An UHS-I and UHS-II SD memory card speed test comparing the performances between all the most popular memory cards in the Sony A6400. Use this guide to find the best and fastest memory cards for your Sony A6400.
Camera Specs
Sensor: 24.2MP APS-C Exmor CMOS Sensor
Processor: BIONZ X Image Processor
Continuous Shooting: 11 fps
Memory Card Slots: 1 – UHS-I
Buffer Size: 1GB
Shots to Fill Buffer: 50 RAW
Est Time To Clear Buffer: 24.5 seconds
Sony A6400 – Amazon / Adorama / BHphoto
Must Have Accessories Sony A6400
Best Memory Cards Sony A6400
Like with Sony A6300 and A6500, we’re seeing a slight memory card buffer bottleneck of around 38-39MB/s on the Sony A6400. This is either happening with the processor or with some other hardware interface.
Because of this, you will not need to buy the fastest memory cards available, but any decent memory card will due, but there are some brands I recommend more than others.
The Sony A6400 does not use UHS-II technology so it’s better to spend your money on UHS-I cards, but to take advantage of 4k video, you will need U3 memory cards.
Sony A6400 Memory Card Speed Test
This memory card list includs the in-camera speeds, which are calculated by how much time it takes to clear the buffer against how much data was written. You can sort by category, however, since most of the cards have similar performance in the Sony A6400, it won’t make a huge difference which card you choose, just get any trusted brand and as long as it is a U3 card, it will work reliably with Sony cameras. See the recommended memory card list below.
| Memory Card | Speed Class | USB Read | USB Write | Sony A6400 | Order |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sandisk Extreme Pro 170MB/s U3 | UHS-I | 99.2 | 88.3 | 38.67 | Amazon |
| Sandisk Extreme Plus U3 | UHS-I | 99.3 | 88.2 | 38.46 | Amazon |
| Sandisk Extreme U3 | UHS-I | 99.3 | 56.8 | 38.75 | Amazon |
| Sandisk Ultra U1 | UHS-I | 99.5 | 34.3 | 25.95 | -- |
| Kingston CanvasReact A1 U3 | UHS-I | 99.6 | 82.5 | 36.77 | Amazon |
| Kingston CanvasGo! U3 | UHS-I | 99.6 | 74.0 | 36.93 | Amazon |
| Lexar 633x U1 | UHS-I | 95.0 | 54.6 | 36.53 | -- |
| Sony Professional U3 | UHS-I | 98.5 | 60.2 | 39.38 | Amazon |
| Sony U3 94MB/s | UHS-I | 96.7 | 57.5 | 37.84 | Amazon |
| Sony U3 95MB/s | UHS-I | 96.6 | 85.4 | 37.95 | Amazon |
| Transcend U3 U3 | UHS-I | 96.7 | 87.8 | 38.42 | Amazon |
| PNY Elite Performance U3 | UHS-I | 96.7 | 66.9 | 38.65 | Amazon |
| Delkin Advantage U3 | UHS-I | 99.6 | 78.8 | 37.27 | Amazon |
| Toshiba Exceria Pro U3 | UHS-I | 97.8 | 74.7 | 39.06 | Amazon |
| Toshiba Exceria U3 | UHS-I | 97.2 | 29.9 | 28.50 | Amazon |
| Verbatim Pro+ U3 | UHS-I | 98.5 | 83.7 | 39.36 | Amazon |
| Verbatim Pro U3 | UHS-I | 96.6 | 68.0 | 36.61 | Amazon |
| Amplim 667x A1 V30 | UHS-I | 99.6 | 52.2 | 35.99 | Amazon |
| Sandisk Extreme Pro 300MB/s | UHS-II | 258.5 | 190.5 | 39.28 | Amazon |
| Lexar 2000x | UHS-II | 258.9 | 201.5 | 38.62 | Amazon |
| Lexar 1000x | UHS-II | 153.4 | 83.09 | 38.78 | Amazon |
| Toshiba Exceria Pro | UHS-II | 263.6 | 223.8 | 39.26 | Amazon |
| Transcend v90 | UHS-II | 258.2 | 164.9 | 38.92 | Amazon |
| Sony G Tough | UHS-II | 256.8 | 201.0 | 39.59 | Amazon |
| Sony G | UHS-II | 258.0 | 206.7 | 39.57 | Amazon |
| Sony M | UHS-II | 253.6 | 91.60 | 39.24 | Amazon |
| Delkin Power | UHS-II | 257.6 | 191.0 | 39.34 | Amazon |
| Delkin Prime | UHS-II | 252.8 | 89.1 | 39.13 | Amazon |
| Fujifilm Elite II | UHS-II | 259.3 | 168.4 | 38.66 | Amazon |
| Adata V90 | UHS-II | 259.4 | 187.4 | 38.84 | Amazon |
| Hoodman Steel 2000x | UHS-II | 268.7 | 183.9 | 38.92 | Amazon |
| Hoodman Steel 1500x | UHS-II | 258.1 | 169.2 | 38.83 | BHphoto |
| ProGrade V90 | UHS-II | 258.2 | 212.8 | 39.03 | Amazon |
| ProGrade V60 | UHS-II | 166.9 | 105.9 | 38.78 | Amazon |
| Amplim 1900x V60 | UHS-II | 249.8 | 104.5 | 39.02 | Amazon |
| Angel Bird V90 | UHS-II | 256.6 | 211.1 | 39.01 | Amazon |
| Angel Bird V60 | UHS-II | 166.9 | 80.24 | 38.52 | Amazon |
| FreeTail Evoke Pro V60 | UHS-II | 238.5 | 102.8 | 39.93 | Amazon |
As you can see from the chart, all the cards are getting similar performance. We’ve mostly stopped testing U1 memory cards as they do not meet the requirements for 4k in most cameras and the U1 technology at this point is pretty much obsolete for anyone looking to take full advantage of all the features a Sony camera.
Top 5 Recommended Memory Cards Sony A6400
Sony Professional UHS-I U3
Available at: Amazon / Adorama / BHphoto
The Sony Professional UHS-I card is very high quality and has a slightly different built than the other cards, they seem a little tougher. These cards perform very well in terms of speed and work flawlessly in Sony cameras. They are a little more expensive than some of the other options though.
Sony 94 UHS-I U3
Available at: Amazon / Adorama / BHphoto
This is one of latest UHS-I card from Sony. It’s technically slightly slower than the 95MB/s card but it is using a different type of flash. I haven’t seen any real difference in reliability between the two models of Sony cards.
Sandisk Extreme Plus or Pro UHS-I U3
Available at: Amazon / Adorama / BHphoto
The Sandisk Extreme Plus card and the Extreme are the best bang for the buck. While the Sandisk Extreme Pro is a better card, when it comes to performance in the Sony A6400, it won’t offer any advantage. Sometimes the Sandisk Extreme Pro is priced about the same as the Extreme Plus cards and in that case grab the Pro.
Sandisk Extreme UHS-I U3
Available at: Amazon / Adorama / BHphoto
The Sandisk Extreme card is one of the easiest to find. Target, Walmart, Best Buy usually carry them. When it comes to performance in the Sony A6400, the Extreme cards work great.
Delkin Advantage UHS-I U3
Available at: Amazon / Adorama / BHphoto
Delkin has always made reliable cards that perform well and the new Advantage is their latest brand of card. I usually use Sandisk, Sony or Delkin in my cameras and have always seen great performance without any reliability issues.
Sony A6400 Best Memory Cards For 4k Video
The Sony A6400 has a light 4k video codec of 100mbps which translates to about 12.5MB/s. Any of the U3 cards will work for video in the Sony A6400 (except Samsung SD cards which have compatibility issues).
When deciding which size memory card is best for video, you should be sure to get an SDXC card which is any card 64GB or larger because these cards use a 64-bit file system which allows you to record clips longer than 4GB. If you go with a 32-bit card, known as SDHC, you will see what’s called chaptering. This is where long clips are broken into 4GB chunks. Sometimes this is good, sometimes this is bad. I actually prefer this on my GoPro Hero 7 where I often have very long clips because it allows me to delete huge chunks of what I don’t need.
Memory Card Codes – What They All Mean
When you’re buying memory cards there are a few important numbers you need to pay attention too.
U1, U3 – U1 Minimum Write Speed 10MB/s – U3 Minimum Write Speed 30MB/s
V30, v60, v90 – V30 Minimum Write Speed 30MB/s, V60 60MB/s, V90 90MB/s
SDHC, SDXC – SDHC is 32-bit file system 4GB file size limit. SDXC 64-bit file system
UHS-I, UHS-II – UHS-I – Single row of contacts, UHS-II – Two contract row for more than double the performance.
A1 or A2 – Now some memory cards are using a type of cache that improves random read and write access. These cards are designed for running apps and will offer no benefit to photography or video.
Where To Buy Memory Cards – Avoid Counterfeit
There are still a lot of counterfeit memory cards out there so you need to be careful where you buy cards. It looks like this last year there has been a lot of shifting around of Sandisk stock at Amazon, so they could be cleaning up their inventory and I personally have never seen a counterfeit card from Amazon. Ebay is still a horrible place to buy memory cards.
The best place to buy memory cards is at certified stores that deal directly with each brand. I always try to buy my cards from BHphoto, Adorama, Best Buy, Walmart, Target etc. While I’ve never had any issues with Amazon, they allow a lot of retailers on their site and the the rumor is they use to mix inventory so you never knew what you were getting for sure.
Best Memory Cards Sony A6400 Conclusions
Since the Sony A6400 is not very demanding of memory cards with a 38-39MB/s speed limit and a nice 1GB buffer, it makings buying memory cards a lot easier since most modern cards can keep up with this rate. I wouldn’t buy UHS-II cards unless you have another camera that can take advantage of that tech, otherwise I would only buy UHS-I cards since they are much less expensive.
Buy from a trusted dealer and you won’t have any issues with counterfeit cards. All of the brands listed (except the two U1 cards I still test) now work great with no problems and Sony firmware continues to improve stability and reliability of memory card performance.
