Originally posted by Happyman That's what I was going to ask - whether anyone uses microSD cards regularly and what are your thoughts and experience with them. In terms of reliability, there isn't any reason why they should differ from the regular SD cards, is there?
Thanks for the tip about the h2testw, btw.
A few years back some people said microSD was less reliable as more heat generating circuitry was crammed into smaller packages. I think it really took off as cheap, slow, large storage for phones but the technology has progressed quite a bit since then. As with any technology, the longer it's been out the better they get at making it. If anything I just wouldn't completely trust the newest 256GB cards yet. (I've never been one to put all my eggs in one basket anyway.)
I've been using microSD in all my cameras with no issues since 2009, including an HD video camera and my K-3. I've corrupted a couple cards on my computer, but they were my fault since I was messing around with bootable partitions and such. My only major card fail was a slow 64GB card partitioned as extended memory in a phone, so it had higher than normal write cycles. It was still readable when it failed, it just wouldn't write anymore.
Definitely stick with reliable brands though. You should be safe with Samsung, SanDisk, PNY, and a few other well known brands. Of those three I think Samsung has the fastest cards at the top end but PNY is the best bang for the buck.
As with any card, format it when you empty it to keep it running at to speed. If you're doing anything you don't want to risk losing it's also not a bad idea to rotate through a few cards during the event just in case.