The Sony A6000 came out in 2014 and was one of the best-selling cameras for a long time. If you still own this camera and are looking for some new cards, or are looking to pick one up on the second-hand market, you may be wondering what cards are great that are available today. This guide will teach you some of the important things about memory cards and show you the best memory cards for the Sony A6000.
Recommended Memory Cards Sony A6000
The Sony A6000 can use UHS-I SD cards, which are pretty standard and easy to find. You can use UHS-II cards but they won’t show any write speed improvements.
The A6000 needs a card that can write at least 6.25MB/s for 1080p video recording. You can use U3 or U1 cards for this.
The A6000 can use memory cards up to 128GB, so you can use 64-128GB cards without any problems. The A6000 cannot write faster than about 35MB/s, so you do not need to buy the most expensive cards.
Here are some great recommendations for some of the latest cards. Take a look at the Sony E cards on this list. They have UHS-I write speeds and UHS-II read speeds which make them a great value for this camera.
Recommended SD Cards | Speed Class | USB Write | USB Read | Links | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
SD UHS-II V60 | UHS-II | |||||
Sony E v60 256GB | UHS-II | 142 | 252 | Check Price | ||
Sony E v60 128GB | UHS-II | 73 | 247 | Check Price | ||
UHS-I U3 | UHS-I | |||||
Sandisk Extreme Pro 200MB 32/64/128GB | UHS-I | 144 | 172 | Check Price | ||
Kingston CanvasGo! 128/256/512GB | UHS-I | 124 | 161 | Check Price | ||
Sony 95 | UHS-I | 81 | 90 | Check Price | ||
Delkin Advantage 32-1TB | UHS-I | 77 | 93 | Check Price |
Memory Card Speed Tests
These are the old tests I did on this camera when it was new. You can see how fast the cards are in this camera. The camera cannot use the full speed of some cards. Most of these cards have changed since 2015, so look at the suggestions above or the SD memory card guide for more choices. You can also look at the SD suggestions for Sony cameras if you have another Sony camera with this one.
SD Memory Cards | USB 3.0 Read | USB 3.0 Write | Sony A6000 |
UHS-II | |||
Lexar 64GB 2000x UHS-II U3 | 272.7 MB/s | 244.5 MB/s | 33.96 MB/s |
Transcend 64GB UHS-II U3 | 290.2 MB/s | 182.1 MB/s | 33.40 MB/s |
Delkin 64GB SDHC UHS-II U3 | 253.5 MB/s | 219.6 MB/s | 33.33 MB/s |
Toshiba 64GB UHS-II U3 | 258.8 MB/s | 226.5 MB/s | 32.99 MB/s |
Lexar 1000x 64GB UHS-II U3 | 147.4 MB/s | 78.4 MB/s | 32.40 MB/s |
Sandisk Extreme Pro 64GB UHS-II U3 | 260.5 MB/s | 214.8 MB/s | 31.44 MB/s |
UHS-I | |||
Kingston 64GB SDXC U3 | 98.1 MB/s | 90.4 MB/s | 34.79 MB/s |
Sandisk Extreme Pro 64GB U3 | 98.6 MB/s | 90.8 MB/s | 34.37 MB/s |
Sandisk Extreme Plus 64GB U3 | 99.0 MB/s | 64.4 MB/s | 34.32 MB/s |
Sandisk Extreme 64GB U3 | 72.43 MB/s | 54.1 MB/s | 34.27 MB/s |
Samsung 64GB Pro U3 | 97.7 MB/s | 78.6 MB/s | 33.77 MB/s |
Samsung 64GB Pro+ U3 | 97.5 MB/s | 87.3 MB/s | 33.74 MB/s |
Samsung Pro 64GB U1 | 96.3 MB/s | 82.2 MB/s | 33.72 MB/s |
Transcend 64GB U3 | 96.7 MB/s | 68.4 MB/s | 32.80 MB/s |
PNY 64GB U1 | 96.5 MB/s | 66.5 MB/s | 32.93 MB/s |
Lexar 600x 64GB U1 | 95.4 MB/s | 64.8 MB/s | 32.72 MB/s |
Lexar 633x 64GB U3 | 93.3 MB/s | 67.3 MB/s | 32.50 MB/s |
PNY 64GB U3 | 96.5 MB/s | 66.1 MB/s | 32.21 MB/s |
Sony 64GB U3 | 96.5 MB/s | 84.5 MB/s | 32.18 MB/s |
Samsung 64GB EVO U1 | 47.7 MB/s | 27.3 MB/s | 24.02 MB/s |
The Sony A6000 does not need a very fast SD card, because it has a limit on how fast it can write data to the card. This limit is the internal bus speed of the camera. All the UHS-I cards have similar write speeds in this camera.
Another interesting thing is that the write speed is slower when you shoot JPEG only. It is only 10-12MB/s, which is low for a camera. This may be because the camera can only process one thing at a time. Other Sony cameras like the Sony A7s and the Sony A7r have the same problem.
Camera Specs
Sensor Size: 24.3MP APS-C
Memory Card Format: UHS-I
Video Resolution: 1080p60
Memory Card Capacity: Up to 128GB
Video Codec: XAVC S 50Mbps
Sony A6000 Speeds Stats
The Sony A6000 can shoot at a fast speed of 11 frames per second and each file is about 25MB in size.
11fps
This means that the camera needs a lot of data to shoot at 11fps. It needs 11 x 25 = 275MB of data per second.
Buffer
The camera has a buffer that can store 49 JPEG shots or 21 RAW shots. This means that the buffer has about 512MB of space.
Card speed
The card speed does not affect how fast you can shoot, but it affects how long it takes to save the files to the card. When the buffer is full, the camera will slow down until the files are saved.
SDXC VS SDHC
SDXC cards are needed for the Sony A6000 if you want to record video in XAVC S format. This is a high-quality video format that needs a lot of space. If you only take photos, then you do not need SDXC cards.
SDHC cards cannot be changed to exFat64 file system to record XAVC S video. They can only use Fat32 file system and record other video formats. Any card 32GB or smaller will be SDHC.
More Sony-Related Articles
Must have Sony A6000 Accessories
Memory Card Speed Tests Conclusions
I recommend the Sandisk Extreme Pro or Sony E cards because they are durable and they work well for a long time.
The performance of most cards is similar. We do not see or feel any difference in speed among them, even when we shoot fast. But we do see a difference with older cards. They are slower and they take longer to show the photos.
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