Best Sony RX10 II Memory Cards

A speed test comparing all the most popular UHS-II and UHS-I memory cards in the Sony RX10 II.

Use this guide to find the best memory cards for 4k videos or for your style of shooting.

Camera Specs

Sensor: 1″ 20.2MP  /  Processor: BIONZ X

Video Resolution: 4k 30p 100M  /  Video Codec: XAVC S

SD Memory Card Type: UHS-I  /  Requirements:  SDXC, U3

Sony RX10 II – Amazon / Adorama / BHphoto

Best SD Memory Cards For The Sony RX10 II

Usually all Sony cameras perform just about the same as the SD memory card speed tests. This is because Sony cameras have a bus speed bottleneck of about 32MB/s. No card performs faster than this. Since most SD memory cards these days can usually read and write at greater speeds then this, we see all the cards giving very similar performance results. But there is more to it than this. 

Sony RX10 II memory card write speeds are determined by shooting in burst mode, filming it, and then averaging the time it took to clear the buffer and the data shot during a set time. Three tests are done shooting RAW and the results are averaged.

USB 3.0 read and write speeds are determined using Crystal Disk on Windows 10.

As you can see most cards perform great. The only trouble I had was with the Transcend cards. Both my transcend cards consistently crashed the camera forcing me to remove the battery for a reboot. For now, I would avoid buying Transcend cards for this camera.

Best SD Memory Cards For 4K 100M Video

RX10 II 4K 100M requirements: SDXC, U3, UHS-I.

You would need a U3 SDXC memory card to shoot 4k 100M video on the Sony RX10 II. Although, most of my U1 cards will also work. If you have a U1 card, try it out. If it works great, but if you’re ordering new cards, grab one of the ones I’ve recommended.

I’ve tested many cards for many Sony cameras now and have a lot of experience with various users having issues with their memory cards. Sometimes Sony cameras just don’t like certain cards. It seems the camera will run a check to determine if the card is a U3 card or not. I feel this test is not forgiving enough and this causes many memory cards to fail. You’ll get an error saying you need to enter a U3 memory card, even though you have a U3 memory card.

Best Cards For 4K 100M

From my experience no card is exempt from this glitch, but these cards are most likely to give you good results.

Sandisk Extreme Pro 64GB U3 UHS-I – Amazon / Adorama

Sandisk Extreme Plus 64GB U3 UHS-I – Amazon / Adorama

Sandisk Extreme 64GB U3 UHS-I – Amazon / Adorama

Kingston 64GB U3 UHS-I – Amazon / Adorama

Sony 64GB U3 UHS-I – Amazon

Lexar 633x 64GB U3 UHS-I – Amazon / Adorama

Cards To Avoid For 4K 100M

Although many of these cards will work for most people, these cards seem to give a lot of people problems when trying to record 4k 100M video on most Sony cameras and I imagine it’s going to be the same for this camera.

Samsung Pro+ 64GB U3 UHS-I

Samsung Pro 64GB U3 UHS-I

PNY 64GB U3 UHS-I

Transcend 64GB U3 UHS-I

I would also avoid UHS-II cards for these cameras since you gain no benefit and they often give mixed results. 

Best SD Memory Cards For The Sony RX10 II Conclusions

If you’re looking to just shoot photos, most memory cards will work fine since most memory cards will have their speed bottlenecked by the camera before the card max performance is reached. For video, you’ll need an SDXC card 64GB or bigger and it should be U3. 

From my experience cards larger than the 64GB versions also will perform the same, or at least very similar. So if you want to get the 128GB version of a certain card, go for it.

If your U3 memory card isn’t working, I’ve created a Sony 4k 100M Memory Card Guide that explains many of the issues as well as how to troubleshoot some problems.

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