Micro SD card for Air 2

[Raptorman]

I see from the DJI website that the Air 2 is listed as being able to use up to 256GB uSD cards, but they don't detail anything more than that as far as I can see. Is the Air 2 compatible with an micro SDXC card or is there any other specification I should know about -- don't want to blow 50 bucks on a card that won't work.

So, any word on what the best 128GB and 256GB cards are?


Brian

 

[Deleted member 94047]

The question is one of performance rather than compatibility. You can stick any micro SD card in to the MA2 and it would still be able to read from and write to it. But if you want it to be able to record 4K videos at 60 frames/second, the card needs to be a high end, high performance model. Specifically, it needs to be rated U3/V30 (better yet, V60). Look for these ratings when you purchase one

 

[lee82gx]

Mavic Air 1 was notorious for rejecting slow sd cards, so I expect the same for air 2. The best ones are always extreme or extreme plus sandisk. Make sure they are U3/V3 rated.

 

[FoxhallGH]

The U3 rating is for 'USC Speed Class 3' which tells you that the card will sustain a minimum write speed of 30 Mbytes/s (240 Mbit/s) ... When HD video is streamed to an SD card, it will start off at a very high write speed, but that will collapse under the continuous stream. The U3 rating tells us what the write speed of the card collapses to ... As a comparison, U1 cards will only sustain 10 MBytes/s (80 Mbit/s), which is not high enough to guarantee uninterrupted recording of HD video.

 

[Raptorman]

OK, so an SDXC card is usable and U3/V30 are the specs to look for. Looks like about $53USD for a 256GB Sandisk uSDXC card with U3/V30 (Extreme ) at Amazon is the hot setup.

With my P4P at 100Mbps the data rate was about 44GB/hr so 120Mbps should clock in about 53GB/hr so the 256GB card should give me about 4.5 hours (a 256GB card is actually about 256GB/1.024^3 or about 238GB of usable space. That should get about 10 flights with the Air 2 assuming about 27 minutes average flight time.


Brian

 

[Dedal]

And, just one advice: Don't buy the biggest card possible just because you can and the Air supports it, buy few smaller ones (64 GB) and swap them out between flights, just in case something went wrong, and suddenly, all of your data is gone.

Safe flying.

 

[excalibur1814]

Ideally, maybe consider buying multiple 64Gb cards. if you're planning on buying a lot of batteries, then why place all of that data on one card. Yuo could film some great stuff then, heaven forbid, something happens and all of it is lost. Depends on how serious you are. I had 4 batteries on my Phantom 4, back in the day, with 3 for the mavic pro. I never filled one 64Gb card and the ONLY card to be trashed was a Sandisk x/y 128Gb card. Stay safe!

Dedal above LITERALLY wrote the same thing at the same time that I did

 

[Dedal]

Ideally, maybe consider buying multiple 64Gb cards. if you're planning on buying a lot of batteries, then why place all of that data on one card. Yuo could film some great stuff then, heaven forbid, something happens and all of it is lost. Depends on how serious you are. I had 4 batteries on my Phantom 4, back in the day, with 3 for the mavic pro. I never filled one 64Gb card and the ONLY card to be trashed was a Sandisk x/y 128Gb card. Stay safe!

Dedal above LITERALLY wrote the same thing at the same time that I did

No worries, still good advice...

 

[patc45 France]

Scandisk Extreme PRO 64 Go

 

[GadgetGuy]

More important than the speed of the card (Extreme Plus recommended), is the firm policy of swapping cards every time you swap batteries! You'll thank me later! Better to buy two 32GB cards than one 64GB card. I use 64GB only because if I forget to format the card before flight, I can do so twice before I fill the card! 32GB will be plenty for continuous 4K video at 120mbps, regardless of frame rate, even at the full 34 minute advertised flight time (which you will never realize anyway).

 

[Raptorman]

I've been doing digital photography using flash memory for more than 20 years and the advise to swap cards all the time made sense 15 years ago but not now. In the early 2000's it was not uncommon to have one problem or another with a memory card and you might lose everything on it, but I've had zero such problems in the last 10+ years -- ZERO. OTH, constantly swapping cards has a couple problems: first, the uSD cards are small and can EASILY be lost if it pops out unexpectedly and that does happen; second, the mere act of constantly swapping cards risks damaging the card connector interface rendering not only the card inoperable but also the drone.

A professional film studio can easily right off a failed drone or card so for them swapping often makes sense, but for the rest of us the greater risk of damaging the drone or losing the card more than makes up for the tiny risk associated with using a single or small number of larger cards. Again, I've had ZERO card failures in more than a decade!


Brian

 

[xendau]

I use a couple 64s in my MM.... I HAVE A 512G in my Hero 8 my plan is to run a couple 128s in the MA2... bought one from Amazon, but can't find my other. (Check tablet, check tablet) I don't know what card I have in my Note 10... but I really don't need it. The internal memory is more than enough... should check that card too.

I am going to make it a point to log them and lebel or mark them. Keeping up with them is becoming a hassle.

Hell I have an old 2G microsd card from hella long ago... i don't even know anywhere i could use it now.

The greatness of dated tech...

 

[xendau]

BTW.... i noticed Scandisk seems popular. I have a few, but have opted for Samsung equivalent when the deal was better. Any inputs on the high end Samsung?

 

[Skying]

DJI does have a recommended list, but it's difficult to find, I think they tested all these before launch.

待补充

å¾è¡¥å

www.dji.com

You can also take a look here: The Best SD Card for DJI Mavic Air 2: Perfect for 4K Videos | Cult of Drone

 

[GadgetGuy]

I've been doing digital photography using flash memory for more than 20 years and the advise to swap cards all the time made sense 15 years ago but not now. In the early 2000's it was not uncommon to have one problem or another with a memory card and you might lose everything on it, but I've had zero such problems in the last 10+ years -- ZERO. OTH, constantly swapping cards has a couple problems: first, the uSD cards are small and can EASILY be lost if it pops out unexpectedly and that does happen; second, the mere act of constantly swapping cards risks damaging the card connector interface rendering not only the card inoperable but also the drone.

A professional film studio can easily right off a failed drone or card so for them swapping often makes sense, but for the rest of us the greater risk of damaging the drone or losing the card more than makes up for the tiny risk associated with using a single or small number of larger cards. Again, I've had ZERO card failures in more than a decade!


Brian

The real risk of a single large card used for multiple flights has nothing to do with the card reliability. It's the risk of losing all your flight recordings should you lose the drone itself, and not be able to recover it. Stuff can happen! Prudence dictates changing cards when you change batteries. That way, the most you you can lose are the recordings from the last flight.

 

[Raptorman]

The real risk of a single large card used for multiple flights has nothing to do with the card reliability. It's the risk of losing all your flight recordings should you lose the drone itself, and not be able to recover it. Stuff can happen! Prudence dictates changing cards when you change batteries. That way, the most you you can lose are the recordings from the last flight.

I've ordered a 256GB Sandisk Extreme (SanDisk 256GB Extreme MicroSDXC UHS-I Memory Card with Adapter - C10, U3, V30, 4K, A2, Micro SD) for $53 from Amazon and that appears to be a recommended card by DJI. I've owned 2 drones already, the Inspire 1 Pro and the P4P and I've never had a problem that resulted in a serious risk of losing the drone. I know about "fly-aways" but I think they are less of an issue with the newer DJI drone and short of a fly-away I don't see too many cases where a crash would result in loss of the drone. Not saying it can't happen, but the risk isn't high in my book.

With my previous drones the highest number of flights in one day was about 8 and that would be a morning session and an evening session. In cases like that I tend to download the video/images midday so the greatest number of flights worth of video/images I might possibly lose is on the order of about 4. Again, I'll take that very small chance.

The max flight time is 34 minutes but 27 minutes is probably a more practice max time to avoid over draining the battery and to provide adequate energy buffer in case the charge indication is off on the high side. At 27 minutes, or call it 30 minutes to be safe the drone should consume about 25GB of storage so if you were using a strategy of replacing the card every flight a 32GB car would surely be enough. So you land after a flight and then you notice something of interest that you'd like to get back in the air right away, but you have to swap the card because it won't have enough capacity for a second flight. When shooting videos of unpredictable events, like trains, it's better to have a larger card so that you never have to worry about not having capacity in the event that you need or want to make another flight ASAP.

Using a larger card gives you that option, using a smaller card does not. You can still swap as you see fit, but you can't add capacity in a pinch!


Brian

 

[itsneedtokno]

This is what I went with...


Lexar Professional 1000x 64GB microSDXC UHS-II Card https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00U77V5IW/ref=cm_sw_r_other_apa_i_1e2SEb35MWY6A

 

[Raptorman]

DJI does have a recommended list, but it's difficult to find, I think they tested all these before launch.

待补充

å¾è¡¥å

www.dji.com

View attachment 100581

You can also take a look here: The Best SD Card for DJI Mavic Air 2: Perfect for 4K Videos | Cult of Drone

I've ordered the Sandisk Extreme 256GB V30 A2 uSDXC card.


Brian

 

[TxArch DroneGuy]

The U3 rating is for 'USC Speed Class 3' which tells you that the card will sustain a minimum write speed of 30 Mbytes/s (240 Mbit/s) ... When HD video is streamed to an SD card, it will start off at a very high write speed, but that will collapse under the continuous stream. The U3 rating tells us what the write speed of the card collapses to ... As a comparison, U1 cards will only sustain 10 MBytes/s (80 Mbit/s), which is not high enough to guarantee uninterrupted recording of HD video.

It’s also been highly recommended to use a XC II card to avoid video dropouts

 

[GadgetGuy]

I've ordered a 256GB Sandisk Extreme (SanDisk 256GB Extreme MicroSDXC UHS-I Memory Card with Adapter - C10, U3, V30, 4K, A2, Micro SD) for $53 from Amazon and that appears to be a recommended card by DJI. I've owned 2 drones already, the Inspire 1 Pro and the P4P and I've never had a problem that resulted in a serious risk of losing the drone. I know about "fly-aways" but I think they are less of an issue with the newer DJI drone and short of a fly-away I don't see too many cases where a crash would result in loss of the drone. Not saying it can't happen, but the risk isn't high in my book.

With my previous drones the highest number of flights in one day was about 8 and that would be a morning session and an evening session. In cases like that I tend to download the video/images midday so the greatest number of flights worth of video/images I might possibly lose is on the order of about 4. Again, I'll take that very small chance.

The max flight time is 34 minutes but 27 minutes is probably a more practice max time to avoid over draining the battery and to provide adequate energy buffer in case the charge indication is off on the high side. At 27 minutes, or call it 30 minutes to be safe the drone should consume about 25GB of storage so if you were using a strategy of replacing the card every flight a 32GB car would surely be enough. So you land after a flight and then you notice something of interest that you'd like to get back in the air right away, but you have to swap the card because it won't have enough capacity for a second flight. When shooting videos of unpredictable events, like trains, it's better to have a larger card so that you never have to worry about not having capacity in the event that you need or want to make another flight ASAP.

Using a larger card gives you that option, using a smaller card does not. You can still swap as you see fit, but you can't add capacity in a pinch!


Brian

I use 64GB and 128GB cards but always swap cards with every battery change. In the hypothetical you gave, I could still get two flights on one card, but still would change batteries and cards. I've never not recovered a crashed drone, but I have been very determined and very persistent, and very lucky. I fly over the ocean at least 50% of the time, and I have lost aircraft on the beach and on inaccessible mountain sides in the dark. The other risk is someone stealing your crashed or ditched drone before you can retrieve it. Takes literally 20 seconds to swap cards, and 10 seconds to swap a battery. If I can't take that 30 seconds, I'm likely to be rushing so much, I'll make some other mistake, like forgetting to turn on the video recording!