Raspberry Pi is the brand name established by the Raspberry Pi Foundation in 2009, and is probably one of the best-known single-board computer (SBC) makers. They are probably better known as a consumer of microSD cards rather than a manufacturer — as virtually all of their boards (from the Model B+ onwards) have used microSD cards as their primary storage — but they decided to launch their own line of microSD cards after experiencing dissatisfaction with other cards on the market.
This card was suggested to me by Reddit user u/rathersadgay (link). I picked these up from PiShop.us, and I have to say — these came in the most minimalist packaging I’ve seen to date — just a tiny plastic baggie. I almost missed it when opening the bubble mailer that it arrived in because it was so small and so light. (I guess cutting out the packaging is one way to save on cost?) As far as cost — these cards are the second-most expensive 32GB I’ve purchased so far (as of the time of this writing). However, if they perform well and endure well, then the price may be worth it.
On the performance front — sequential read, random read, and random write speeds were all above average; however, sequential write speeds were below average. These cards bear the Class 10, U3, V30, and A2 marks; performance measurements were good enough for the Class 10 mark, but were not good enough for any of the other marks. However, I’ll throw in my standard disclaimer — my performance testing methods do not align with the SD specification; it’s possible that these cards would have performed better had they been tested under proper conditions. (In particular, Raspberry Pi claims that they worked with Longsys to make sure that these cards support command queueing — which my readers don’t support — so it’s very possible that they would have done better had they been tested using a reader that supported command queueing, and they’ve made sure that it’s supported in both the hardware and the Linux kernel for the Raspberry Pi 5.) Additionally, these results are only from a single card (as of the time of this writing).
On the endurance testing front:
- Sample #1 has not yet reached the 2,000 read/write cycle mark. It is currently expected to get there sometime in July 2025.
- Sample #2 has not yet reached the 2,000 read/write cycle mark; it’s too early to guess when it’ll get there.
- Sample #3 is still in the package, waiting to be tested.
Overall? It’s too early to draw any conclusions — I will need to put sample #3 through performance testing before I can draw any overall conclusions on performance. It’s also far too early to draw any conclusions about their durability. More data is needed here.
July 6, 2025