Netac is a brand that came up while browsing through microSD cards on AliExpress. However, it’s not my first encounter with them: I received a Netac 8GB microSD card with one of my 3D printers. After starting this project, I looked at it a little more closely and discovered it was actually a 16GB card that had been partitioned to only use 8GB — making it the only card I’ve come across that was significantly larger than its labelled capacity. I purchased these cards partly out of curiosity to see whether they were doing this with any of their other cards as well.
These cards turned out to be a pretty interesting case study in what happens when you source your cards from multiple manufacturers, as there was a pretty clear difference between sample #3 and the other two samples. The first obvious difference is the back of the package: samples #1 and #2 have a wealth of information, including a seal of authenticity, on the back of the package. However, on sample #3, stickers have been used to cover up all of this information. While the normal product packaging has text that is mostly in Chinese, one of the stickers has text that is completely in English — including a FCC Part 15 disclaimer, the manufacturer’s name and address, and the name and address of the UK and European distributors. This suggests to me that they might have intended to prepare this card for sale in English-speaking regions, including the US and the EU.
The next difference is the difference in the card artwork. Sample #3’s artwork is a little lighter than the other two (although it’s hard to tell from the pictures, because my phone automatically applied some color correction to them).
The next difference comes when the card is plugged in: samples #3 has a completely different manufacturer ID and product name than the other two. Samples #1 and #2 have a manufacturer ID of 0x6f and a product name of SDABC, while sample #3 has a manufacturer ID of 0x89 and a product name of NCard. Hey wait a second — I’ve seen this before…this is the same manufacturer ID/product name that Netac PRO #1 showed after it failed! 🤔
Well at any rate, let’s move on to the next obvious difference: performance. There was a definite difference in performance between sample #3 and the other two samples. None of them did particularly well — especially in random I/O speeds — but sample #3 set some new lows: 0th percentile for sequential read speed, 2nd percentile for sequential write speeds, 0th percentile for random read speeds (the absolute worst random read speeds out of any card I’ve tested so far), and 22nd percentile for random write speeds (as of the time of this writing). The other two samples fared a little better, but were still pretty terrible: the best single measurement was the sequential write speed from sample #2, and that only put it into the 45th percentile in that category.
These cards bear the Class 10 and U1 marks. Performance measurements for sample #3 weren’t enough to qualify for either of these marks; but average of the three scores was.
Finally, let’s move on to endurance: sample #3 also failed far earlier than the other two samples. Here’s how things are shaking out on the endurance front:
- Sample #1’s first error was a single bit flip, in a single sector, during round 2,258. It has survived 6,162 read/write cycles in total so far.
- Sample #2’s first error was a single bit flip, in a single sector, during round 4,444. It has survived 6,130 read/write cycles in total so far.
Sample #3’s first error was a series of bit flip errors affecting 1,450 sectors during round 4. It only managed to survive about another 2,000 read/write cycles before passing the 50% error threshold. Here’s what the graph of this card’s progression looked like:
Overall? I don’t know — performance was pretty terrible. It’s still yet to be seen how they do on the endurance front, but I’m not sure that will excuse how poorly they performed. I think my verdict here is “don’t buy these — there are way better options out there”.
June 18, 2025 (current number of read/write cycles is updated automatically every hour)