Samsung PRO Endurance 256GB microSD Memory Card

Model: Samsung PRO Endurance 256GB microSD Memory Card
Manufacturer: Samsung Electronics
Provided By: Samsung America

Samsung Electronics has been a leader in the electronics industry for more than 30 years. Since the introduction of their first television in 1970, this Korean company has grown to become one of the world's leading electronics manufacturers, offering everything from tiny semiconductors to large home appliances. Samsung is no stranger to the storage industry either. Along with an assortment of DVD and Blu-ray Disc drives, the company offers both hard drive and flash based storage solutions for the portable and desktop computer markets.

It's been a number of years since Samsung launched its current line of SD and microSD cards. Since then, the company has continued to deliver new memory cards with faster speeds and greater capacities. Earlier this year, Samsung introduced a new and improved version of its PRO Endurance memory card. Available in 32GB, 64GB, 128GB and 256GB capacities, this microSD card is designed to meet the rigorous demands of surveillance cameras, dashboard cameras, doorbell cameras and body cameras. The PRO Endurance offers industry-leading endurance with up to 16 years (140,160 hours) of continuous recording time. Also, thanks to its 100 MB/s read and 40 MB/s write speeds, the card is ideal for handling large, high-resolution files while enabling seamless recording and playback in Full HD and 4K.

The new PRO Endurance cards have also been designed with maximum durability in mind and feature Samsung's seven-proof protection. In addition to protection from water, temperature, x-rays, magnets and shocks, this microSD card is drop and wear-out proof and can withstand up to a five-meter drop as well as up to 10,000 swipes.

Needless to say, this is only a taste of what the PRO Endurance memory card has to offer. To give you an idea of what to expect, we'll take a closer look at Samsung's new microSD card and then see how well it performs. Does the PRO Endurance have what it takes? Keep reading as we find out.

Like most other memory cards, Samsung's PRO Endurance microSD card comes packaged in a cardboard blister pack. The front of the packaging advertises many of the card's key features including its capacity, class rating and rated speeds. The pictures on the front also serve a purpose as they are there to help consumers choose a card based on their intended use. In this case, the picture suggests that Samsung's PRO Endurance microSD card is ideal for devices like surveillance cameras, dashcams and body cameras.

The back of the packaging provides a bit more information regarding the features and capabilities of Samsung's PRO Endurance microSD card. Along with the card's UHS speed class rating, the packaging shows that it is covered by a 5 year warranty and is water, temperature, x-ray, magnet, shock, drop and wearout-proof.

Physical Features:

As you'd expect, Samsung's PRO Endurance microSD card is quite small. It measures 15 x 11 x 1 mm and weighs in at about 0.25g. The card is constructed out of white plastic with blue and gray printing on top of it. Along with the Samsung logo, the card shows the capacity, model and speed class ratings.

On the back of the card, you can see a row of connectors as well as the model number, production batch and serial numbers and the country of origin. In this case, the PRO Endurance is made in the Philippines.

Samsung's new microSD card ships with an SD adapter. Simply insert the card into the adapter and you can use it with mobile devices as well as various SD-enabled devices such as digital cameras, laptops, printers etc. This also lets you easily transfer photos, music and video content on your microSD card from mobile devices to a PC or any device with an SD slot.

Performance:

The test system used in this review is equipped with an AMD Ryzen 7 3700x CPU, MSI B550 GAMING PLUS motherboard, 16GB (8GB x 2) of Crucial Ballistix 3200 MHz DDR4 memory, Crucial P5 1TB SSD, GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 1060 WINDFORCE OC 6G graphics card and a Lexar Multi-Card 2-in-1 USB 3.1 card reader. For the operating system, I used the latest version of Windows 10 Pro.

To test the performance of Samsung's PRO Endurance microSDXC card, I ran a series of benchmarks using CrystalDiskMark, ATTO Disk Benchmark and PCMark 10. To get a feel for the "real world" performance, I also copied and pasted 1GB of random files and directories as well as a single 4GB ISO file in Windows Explorer.

CrystalDiskMark 8.0.4:

First, I ran a few quick tests using CrystalDiskMark. This benchmark measures the performance of a storage device by testing its sequential and random read and write speeds.

According to Samsung, the 256GB version of their PRO Endurance microSDXC card is capable of reading at 100 MB/s and writing at 40 MB/s. While the card exceeded its rated write speed by a considerable margin, it came up a bit short in CrystalDiskMark's sequential read speed test. 

ATTO Disk Benchmark 4.01:

I also used ATTO Disk Benchmark to test the PRO Endurance microSDXC card's sequential read and write speeds. The tests are run using blocks ranging in size from 512B to 64 MB and the total length set to 256MB.

When tested with ATTO, the PRO Endurance microSDXC card's read speeds topped out at about 91.67 MB/s and its write speeds at 81.92 MB/s.

PCMark 10 - Data Drive Benchmark:

PCMark 10's Data Drive Benchmark is designed to test drives that are used for storing files rather than applications. You can also use this test with NAS drives, USB sticks, memory cards, and other external storage devices. This benchmark produces an overall score as a measure of drive performance. Comparing devices is as simple as comparing scores. The tests also measure and report the bandwidth and average access time for the drive.

"Real World" Benchmark:

To test the "real world" performance of Samsung's EVO Plus SD memory card, I copied and pasted 1GB worth of randomly generated files and directories. All of the files are between 1KB and 95MB in size and no more than five directories deep. To see how well the cards handled large files, I also copied and pasted a 4GB ISO file.

Samsung's new card performed fairly well here, taking 24 seconds to write 1GB worth of test data and 15 seconds to read it back.

Final Thoughts:

Samsung's new PRO Endurance microSD card is an excellent choice for anyone requiring high-endurance storage for use in surveillance cameras, dashboard cameras, doorbell cameras or body cameras. Built with company’s highly reliable enterprise-grade NAND flash, the PRO Endurance card delivers up to 16 years (140,160 hours) of continuous video recording. The card also features Samsung's six-proof durability. In addition to protection against water, magnets, X-rays and extreme temperatures, this new version of the card is both wear out and drop-proof. Performance-wise, the PRO Endurance isn't quite as fast as some of the speed-focused cards. Nevertheless, it is Class 10 rated and is more than capable of recording and playing back video in 4K and Full HD.

Samsung's PRO Endurance microSD card is available now in 32GB, 64GB, 128GB and 256GB capacities. Prices on Amazon.com currently range from $11 up to $38 for the 256GB version reviewed here.