging where you open the box and there's a lot of SD cards ready to go.  (I'm not sure how you ship microSD cards in bulk which might be part of the problem).

I know there's a lot of sources willing to sell me these, but with the rampant issues with less-than-decent-quality sd cards out there, I'd like to find a reputable source, and so far reputable (or at least trusted) seems to equal at least semi-retail packaging (5 packs for instance).

Any ideas?

[Towger]

Bunny has a good blog entry on the trials and tribulations of buying bulk SD cards for production. A quick Google should find it, I am on my phone so hard to post a link.

[sacherjj]

We sell and freely digital content intended to be using in mobile phones and media players.  We have produced 80k SD cards in the last year (approximate distribution: 80% 16GB, 18% 32GB, 2% 64GB).  We are duplicating data onto the card using a 64 bay and 32 bay SD duplicators.  These have 1 master and 63 or 31 produced with each.  These are FPGA based units that have worked well for us.  We run a duplication and verification step that is about 30 minutes for 16GB, and 1 hour for 32 GB.

We have found Samsung and Toshiba to be the most reliable for consumer level in the sizes we use.  We buy in bulk from POWER ON Digilux Technology Corp in Taiwan.

[lkydoris]

You really can do search in google there, we did that search for many items. As we are running wholesale store in US, so we always hope find good and reliable suppliers there. what we tried is one supplier www.hugdiy.com, they sell mainly memory cards bulk at this site. We bought many times for micro sd uhs-1 16gb and 32gb, the quality is very good, you could try.

[sony mavica]

i use this sd in my camera for over 6 months i use my camera a lot and had no problems at all

http://www.everbuying.net/product1103324.html

[FrankBuss]

Depending on your product, you might looks for industrial grade SD cards as well. And of course, highest reliability are SLC cards. Most consumer cards are MLC or even TLC. Doesn't matter if you need it only for a few years, but might be a difference if it should work 10 years.

I don't know the price, but you should get a good one directly from the manufacturer for 1000 pieces and low capacity.

Edit: found it at Digikey: they are really expensive.

[wraper]

Depending on your product, you might looks for industrial grade SD cards as well. And of course, highest reliability are SLC cards. Most consumer cards are MLC or even TLC. Doesn't matter if you need it only for a few years, but might be a difference if it should work 10 years.

I don't know the price, but you should get a good one directly from the manufacturer for 1000 pieces and low capacity.

Edit: found it at Digikey: they are really expensive.

+1, I have SD card which holds the data for about 1.5 years until the corruption happens. It does this very consistently (I left a lot of old data on it to check how the degradation progresses). When it tries to read the old data, reading speed significantly drops, it returns the data but it is corrupted.

[Sionyn]

be careful were you source them from bunnie had a lot of problems with reptuble sellers selling him fake sdcards

[ehughes]

FYI:

I ordered several hundred from these guys:

https://www.oempcworld.com/category/microSD.html?gaw=bulk

They came in a tray and were of correct size.