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Best Memory Cards Sony A7rIV – Real Benchmarks

  • March 13, 2022
  • AGriffin

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

Use this guide to find the best memory cards for video or stills with the Sony A7rIV.

Table Of Contents

  • Best Memory Cards Sony A7r IV
    • Top 5 Best UHS-II Memory Cards
    • Top 3 Budget-Friendly Cards
  • In-Camera Speed Test
    • A7rIV Spec And Buffer Questions
  • Best Memory Cards For 4k Video
  • What Size Memory Card Do You Need?
    • For Stills
    • For Video
    • Sony A7rIV Record Times
  • UHS-I vs UHS-II
  • How To Avoid Counterfeit Cards

 

Best Memory Cards Sony A7r IV

A couple of big things have changed with the Sony A7r IV compared to the previous model. The biggest is the addition of a UHS-II memory card in Slot 2 for incredibly fast memory card speeds when shooting with a dual memory card setup.

It also looks like Sony has upgraded the UHS-II hardware as it’s now one of the fastest mirrorless UHS-II cameras.

 

Top 5 Best UHS-II Memory Cards

These are all great cards but the Sony Tough is totally worth it if you can justify the expense.

Card Name In-Camera Speed Check Price
Sony G Tough UHS-II 200.08MB/s Amazon
Sandisk Extreme Pro UHS-II 196.52MB/s Amazon
Delkin Power UHS-II 197.78MB/s Amazon
Toshiba Exceria Pro UHS-II 185.63MB/s Amazon

 

Top 3 Budget-Friendly Cards

If you don’t need the fastest memory cards or you’re a video/photo hybrid shooter here are a few great budget-friendly cards that are fast enough for 4k 100Mbps video, but also fairly quick for shooters that don’t do a lot of burst photography.

Card Name In-Camera Speed Check Price
ProGrade v60 UHS-II 90.44MB/s Amazon
Sony M UHS-II 91.23MB/s Amazon
Delkin Prime v60 UHS-II 92.21MB/s Amazon

*There is also a new Sony M Tough card and a new Sony E UHS-II card.

Also, check out the List of Essential Accessories Sony Ar7IV

 

In-Camera Speed Test

Here is a chart showing how each card performed in the Sony A7rIV.

For these benchmarks, the camera was tested shooting continuous burst in RAW uncompressed. The data was calculated against the time it took to clear the buffer.

What’s interesting is the Sony A7r IV seems to now favor a certain type of flash configuration as only a handful of cards performed well.

Memory CardSpeed ClassUSB ReadUSB WriteSony A7rIVOrder
Sandisk Extreme Pro 170MB/sUHS-I99.288.364.17Amazon
Sandisk Extreme PlusUHS-I99.388.264.13Amazon
Sandisk Extreme U3UHS-I99.356.849.46Amazon
Sandisk Ultra U1UHS-I99.534.327.37--
Kingston CanvasReact A1 U3UHS-I99.682.568.99Amazon
Kingston CanvasGo! U3UHS-I99.674.064.96Amazon
Lexar 633x U1UHS-I95.054.648.88--
Sony Professional U3UHS-I98.560.276.15Amazon
Sony U3 94MB/sUHS-I96.757.555.95Amazon
Sony U3 95MB/sUHS-I96.685.469.59Amazon
Transcend U3UHS-I96.787.867.31Amazon
PNY Elite Performance U3UHS-I96.766.958.16Amazon
Delkin Advantage U3UHS-I99.678.869.47Amazon
Toshiba Exceria Pro U3UHS-I97.874.768.00Amazon
Toshiba Exceria U3UHS-I97.229.930.21Amazon
Verbatim Pro+ U3UHS-I98.583.774.59Amazon
Verbatim Pro U3UHS-I96.668.057.41Amazon
Amplim 667x A1 V30UHS-I99.652.247.88Amazon
Sandisk Extreme Pro 300MB/sUHS-II258.5190.5196.52Amazon
Lexar 2000xUHS-II258.9201.5120.96Amazon
Lexar 1667xUHS-II----95.60Amazon
Lexar 1000xUHS-II153.483.0993.35Amazon
Toshiba Exceria ProUHS-II263.6223.8185.63Amazon
Transcend v90UHS-II258.2164.9122.89Amazon
Sony G ToughUHS-II256.8201.0200.08Amazon
Sony GUHS-II258.0206.7200.08Amazon
Sony MUHS-II253.691.691.23Amazon
Delkin Power v90UHS-II257.6191.0197.78Amazon
Delkin Prime v60UHS-II252.889.192.21Amazon
Fujifilm Elite IIUHS-II259.3168.4148.28Amazon
Adata v90UHS-II259.4187.4124.25Amazon
Hoodman Steel 2000xUHS-II268.7183.9143.52Amazon
Hoodman Steel 1500xUHS-II258.1169.292.22BHphoto
ProGrade V90UHS-II258.2212.8124.67Amazon
ProGrade V60UHS-II166.9105.990.44Amazon
Amplim 1900x V60UHS-II249.8104.591.15Amazon
Angel Bird V90UHS-II256.6211.1124.94Amazon
Angel Bird V60UHS-II166.980.291.15Amazon
FreeTail Evoke Pro V60UHS-II238.5102.890.43Amazon

 

A7rIV Spec And Buffer Questions

Sensor: 61MP Full-Frame Exmor R BSI CMOS Sensor
Processor: BIONZ X
How Many Memory Card Slots? Two, Both are UHS-II
Continuous Burst: 10fps
Video Formats: UHD 4K30p, 1080p 24p, 25p, 30p, 60p, 120p
What Is The Video Bitrate? 100Mbps
What The Buffer Size? 4GB
How Many Shots To Fill Buffer? 31 Uncompressed – (Sony G Tough)
How Long To Clear Buffer? 14:08 – (Sony G Tough)

Sony A7r IV – Amazon / Adorama / BHphoto

 

 

Best Memory Cards For 4k Video

Record Limit Time: Unlimited
Minimum Requirements: U3

The Sony A7rIV still only outputs 100Mbps 4k video which translates to about 12.5MB/s. Because of this low bitrate, you don’t need fast cards for video.

If video is your focus, stick with the slower UHS-II cards like the Sony M cards, Sony E cards or Prograde v60 cards. You will gain nothing by buying the fastest SD memory cards if you’re just using the camera for video.

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, but if you shoot uncompressed with that 61MP sensor you might want to move up to 128GB since the file sizes are massive.

Also, the buffer will clear faster when using uncompressed files, but the files are larger so they take longer to copy.

 

For Video

The memory card size you’ll need for the A7rIV when recording video will depend 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 A7rIV 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 then scale down, which if done correctly in a 16-bit sequence will results in a 4:2:2 data compression. That’s the theory anyway.

 

Sony A7rIV Record Times

Here is a handy chart you can use to find the record times you’ll get with different size memory cards with the different recording formats.

For video shooters or filmmakers, I recommend 128GB cards and I highly recommend you clear off your cards regularly for backup throughout the shoot. UHS-II cards are nice for this as they will transfer quicker than UHS-I cards.

For sitting in the living room vloggers, 64GB cards will be fine.

Resolution Format Bitrate 32GB 64GB 128GB 256GB
4k30p, 24p XAVC S 4K 100Mbps 43min 85min 171min 341min
4k30p, 24p XAVC S 4K 60Mbps 71min 142min 284min 569min
1080 120p, 100p XAVC S HD 100Mbps 43min 85min 171min 341min
1080 120p, 100p XAVC S HD 60Mbps 71min 142min 284min 569min
1080 24p, 25p, 30p, 50p, 60p XAVC S HD 50Mbps 85min 171min 341min 683min
1080 25p, 30p XAVC S HD 16Mbps 267min 533min 1067min 2133min
1080 60i AVCHD 24Mbps 178min 356min 711min 1422min
1080 60i AVCHD 17Mbps 251min 502min 1004min 2008min

 

UHS-I vs UHS-II

The Sony A7rIV now uses dual UHS-II card slots. This means if you’re running a second card as a backup you will see UHS-II performance with both cards. Before using backup would slow down your write speeds to UHS-I speeds.

It is still a good idea to buy a fast card for slot 2 if you are running a backup, but you probably won’t be taking that second card out of the camera often so you could just stick with a cheaper Sony G, or Delkin Power instead of running dual Tough cards.

Again, If you’re just buying the camera for video then you don’t even need the fastest cards since the camera only outputs 100Mbps video which translates to 12.5MB/s and I would recommend something like Sony M cards.

For how I shoot with my Sony A7rIII, I don’t run a dual memory card backups, instead, I have the camera set up so all my photos go to Slot 1 for the fast UHS-II speeds, then I set all video to got slot 2. This way I don’t need a fast card in slot 2.

Useful Tip: Video gets buried in a strange file system and sometimes I’ll shoot some B-Roll, and transfer all my photos over and forget to dig deep into the annoying file structure to pull the video, then format the card when I’m done and all the video is forever lost. So by only shooting video on Slot 2, and only shooting photos to Slot 1, this assures that never happens.

I wish Sony would just mix in the mov files with the RAW files like every other camera out there.

 

How To Avoid Counterfeit Cards

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

Usually, when you see YouTubers preaching about card failures, it’s because they buy cheap cards off eBay.

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 is. 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 A7r IV no longer has a record limit.

 

Best Memory Cards Sony A7rIV Conclusions

The Sony A7rIV is an incredible camera and finally has all the best hardware to fully maximize the potential of UHS-II  memory cards.

If you’re shooting a lot of burst photography where you need that buffer cleared as quickly as possible, stick with the fast UHS-II memory cards.

64GB cards are fine for most people that aren’t shooting uncompressed, but if you do shoot a lot of uncompressed with this 61MP sensor, it might be time to upgrade to those 128GB cards.

If you’re shooting mostly video, I would stick with v60 UHS-II cards. You still want UHS-II because it will allow you to transfer your footage off of the cards quickly with a UHS-II memory card reader.

**This website contains affiliate links and I will be compensated if you click them to make a purchase.
AGriffin

Professional editor, blogger and photographer from Los Angeles California.

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  • Sony A7rIV
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