When examining memory cards, the Sony A7rV surpasses previous R series cameras with its impressive memory card interface. One noteworthy improvement is the support for CFexpress Type-A memory cards in addition to UHS-II cards.
The Sony A7rV has two memory card slots that can take SD or CFeA memory cards.
Recommended Memory Cards Sony A7rV
This chart shows the performance of various CFexpress Type-A memory cards as well as a few of the top-performing SD UHS-II cards all tested in the Sony A7rV.
The Green bar represents the tested USB sustain speeds, however for the V90 UHS-II cards, I only have the rated sustain speed which is 90MB/s.
Do you need CFexpress Type A memory cards in the Sony A7rV?
Probably not. You will only need CFexpress Type A cards if you record in S&Q modes at the high bitrates or if you like clearing the buffer as quickly as possible.
For casually shooting or shooting basic video recording the SD UHS-II V90 cards are more than fast enough, and for photographers not doing a lot of continuous bursting V60 cards are great. However, a lot of CFexpress Type A cards are now priced very close to SD UHS-II V90 cards, so today it might make more sense to just grab a CFexpress card.
The best CFExpress Type-A memory cards for the Sony A7rV
Without question, the Lexar Gold cards are the best CFexpress Type-A memory cards right now. While there is a bottleneck in the Sony A7rV, the USB-C sustain speeds show the card not slowing down much under a sustained stress test.
Lexar Gold CFexpress Type-A Memory Card
Lexar Gold CFexpress Type-A memory card comes in sizes from 80GB to 320GB
Tested Write Speed: 825 MB/s
Tested Read Speed: 886 MB/s
Tested Sustain: 817MB/s
See Details: Lexar Gold CFexpress Type-A Review
Limited 10-Year Manufacturer Warranty.
Although I haven’t tested the Lexar Silver series in the Sony A7rV yet, it also has a great tested sustain speed and fantastic read and write speeds and is priced very competitively against the SD UHS-II v90 memory cards.
Lexar CFexpress Type-A Silver Series
Lexar Silver CFexpress Type-A memory card comes in sizes from 160GB to 320GB
Tested Write Speed: 776 MB/s
Tested Read Speed: 861 MB/s
Tested Sustain: 687 MB/s
See Details: Lexar Silver CFexpress Type-A Review
Limited 10-Year Manufacturer Warranty
While Sony CFexpress cards across the board haven’t been top performers, if you want a Tough dependable card that will just run flawlessly in the Sony A7rV, then these are great. However, if in the future Sony bumps up the video bitrate in future cameras, these cards might not have the sustain speeds to handle it with their current specs.
Sony TOUGH CFexpress Type-A Memory Card
Sony Tough G – Sizes from 80GB to 640GB.
Tested Write: 658 MB/s
Tested Read: 847 MB/s
Tested Sustain: 276 MB/s
Rated Sustain: 400 MB/s
Sony Tough M Sizes from 960GB to 1920GB.
Rated Sustain: 200 MB/s
See Details: Sony Tough CFexpress Type-A Memory Card Review
The Best SD UHS-II memory cards for the Sony A7rV
The Sony Tough G SD V90 UHS-II cards are one of, if not the best UHS-II Memory cards and are my top recommendation for high-performance cameras like the Sony A7rV.
However, be sure to check the price, today CFexpress cards are a lot faster and are often priced very similarly. For example, the Lexar Silver CFeA cards are priced very competitively against these SD UHS-II Cards.
Sony G Tough V90 UHS-II SD Memory Cards
The Sony G Tough v90 UHS-II SD memory card has a tough build and comes in sizes between 32-256GB.
Tested Write Speed: 258 MB/s
Tested Read Speed: 296 MB/s
Rated Sustain: 90 MB/s – 720Mbps
See Details: Sony Tough V90 UHS-II Review
Warranty: Limited 5-Year Manufacturer Warranty
The Sandisk Extreme Pro SD UHS-II is also a very good SD memory card for the Sony A7rV.
Sandisk Extreme Pro UHS-II SD Memory Cards
The Sandisk Extreme Pro UHS-II SD is one of the most popular and reliable high-performance v90 memory cards.
Tested Write Speed: 268 MB/s
Tested Read Speed: 293 MB/s
Rated Sustain: 90 MB/s
See Details: Sandisk Extreme Pro V90 UHS-II Review
Warranty: Limited Lifetime Warranty
If you found this helpful also check out my massive List of the best Sony A7rV accessories.
Memory Card Benchmarks
I’ve recently benchmarked the A7rV. Here is how the cards are performing in-camera.
Testing for each memory card was conducted in-camera, which involved filling the buffer and then evaluating the time it takes to clear it.
See more stats with the SD Memory Card Speed Tests and the CFexpress Type A Speed Tests.
CFexpress Type-A Buffer & Speed Test
SD UHS-II Buffer & Speed Test
Sensor: 61MP Full-Frame, Exmor R BSI CMOS Processor: BIONZ XR & AI Image Processor Memory Card Slots: 2 UHS-II / 2 CFx A Continuous Shoot: 10fps RAW Est. Buffer Size: untested RAW Shots To Fill Buffer: 583 shots CFxA Max Memory Card Capacity: Unlimited Size 4k Datarate: H.265 400Mbps XAVC HS (50MB/s) / H.264 600Mbps XAVC S-I (75MB/s) |
Which Memory Cards Can Be Used For Which Settings
The camera will reject memory cards out of spec, it also rejects that old Sony M card that they recalled years ago.
Here are the memory cards that are required for general video recording.
Most cameras list their recordings in bitrate. You can get the megabytes per second out of that by dividing by 8.
400Mbps ÷ 8 = 50MB/s. So to shoot 400MB/s, you’ll want a card that guarantees a 50MB/s data rate which would be a V60 card. The 60 means 60MB/s.
S&Q Memory Card Shooting
Here are the memory cards required for the different S&Q modes.
Note when the S&Q Record Frame Rate is set to 30p / 25p / 24p with the Frame Rate set to 60fps / 50fps for slow-motion recording, a CFexpress Type A card is required. This will play back at 30 / 25 / 25 fps at 600Mbps but the camera is actually recording at double the frame rate which is technically double the bitrate, it just reduces the speed down to the Record Frame Rate cutting the bitrate in half during playback as it stretches 60 frames shot into 30fps played back.
This is why S&Q record modes are so important, you get much better quality than standard slow-motion recording modes, and this is why you really only would ever need a CFexpress A card for the Sony A7rV if you need S&Q recording. No other feature of the camera demands these fast bitrates.
These charts are taken from the Sony User Manual.
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