SD card recommendations for Air 3?

General
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Hi, I’m using my Air 3, and as a newbie I’m thinking it’s safer to use several SD cards rather than risk losing all my work if one fails or something else unfortunate happens lol. What size and reasonably priced cards would you recommend, and which brands have you found reliable? Thanks Chris

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DJI recommendations here…

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@Bighac Hi :waving_hand: This is a topic that does come up alot on the forum, If you read through the general topics you may even find the information in some of the members asking the same thing :grinning_face::+1:
Here is a link to what DJI Recommend using for your current drone.

I personally use the Lexar silver Plus 512gb for my current drones and for my RC2 controller but these are not cheap ££ but it’s all personal preference at the end of the day what you want to use.
I recommend not using cheap micro sd cards
Buy once :wink::+1:

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Thanks, brilliant appreciate the link! :+1: I didn’t realise this was such a common topic on the forum, so I’ll have a read through the other posts as well. Being a complete newbie, I really appreciate the recommendations. Thanks again! :blush:

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Hi Bighac, I use smaller cards too. And they might be the way to go as the prices are so high right now.
I choose cards that have enough space for the maximum footage I could shoot using my three batteries + about 50% for stills.
Bigger cards carry the risk of corruption (I tend to overplay this for safety) and of course total loss if you tank your drone. Eggs and baskets.
It takes more time to recharge a set of batteries than to offload 3 flight’s worth of media, so it’s not at all impractical.

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Hi, thanks for that, really appreciate the advice. :+1: I completely agree about not putting all your eggs in one basket, especially as I’m using the drone for surveying.

I’m looking at the SanDisk Extreme PRO 16 or 32GB V30 U3 A1 microSD cards. Would you say those would be a good choice for the Air 3 and enough capacity for three batteries plus some stills?

Thanks again for the help, being a newbie, I really appreciate it! Chris

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Speed wise the card looks ok for an Air 3 but I’d maybe go a bit bigger if your going to do a lot of video.

As a rough guide 64Gb card will hold about 80 mins of 4k video (depends on codec and frames / sec)

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I’m assuming you get a real-world flight time of 35 minutes per battery.
At 4k 60fps, 105 minutes of footage would take up a whole 128GB SD card.
Realistically, you won’t be filming continuously and only shoot 60fps when there is actually something worth filming.
That would leave space for stills.
By my calculations 32GB would not be enough.
Even at 1080p 24fps your card would fill up before you’ve used up your second battery.

The 32GB card would be useful for your controller, if you have an RC or RC2. Video from screen recording is much more compressed and you would have space for many hours.

If you see yourself flying regular 6-battery days, I’d recommend getting two 128GB cards.

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Thanks for taking the time to work that out, that’s really helpful. :+1: I hadn’t appreciated how quickly 32GB could fill up, especially if recording in 4K.

I won’t be doing six-battery days, so I think I’ll probably go for 64GB cards and have a few of them rather than one large card. Most of my flying will be personal, with some surveying for work and keeping footage for my own reference.

Really appreciate the advice and the explanation of the recording times. :+1:

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No problem, glad to help.

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Thanks Westbury, that 80-minute figure for 64GB is really useful to know. :+1: That’s given me a much better idea of what capacity I actually need for the amount of flying I’m expecting to do. Appreciate it!

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That’s at approx 30fps … vid a 60fps will be way higher…

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My Dad used to say Buy Cheap And Buy Twice

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@alexandergordo-y9ma8 Unfortunately we have all been there and i learned the hard way buying cheap/Fake Counterfeit micro sd cards.
So now i only buy Lexar or Sandisk micro sd cards direct from the manufacturer.

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This is interesting for me as I have a 128 GB card already and just bought an Air 3S. I was going to get a 512GB card, but looks like I would be better gettng a few smaller ones rather than one at 512 GB.

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I usually go for Sandisk now, but will always go fot the better ones now, rather than try and save money. No point buying something only to find it will not do what you bought it for

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The Air 3S needs faster cards than the Air 3 this discussion is about. Here’s the recommended ones:

Lexar 1066x 64GB V30 U3 A2 microSDXC

Lexar 1066x 128GB V30 U3 A2 microSDXC

Lexar 1066x 256GB V30 U3 A2 microSDXC

Lexar 1066x 512GB V30 U3 A2 microSDXC

Kingston Canvas GO! Plus 64GB V30 U3 A2 microSDXC

Kingston Canvas GO! Plus 128GB V30 U3 A2 microSDXC

Kingston Canvas GO! Plus 256GB V30 U3 A2 microSDXC

Kingston Canvas GO! Plus 512GB V30 U3 A2 microSDXC

All A2 on the 3S and only A1 for the Air 3

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Flip I missed this, thanks for the heads up, I know what I am after now. Must have a look at the 128 GB card I got for thr Mavic 2 Pro but likely it will not do for the Air 3 S

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I would say it best to use good quality branded cards. I’ve taken hundreds of thousands of photos over the last two decades. Probably own 5 or 6 cards and have only hade one fail - and that was just the “lock” falling off.
But to answer your actual question: on the one hand using many cards means they each get less use, but your are also pushing the odds that you will use a card that will fail. So there is no real win here.
Best might be to just buy two names brand cards (you probably don’t beed huge cards, quality is more important) and replace then evry 3 or 4 years even if they look fine.