MicroSD card in N66U- is it worth it investing in a better card?

[Deleted member 27741]

Hello fellow ASUS aficionados! This question is specifically directed at anyone who has tried the microsd card in their n66u- especially any that have tested it out for speed.

I am wondering if there is any reason to get a faster microsd card or no. I do not know if the n66u has a performance bottleneck in the microsd slot that would preclude an increase in performance with a better sd card?

So for instance will I see better performance with a Transcend ultimate 633x than a Transcend premium 300x? Or is the better card not worthwhile because of the router?

 

[sfx2000]

I've been pretty happy with the Samsung EVO SD/microSD cards... I used to pick up Sandisk Ultra's, but the EVO's have been at a better price point in my area...

Don't have any of the Transcend cards, but the Samsung EVO/Sandisk Ultra/Transcend cards are all pretty close according to various web site reviews.

 

[wiak]

it depends on how much you use the cards and write speeds, i prefer samsung pro cards, they have higher reliability, in a router thats pretty important, due to the temperatures etc

 

[sfx2000]

Well, the Samsung EVO and PRO cards are class 10, which is probably overkill for the N66U, where Class 4 is likely good enough. 32GB SDHC has been tested, at least with some distributions - I don't know if the card reader there can support SDXC - many can't...

Go with a name brand from a trusted retailer - this is important, as there's a lot of counterfeit cards out there on Craigslist/eBay/Alibaba...

 

[Nullity]

Depends on your uses. Sandisk usually leads, by a surprising amount, with IOPS, which may be good for swap(?) or general FS setups.

The max speed is limited by the slot, so many of the top cards are overkill in the bandwidth department.



Has anyone observed the max HW speeds of of both SD and USB with the RT-N66U? Who wins?

 

[ColinTaylor]

It depends on where you want to see any potential "performance" increase? i.e. what is you usage case?

I would guess that most people would only be interested in Samba read/write times. Personally, I have found that with Samba the bottleneck on the N66U is the CPU and (particularly) the amount of free RAM (for buffers). The speed of the flash drive is not a limiting factor.

YMMV

 

[Deleted member 27741]

Looks like this guy (post 4) gets some pretty amazing speeds with a microsd card.

http://www.linksysinfo.org/index.php?threads/asus-rt-n66u-microsd-transfer-rates.70293/

 

[sfx2000]

Has anyone observed the max HW speeds of of both SD and USB with the RT-N66U? Who wins?

My guess would be the device hanging off the USB port - but SD, actually, any flash device, will have an access time advantage - throughput on the other hand...

SD cards are fast on access, and depending on the class, decent on throughput - but ultimately, it's the interface that matters.

For putting a microSD card in the internal slot - as long as you're class 4, you're probably ok, but Class 10 cards are so common and cheap these days... the real concern is SDHC vs. SDXC, which is a limiting factor, not on speed, but capacity...