Description
An industrial / high-endurance UHS-I microSD is the pragmatic, socketed log medium for the esp32-s3 SD-logger sidecar and for Pi 5 boot/log. Unlike consumer cards, the industrial grade uses pSLC (pseudo-SLC) or high-endurance 3D-TLC NAND, hardware ECC, dynamic wear-levelling, power-loss management and periodic data-retention refresh — the properties that matter when a node writes a continuous CSI stream for weeks and can lose power at any moment (EXP-F2 drift study).
The stored datasheet is the Swissbit PS-66u DP (pSLC, UHS-I, industrial-temp, data-protection) as a representative part; equivalent picks are ATP aMLC, SanDisk Industrial, Samsung PRO Endurance.
Capabilities
Marked from the Swissbit PS-66u DP datasheet (industrial-microsd.pdf).
| Spec | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Interface | UHS-I (SDR104 ≤ 100 MHz), DDR50 / SDR12/25/50; SD 6.10; also SPI mode | §4 |
| Speed class | Class 10 / U3 / V30 / A1 | front marking |
| NAND | pSLC (3D-TLC in pSLC mode) | title / §4 |
| Seq. write (host-limited elsewhere) | 77.5–78.1 MB/s (longevity), 46.3 MB/s (high-endurance) | Table 6/7 |
| Random write 4k | 1090–1660 IOPS (longevity), 800–1445 (high-endurance) | Table 6/7 |
| Endurance (64 GB, seq 128 kB) | 1930 TBW (longevity) / 5871 TBW (high-endurance) | Table 15/16 |
| Data retention | 10 y @ begin, 1 y @ end-of-life (40 °C) | Table 14 |
| MTBF | > 3,000,000 h @ 25 °C | Table 14 |
| Operating temp | −40 °C … +85 °C (industrial) | Table 8 |
| Reliability features | GCC ECC, dynamic wear-levelling, power-loss management, data-retention refresh | §4 |
| Physical | 15.0 × 11.0 × 0.7 mm, 0.4 g | Table 13 |
Quirks / known issues
- A1, not A2, on the PS-66u DP — if random-IOPS matters, spec an A2 industrial part (ATP/SanDisk Industrial) instead.
- pSLC halves usable capacity vs raw TLC; buy the endurance you need, not the headline GB.
- Consumer "high endurance" (dashcam) cards are cheaper but lack the −40 °C rating and power-loss management — fine for bench, not for a month-long unattended field node.
- On the ESP32-S3 keep SD-socket CLK/CMD/D0–D3 wires short (< 5 cm) or the card falls back to default-speed and drops packets.
Used by (devices)
- esp32-c5-s3-csi-logger — log medium in the S3 sidecar
- esp32-c6-s3-csi-logger — log medium in the S3 sidecar
- pi5-ax210-csi-node — boot + local CSI-dump medium
Related entries
- esp32-s3 — the SDMMC host whose ~2–4 MB/s ceiling frames the choice
- emmc-module — soldered managed-NAND alternative for higher reliability