Best CFast Memory Card - A Speed Comparison

While CFast memory cards are relatively new to the Market, they are growing more popular with Cinema cameras like the BlackMagic URSA the Arri and now they’ve made their way into the DSLR market with the Canon 1DX II.

Like all memory cards, performance and speed are different between brands and some CFast memory cards are better than others.

In this guide we’ve tested all the most popular CFast and CFast 2.0 memory cards to determine which cards are the fastest and perform the best.

Fastest CFast Memory Cards – Speed Comparison

Since CFast 2.0 memory cards have begun replacing the older CFast 1.0 cards, I’ve decided to still test both, or at least all I could get my hands on.

I use the Lexar CR2 Thunderbolt/USB 3.0 CFast memory card reader.

These tests are done with through thunderbolt on a MacBook Pro using the Aja System Test. I don’t yet have access to a PC with Thunderbolt so I can’t test with Crystal Disk yet, although I’ll probably set up a bootcamp soon.

CFast Speed Chart

CFast 1.0 / 2.0 Cards	Thunderbolt – Read	Thunderbolt – Write	See Price
Transcend 128GB	534.7 MB/s	395.3 MB/s	Amazon
Sandisk Pro 64GB	513.6 MB/s	180.1 MB/s	Amazon / Adorama
Lexar 64GB 3500x	475.4 MB/s	364.7 MB/s	Amazon / Adorama
Lexar 128GB 3600x	478.9 MB/s	364.6 MB/s	Amazon / Adorama
Super Talent 64GB CFast 1.0	463.9 MB/s	83.5 MB/s	Don’t Buy
Delkin 128GB CFast 1.0	447.9 MB/s	196.8 MB/s	Amazon / Adorama
Atomos 64GB CFast 1.0	239.5 MB/s	91.4 MB/s	Amazon / Adorama

Fastest CFast Cards – The Results

While clearly CFast 2.0 memory cards are much faster at read and write speeds than CFast 1.0 cards, some of the CFast 1.0 memory cards still showed some nice read speeds, and one in particular, the Delkin CFast 1.0 cards managed to put out some decent write speeds as well.

Comparing write speeds the CFast 1.0 cards were significantly slower than CFast.

The Best CFast Memory Card – Read & Write Speeds

Fastest All Around Card – Transcend 128 GB

The All around best performing card with both read and write speed goes to the Transcend.

Second Best – Lexar 3500x

Close behind the Transcend was the two Lexar cards. Both the Lexar 3500x and the Lexar 3600x performed very close to the same.

I’m not entirely sure what’s going on with the Sandisk card. It was reading very quickly but write speeds seemed to suffer. Perhaps this is an issue with the way the Aja system test works. I’ll update as soon as I get Crystal Disk running on my MacBook Pro.

CFast Card	64GB	128GB	256GB
Transcend	—	Amazon	Amazon
Lexar 3500x	Amazon / Adorama	Amazon / Adorama	Amazon / Adorama
Lexar 3600x	—	Amazon / Adorama	Amazon / Adorama

Memory Cards Do Not All Perform The Same In Every Camera

Based on the results it might look like the Transcend is the way to go. However, in camera different memory cards perform differently and in cameras such as the Canon 1DX II, the Transcend does not perform the best.

See the fastest memory cards for the Canon 1DX II.

Other devices such as the Atomos Ninja, Arri or the BlackMagic could also perform different compared to a MacBook Pro with the Lexar CR2, but so far I’m not really sure how to test those. But in the Canon 1DX II, the Lexar cards and the Transcend all performed very close.

CFast 2.0 Memory Card Readers

Right now I only have the Lexar CR2 Thunderbolt / USB3.0 memory card reader and it’s been performing great. As CFast 2.0 memory cards get more popular I’ll continue to buy and test more.

Here is a short list of all the available CFast 1.0 and CFast 2.0 memory card readers.

Lexar CR2 CFast 2.0 Thunderbolt / USB 3.0 – Amazon

Lexar CR1 CFast 2.0 USB 3.0 Reader – Amazon

Sandisk Extreme CFast 2.0 USB 3.0 Reader – Amazon

Atech Flash Technology Black Bird CFast 2.0 USB 3.0 Reader – Amazon

Transcend CFast 2.0 USB 3.0 Reader – Amazon

Frequently Asked Questions

If you have any questions I’ll do my best to answer them in the comments. But for now these are some popular questions I get asked.

What’s The Fastest CFast Card?

Right now on the MacBook Pro with the thunderbolt connection, it’s the Transcend. However, in your device you’ll likely get similar results with the Lexar cards.

Are Cheap CFast Cards Any Good?

They can be good, but it doesn’t mean they’ll be fast. In other words, if you need to save some cash and you don’t need to read or write at 300MB/s, then some of the slower cards or even CFast 1.0 cards might be fine for you. Just be sure to check compatibility with what you’re using.

Should I Buy One Big CFast Card Or Several Smaller Cards?

This is a really popular question and there is a correct answer – sort of. The philosophy is that it’s better to buy a few smaller cards than one big card.

That is of course, if the smaller card is going to meet your needs. The idea behind this is that if you have your media from a shoot spanned across several cards and one of those cards starts going bad or having issues, it will only corrupt the data contained to that one card. It will also be easier and cheaper to replace it later.

And this happens with even the best cards and unfortunately I do get those emails from people that have had cards get corrupt and they have to send the card to data recovery specialists. I have also had issues with cards and it’s not fun.

Finding The Best CFast Memory Cards For Your Camera

Since testing CFast memory cards is very difficult in cameras that don’t shoot insanely fast burst rates like the Canon 1DX II, I’ve put together a benchmark of how the CFast memory cards perform in a PC.

You can use this list or see how they perform in the Canon 1DX II to get a sense of which Cfast cards are the best for your camera.

Here is a working list of cameras that currently support CFast memory cards

Canon 1DX II
Canon XC10 4K
Canon XC15 4K
Canon XC10E 4K
Canon C300 Mark II
Phase One can also be equipped to use CFast cards, as well as many cinema cameras.

Best CFast 2.0 Memory Cards – The Bottom Line

While there are bargain CFast cards out there, based on the results, it pays to go with the better brands when it comes to storing your video and stills. One of the cards, the Super Talent, was behaving strange and performed very slow with write speeds and I would not trust such brands.

Stick with Transcend and Lexar for now until I can get better performance out of the Sandisk or until they upgrade their cards. If you’re on a budget you could go with Delkin, their cards including their SD, and CF cards have always performed well and their prices are a little more affordable.

KevinLphotography

do you know where I can get at 64 gb Transcend CFast Card?
Alik Griffin

I’ve never seen the Transcend CFast 2.0 as 64GB.
Davesworld

Of note is that the Transcend CFX650 series is SLC which can have much longer life than MLC, even much more so with TLC. Not surprisingly the SLC is more expensive. By much longer life I am referring to read/write cycles before the cells become useless.

The interface of Cfast is native Sata with a built in controller just as any Sata Hard Drive is and I have used them in Cfast to Sata adapters which contain no circuitry, just traced from the Sata pins to the CFAST pins, like most Sata, they can be hotswapped. Compact Flash is natively IDE and has a built in IDE controller like an IDE hard drive does and not natively hot-swappable when connected to IDE without a chip in the adapter to manage this function.
Alik Griffin

Great information. Thanks Daesworld.