- Obtained from: Amazon
- Price paid: $11.99
- Advertised capacity: 32GB
- Logical capacity: 32,010,928,128 bytes
- Physical capacity: 32,010,928,128 bytes
- Fake/skimpy flash: No
- Protected area: 83,886,080 bytes (inaccessible)
- Speed class markings: Class 10, U1
- CID data:
- Manufacturer ID:
0x1b* - OEM ID:
0x534d(ASCII:SM)* - Product name:
0x4542315154(ASCII:EB1QT) - Product revision:
0x30
- Manufacturer ID:
| Sample # | 1 | 2 | 3 | Average |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price paid | $11.99 | $11.80 | $11.80 | $11.86 |
| Manufacture date | Feb 2020 | Feb 2020 | Feb 2020 | N/A |
| Serial number | 0x1d4e67b6 | 0x34146748 | 0x341d67e5 | N/A |
| Sequential read speed (MB/sec) | 91.21 | 90.69 | 90.21 | 90.70 |
| Sequential write speed (MB/sec) | 28.48 | 28.23 | 27.08 | 27.93 |
| Random read speed (IOPS/sec) | 1,672.43 | 1,677.64 | 1,683.06 | 1,677.71 |
| Random write speed (IOPS/sec) | 352.26 | 424.28 | 409.26 | 395.27 |
| Read/write cycles to first error | Not yet determined | Not yet determined | 1,415 | 1,415 |
| Read/write cycles to complete failure | Not yet determined | Not yet determined | Not yet determined | Not yet determined |
| Total days to complete failure | Not yet determined | Not yet determined | Not yet determined | Not yet determined |
| Card reader used | JJS CR-UTC4AC | JJS CR-UTC4AC | JJS CR-UTC4AC | N/A |
| Package front |  |  |  | N/A |
| Package back |  |  |  | N/A |
| Card front |  |  |  | N/A |
| Card back |  |  |  | N/A |
* This manufacturer ID/OEM ID is well known to be associated with Samsung.
Discussion
Samsung is a pretty well known name in the electronics industry, and flash memory is no exception. I purchased this one because I wanted to have a few legitimately obtained, name brand cards in my collection to compare the AliExpress samples to. I would like to have a couple more samples to test, but these cards are a bit more expensive than many of the others in my collection and it’ll have to wait until I can spare the money to buy some more.
One thing of consequence that I’ll note: Samsung is one of two mainstream brands (of the ones I evaluated) whose flash was neither fake nor skimpy (Lexar being the other). Both of the Samsung cards in my collection currently are 32GB cards, and both offered at least 32 billion bytes of user space. Many of the other name brands — including Kioxia, SanDisk, and Kingston — provided cards that were all skimpy, so I was pleasantly surprised to see that Samsung was not.
Performance-wise, I was actually a bit disappointed. Sequential read speeds were slightly above average, but all of the other scores were just…average. For such a well-recognized brand, I would have expected better. It did, however, perform well enough to qualify for the Class 10 and U1 marks that it carried. I will note, however, that Samsung seems to be phasing out this particular version of the EVO Plus. The new version (see the Samsung EVO Plus 64GB) seems to have a more simplistic design (in terms of both the packaging and the card artwork) and sports faster speeds.
All three samples are currently undergoing endurance testing:
- Sample #1 has done pretty well. As of this writing, it has gone 7,273 read/write cycles and has not yet experienced any errors.
- Sample #2 has also done pretty well — it has survived 3,612 read/write cycles and has not yet experienced any errors.
- Sample #3’s first error was a four-sector wide address decoding error during round 1,416; it has survived 3,626 read/write cycles total so far.
My conclusion: this not a bad card at all. In terms of performance, it’s about average — and about on par with the SanDisk Ultra 32GB. (The SanDisk smoked it in random read speeds, but the Samsung has fared much better in endurance tests.) The only problem? Like I said, Samsung seems to be phasing out this card — so it may get more difficult to find as time goes on.
June 15, 2024 (current number of read/write cycles is updated automatically every hour)