During a recent data
transfer to a new MicroSD Card, I noticed the memory card became extremely hot to the touch. There were several Gigabytes (around 30+
GB) transferred, due to transferring all the photos, music and videos
from my old card to the new. This made me think, can this contribute
to a reduced lifespan of the card? Will this affect the transfer
speed during the process? Can heat increase the likelihood of data
corruption?
So I set off to test
some of these hypotheses. To do that I needed a few things; some
software to test transfer speeds and stability, an external card
reader/write, a small infrared digital thermometer to take the
temperature and a mini-blower style fan to cool the MicroSD Card
during the transfer. Below is what I used:
- 1 x USB Multi-Card Reader & Writer
- 1 x 12V DC Mini-Blower Fan
- 1 x Digital IR Thermometer
- 1 x HDD/SSD/SD Bechmarking Software – Crystal DiskMark
- 1 x HDD/SSD/SD Bechmarking & Stability Software – HDTune
Testing Phase
At the start of each
test, the ambient temperature of the memory card was 72°F, removed
from the reader. Each test started with the card and Reader/Writer
removed and allowed to cool to 72°F.
NO FAN
For test one, I plugged in the memory card reader with the MicroSD
already inserted. Ran Crystal DiskMark and took temperatures
throughout the process, the purpose of this test was to get
read/write speeds and the temperatures during each phase:
- Temp before start: 72°F
- Temp during test file creation: 97°F
- Temp (peak) during Read test: 92°F
- Temp (peak) during Write test: 100°F
- Temp at end of test: 92°F
- Temp resting after test: 77.5°F
For the 2nd
test, I ran HDTune to see the stability:
WITH FAN
For test 3, I plugged in the memory card reader with the MicroSD
already inserted. Positioned the blower fan 1cm aware from the front
of the card reader, allowing air to blow around all sides of the card
and even into the Reader/Writer device through the unused slots,
potentially cooling the controller inside as well. Ran Crystal
DiskMark and took temperatures throughout the process, the purpose of
this test was to get read/write speeds and the temperatures during
each phase:
- Temp before start: 72°F
- Temp during test file creation: 80.5°F
- Temp (peak) during Read test: 74.5°F
- Temp (peak) during Write test: 77.5°F
- Temp at end of test: 80°F
- Temp resting after test: 72°F
For the 4th
test, I ran HDTune to see the stability:
Comparison
You can see the
temperatures are significantly lower with the Fan On:
- 16.5° F Cooler during test file creation
- 17.5° F cooler during the Read test
- 22.5° F cooler during the Write test
- 5.5° F cooler resting after test
Well, obviously the
temp’s were going to be less with active cooling. Was I expecting
something else? No, what I was looking for was the impact of cooling.
As you can see from the zoomed in screenshot below, the transfer was
significantly more stable when we had active cooling.
Furthermore in the
Crystal DiskMark screenshots, you can see the Read speeds was much
more consistent with active cooling than without.
Conclusions
From the testing, I
was able to prove the following:
- Transfer speeds are more consistent
- Transfer was more stable
- Memory card temperatures remained low
What does this mean?
I believe that this indicates that actively cooling a flash memory
device such as a memory card will provide the following benefits:
- Longevity of the flash device - Due to less temperature stresses, the device may last longer.
- Faster data transfer to/from the flash device - Due to the consistent speeds, the data will transfer quicker.
- Reduced chance of data corruption - Due to the lower temperatures and stable transfer, there is less chance of corrupted data during the transfer.
Considerations:
- Extrapolating this for longer transfer’s may increase the need for active cooling.
- Shorter transfers may have less impact on transfer speeds.
- Test’s were conducted 3 times for each scenario.
So What? Well, most
people don’t need or care about this. However there are a few that
might, some of these folks would be:
Data Archivist would
benefit from using active cooling as the data they are trying to
preserve needs to be free from defect (corruption) and they need to
ensure that all data is transferred before the source device (flash
media in this case) fails. During large/long transfers,
the likelihood of the device failing is higher due to the high
temperatures.
Photographers may
also find this beneficial as well, their photos can be worth
thousands of dollar’s/pound’s/euro’s. Corruption of the source
and/or destination image can result in a significant loss of revenue.
Using a reliable external Reader/Writer (as opposed to connecting the
camera to the computer) and active cooling on the card and
Reader/Writer can help reduce the chances of corrupted data and lost
revenue.
Thanks for reading
and I hope this provided some food for thought. I had been wanting to
test this for some time and never got around to it. Perhaps for the
next one, I will take apart the Reader/Writer and liquid cool or
active cool (fan and heat-sink) the entire card surface during the
test.
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