Best Memory Cards Sony A6600

A complete list of memory card speeds and their in-camera performance as well as some great recommendations as well as a video record time chart.

Use this guide to find the best memory cards for video or stills with the Sony A6600.

Sony A6600 – Amazon / Adorama / BHphoto

Must-Have Accessories Sony A6600

Best Memory Cards For The Sony A6600

Like Sony’s other APS-C cameras, the A6600 only supports UHS-I memory card speeds. Meaning, there is little point in buying the more expensive UHS-II cards unless you’re looking for faster transfer speeds from your card to your computer.

Sony brand memory cards are very good but they don’t have very many options for UHS-I cards and they are getting harder to find. What Sony has done recently is created a UHS-II Sony E card with UHS-I write speeds. This E card is rated for UHS-I write speeds but still gives you fast UHS-II transfer speeds and they’ve managed to keep the costs down to the UHS-I levels.

For video, you will need a card with a minimum U3 or V30 rating.

Sony A6600 Best Memory Cards & Recommendations

When it comes to memory card performance and buying the best cards, the Sony A6600 performs very similarly to the other APS-C Sony cameras. You will only need UHS-I cards unless you want faster transfer speeds from your card to your computer.

The Sony E card is a UHS-II card but it offered at a very affordable price by delivering UHS-I write speeds but UHS-II read speeds. This is very handy for video shooters that need to transfer a lot of data quickly from their cards to their computers.

*The Delkin Black and Delkin Advantage are similar cards, the Black is just the Tougher version.

Memory Card Speed Test | In-Camera Test Results

The latest Sony APS-C cameras are all showing very similar results with slightly below average in-camera write speeds. Because of this, it won’t make a huge difference when trying to decide between different cards.

This speed test was achieved by measuring the time it takes to clear the camera buffer vs how much data was written.

Camera Specs

Sensor: 24.2MP APS-C Exmor CMOS Sensor
Processor: BIONZ X Image Processor
Memory Cards: Single Slot UHS-I
Continuous Burst: 11fps
Video: 4k 100Mbps 8-bit 4:2:0, H.264
Buffer Size: 1GB
Shots To Fill Buffer: 46 RAW
Time To Clear Buffer: 24.5 seconds

Best Memory Cards For 4k Video

Record Limit Time: Unlimited
Minimum Requirements: U3

Sony has its cameras tuned to work with most memory cards pretty well these days. The only cards that use to not work for Sony cameras are Samsung SD cards, but those are hard to find now.

All the modern U3 memory cards that I have been testing have been working great for 4k video so all you really need to look for is that rating or better. So any U3, v30, v60, v90 card will work great.

The other rating you need to look at is SDXC or SDHC.

SDXC – This allows the cards to be formatted with a 64-bit file system so that you can have large video clips.

SDHC – With SDHC memory cards the camera will format them to 32-bit, this means video files will be broken up into 4GB chunks.

What Size Memory Card Do You Need?

I put together a nice guide based on specs and my experience to help you decide which size memory card to buy.

For Stills

I still recommend 64GB unless you shot a lot of big events.

I personally have been slowly moving over to 128GB cards since they are now pretty cheap. I do this for a few reasons. Sometimes I shoot big events and will use more than a 64GB card. Sometimes I want to go a week or so before needing to clear off my card or I’ll keep the images on my card while I wait for them to back up to my server.

For the most part, most of my cameras still have 64GB cards in them and it’s totally fine.

For Video

The memory card size for the A6600 when recording video depends on what format you are recording and how you plan on using the camera.

There are a few details you should note. Take a look at the max bitrates.

4k 24p / 30p Max Bitrate: 100Mbps

1080 24p / 25p / 30p / 50p / 60p Max Bitrate: 50Mbps

To get the maximum quality or 100Mbps at 24fps or 30fps with the Sony A6600 you will need to record in 4k unless you want  100fps or 120fps then you can record 1080p with 100Mbps.

If you only want 1080p 24fps or 1080p 30fps, you will only get half the bitrate of 50Mbps. So even if you need 1080p, it’s better to record 4k than scale down, which if done correctly in a 16-bit sequence will result in a 4:2:2 data compression. That’s the theory anyway.

Sony A6600 Record Times

Here is a handy chart you can use to find the best size memory card you’ll need for your recording format. Or how many minutes you can get with the different formats on with different size cards.

For video shooters, filmmakers, I recommend 128GB cards, and I highly recommend you clear off your cards regularly for backup throughout the shoot.

How To Avoid Counterfeit Cards

Unfortunately, counterfeit cards are still a problem and they pop up from time to time at different retailers. 

The best way to avoid counterfeit cards is to avoid buying cards off auction sites. Instead, always buy cards from trusted sources.

If a memory card is counterfeit, usually it has a hacked controller which will tell you the card is bigger than it really. For example, you buy a 128GB card, you then put the card in your camera and it tells you it’s 128GB, but there is only actually 32GB of flash memory. You might shoot for months or weeks before breaking past 32GB, and when you do, the card will fail.

This is why so many people have memory card failures these days, they’re actually just using counterfeit cards without knowing it.

How to check if your card is counterfeit?

Easy, whenever you buy a new card, always max its capacity. It should get very close to the rated capacity without any issues.

You can do this by copying files from your computer, or by recording video. Not a problem since the Sony A6600 no longer has a record limit. Teather it to USB set it to 4k 24 and let it record for an hour or three (depending on the card size).

Best Memory Cards Sony A6600 Conclusions

The Sony A6600 is an incredible camera and I have a feeling it will be one of those cameras that will be around for a long time. It’s kind of the perfect little do anything camera.

Buying memory cards for this camera is pretty easy, just stick with U3 cards and you’ll be good to go and remember you don’t need UHS-II cards unless you’re looking for quick transfer speeds from your card to your computer with an external UHS-II reader.

One last tip, if you shoot a lot, I do recommend buying new cards every two to three years. Shouldn’t be a problem since they continue to come down in price.