Forum Revamp

[tkaiser]

In the early days of the pi there was a wiki page that listed good sd cards and bad ones, could we have something similar to that here or on the wiki?

That's useless since counterfeit cards exist and people are happily fooling themselves trying to make 'a good deal' (buying that nice non existing fake 256GB card on Aliexpress for $20). Please read through this first: http://www.happybison.com/reviews/how-to...sd-card-8/

I didn't mean fake cards, i meant REAL cards assuming people don't cheap out and get them off ebay and the like and expect that that £2.99 64GB card WILL work. I'm not catering for fools. 
What I DO mean is, actual cards that have been deemed working, as I'm sure not ALL 64GB or 128GB cards WILL work.
The PSU one would also be useful, with links if possible

But the problem is that you get fake cards from every retailer out there (see the 'On counterfeit SD cards' info). The other problem is that if you really have a look into the SD card business you quickly come to the conclusion that you only want to buy SD cards from vendors that run their own NAND factories, that produce their own controllers and combine both to retail products. And then you already end up with exactly 4 manufacturers out there: 2 names start with S, the other 2 with T.

If you then have a look at the Pine64' SDIO implementation (sequential transfer speeds max out at ~22/23 MB/s), keep in mind that on SBCs random I/O is more important, then have a look at recent research on performance in this area (please have a look at the collective benchmarking done here), then you end up with 2 different card types you could recommend (either normal Samsung EVO or EVO+ or SanDisk Extreme Plus when you also care about maximum longevity).

Regarding 64GB cards it's easy: choose EVO/EVO+, regarding 128GB or larger it's also easy: If you don't need maximum mobility better think about combining a small SD card with any USB solution for the same price (again: random I/O is more important -- something no one wants to realise that an SBC is different than a digital camera where only the 'speed class' matters) and in case you try to make any 'good deal' you get a fake card anyway. 64GB is the reasonable maximum at the moment. That might change in half a year.

Regarding PSUs most people forget the cable between PSU and board: High resistance --> low fun (since voltage drops will lead to stability issues or a 'bricked' board. Looking at amperage ratings is pretty useless if you forget the voltage drop issue -- won't repeat it again, there are already a couple of posts here that outlined that)

In case anyone wants to add that to some sort of documentation: Feel free to do so. Since none of the above is Pine64 specific but applies to other SBC as well and other/better ressources already exist, time to stop here.