An in-camera speed comparison between all the most popular UHS-II and UHS-I SD memory cards and how they work in the Fujifilm X-T2.
Use this guide to find the best memory cards for your X-T2.
Fujifilm has done an amazing job at pumping some of the best technology into this small camera and the SD memory card speeds are just an example of why this is one of the best APS-C cameras out there. It’s also a great option for the pro looking for backup and redundancy options when shooting high-profile jobs.
Camera Specs
Sensor: APS-C 24.3 MP / Processor: X-Processor Pro
SD Memory Card Type: UHS-II / UHS-II
Continuous Burst: 8fps – (11-14fps with battery grip)
Size of Buffer: 1GB
Uncompressed Shots Till Buffer Fills: 31 With Lexar 2000x
Est. Time Taken To Clear Buffer: 6-7 seconds with the Lexar 2000x
Fujifilm X-T2 – Amazon / Adorama / B&H
Must-Have Accessories For The Fujifilm X-T2
Fujifilm X-T2 Review & Sample Photos
Best Memory Card For The Fujifilm X-T2
The XT2 has two UHS-II slots that can be set up as backup, overflow, or RAW+JPEG.
With the X-T2, UHS-II cards topped out at 157 MB/s, with an average of 153.79. This was with the Lexar 2000x.
UHS-I saw speeds of an average of 73 MB/s.
With a 1GB buffer and memory card speeds like this, we are looking at some really good performance, actually some of the best on the market.
Keep in mind not all cards are created equal, some cards will last longer and have better warranties while often performing slower. You can identify this when you see cards that have a ten-year warranty vs. one or two years. However, many cards offer limited lifetime warranties so you never know how long your card is truly meant to last. That’s why I always just buy the fastest and refresh my cards every few years when prices come down.
These tests are taken out of an average of three, sometimes these cards can perform faster, sometimes slower.
All USB 3.0 tests were done using CrystalDisk – Windows 10, with the Lexar SR2.
| SD Memory Cards | USB 3.0 Read | USB 3.0 Write | Fujifilm X-T2 |
| UHS-II | |||
| Lexar 64GB 2000x | 272.7 MB/s | 244.5 MB/s | 153.79 MB/s |
| Sandisk Extreme Pro 64GB 300MB/s | 263.2 MB/s | 233.4 MB/S | 147.59 MB/s |
| Toshiba 64GB | 258.8 MB/s | 226.5 MB/s | 143.43 MB/s |
| Transcend 64GB | 290.2 MB/s | 182.1 MB/s | 122.17 MB/s |
| Delkin 64GB 250MB/s | 271.6 MB/s | 235.3 MB/s | 139.70 MB/s |
| Sandisk Extreme Pro 64GB | 260.5 MB/s | 214.8 MB/s | 92.91 MB/s |
| Sony M 64GB 100MB/s | 253.2 MB/s | 91.62 MB/s | 83.35 MB/s |
| Lexar 64GB 1000x | 147.4 MB/s | 78.4 MB/s | 64.92 MB/s |
| UHS-I | |||
| Sandisk Extreme Pro 64GB U3 | 98.6 MB/s | 90.8 MB/s | 73.52 MB/s |
| Samsung Pro 64GB U3 | 97.7 MB/s | 78.6 MB/s | 73.04 MB/s |
| Kingston 64GB U3 | 98.1 MB/s | 90.4 MB/s | 72.34 MB/s |
| Samsung Pro 64GB U1 | 96.3 MB/s | 82.2 MB/s | 67.83 MB/s |
| Samsung Pro+ 64GB U3 | 97.5 MB/s | 87.3 MB/s | 66.33 MB/s |
| Sony 64GB U3 – Old Model | 96.5 MB/s | 84.5 MB/s | 63.51 MB/s |
| PNY 64GB U1 | 96.5 MB/s | 66.5 MB/s | 56.00 MB/s |
| Sandisk Extreme Plus 64GB U3 | 99.0 MB/s | 64.4 MB/s | 55.70 MB/s |
| Transcend 64GB U3 | 96.7 MB/s | 68.4 MB/s | 55.52 MB/s |
| PNY 64GB U3 | 96.5 MB/s | 66.1 MB/s | 55.30 MB/s |
| Lexar 633x 64GB U3 | 93.3 MB/s | 67.3 MB/s | 55.02 MB/s |
| Lexar 600x 64GB U1 | 95.4 MB/s | 64.8 MB/s | 53.29 MB/s |
| Sony 64GB U3 – New Model | 96.7 MB/s | 56.2 MB/s | 49.27 MB/s |
| Sandisk Extreme 64GB U3 | 72.43 MB/s | 54.1 MB/s | 47.31 MB/s |
| Samsung 64GB U1 EVO | 47.7 MB/s | 27.3 MB/s | 24.00 MB/s |
Recommended SD Memory Cards For The X-T2
Best UHS-II Memory Cards
The fastest UHS-II memory card for the X-T2 is the Lexar 2000 UHS-II, and the second is the Sandisk Extreme Pro 300MB/s UHS-II card. However, Lexar cards have been giving people a lot of problems so I had to remove them from the list.
Sandisk Extreme Pro 300 64GB
Sandisk memory cards really are the best for Fujifilm cameras now that the Lexar we all knew and loved is gone. While Lexar, Delkin, and Sony did outperform Sandisk by a few MB/s in this particular test, the speed difference is negligible and the Sandisk Extreme 300 cards are really worth it, especially considering they have a lifetime warranty.
– Amazon
Sony G UHS-II 64GB
Although I didn’t include the Sony G cards in the chart, it is a card I use regularly and I do recommend them. They perform very well in Fujifilm cameras and have very good performance compared to other cards as you can see in the X-T3 memory card tests.
– Amazon
Best UHS-I Memory Cards
If you’re looking to save a little cash and don’t find yourself doing a lot of burst photography, then UHS-I cards will work great in this camera.
Sandisk Extreme Pro U3 64GB
The Sandisk Extreme Pro is the best-performing and most reliable UHS-I memory card out there. Nothing is a better buy. – Amazon / Adorama / B&H
Samsung Pro 64GB U3
Samsung isn’t as well known for its standard-sized memory cards as they are for its microSD cards. However, they make really good cards. I’ve seen issues with Samsung cards in some brands of cameras, but they work great with the Fujifilm XT2 and all their other cameras as well. The only downside is that BHphoto doesn’t sell them. – Amazon
Using Micro SD Memory Cards
I touch on this subject in the frequently asked question but I wanted to go into a little more detail on my experiences using Micro SD cards since a lot of times they are a less expensive option.
When you use Micro SD cards you have a tiny little card that fits inside an adapter that then fits inside your camera. After using Micro cards for only a few days, I’m already starting to see problems.
With me, I’m getting issues with the micro card moving and shifting around in the adapter causing the camera to display Memory Card Errors. You then have to open up the card slot, secure the card and you’re good to go . . . until it happens again.
This won’t happen with every card, and I’m experimenting with different brands, but because it’s happening to me, it means it will happen to other people, so I can’t say I recommend buying micro SD memory cards to save yourself a few dollars. This problem is actually quite annoying.
The other reason I don’t like Micro SD cards is because they are extremely small and easy to lose.
In our cameras, we are constantly swapping cards taking them in and out. Micro SD cards are mostly designed for cell phones and other small devices where for the most part they remain in the device permanently. I haven’t lost a card yet, but I could see it being a disaster waiting to happen.
X-T2 Dual Slot Memory Card Configurations
You have a few options for taking advantage of the two UHS-II memory card slots in the X-T2.
Backup: This will mirror the card slot 1 with card slot 2. Keep in mind, that when you have this set, you are slowing down your whole system to whatever the slowest card you have is. In other words, the camera can only perform as fast as what’s in slot 2.
Overflow: This is great if you use smaller cards and are worried about running out of space. Once the memory card in slot 1 is full, the camera will start writing to slot 2.
Raw+JPEG: This setting will write RAW to slot 1 and JPEG to slot 2. I haven’t noticed this method slowing down the performance of the UHS-II memory card.
Fujifilm X-T2 Frequently Asked Questions
Can I use Micro SD Memory Cards in the Fujifilm X-T2?
Yes, you can. There are even UHS-II micro SD memory cards, however, only the newest Micro SD memory cards seem to perform as well as SD cards. I’ve been benchmarking Micro SD memory cards on my GoPro Hero5 memory card page.
I plan on incorporating more Micro SD cards into these tests in the future as I get a lot of people asking me about them.
What Cards Work Best For 4k Video?
This is a huge topic and a very important question. I spend a lot of time testing cards with various cameras on this subject. Especially cameras with high data rates like the Canon 1DX II and the Canon 5D IV. For the Fujifilm X-T2, I’ve yet to really run into problems with cards not working for 4k video. The Fujifilm X-T2 has a data rate of only 100Mbps. While this isn’t a terrible data rate to have, it also doesn’t pack a whole ton of information and won’t require a very fast card.
100Mb/s (megabits per second) is only 12.5MB/s (Megabytes per second). Based on that alone, almost every card above should work. The only reason they wouldn’t is if you run into maybe some sections in the flash memory that chug or run slower. I’ve had some older cards perform very inconsistently with read and write speeds. So just stick with new U3 cards and you’ll never have those problems, as U3 guarantees a minimum of 30MB/s transfer rate.
My Card Isn’t Fast, What’s Wrong?
This is a popular one. Sometimes, some cards are just bad, but there are a few things you can look into.
-You might just have a bad card, send it back. It happens sometimes.
-You could have a fake card! On Amazon and even on eBay there are a lot of counterfeit cards floating around. It’s sad when I get emails from people who have fallen into this trap. A card will be labeled Sandisk Extreme Pro or something, but it’s actually a crappy old piece of junk. Make sure you always buy your cards from an authorized Amazon dealer, preferably orders that are fulfilled by Amazon themselves, or go with Adorama and B&HPhoto.
-Some cards sometimes perform a little slower until you put a few shots on them. Don’t ask me why, I haven’t been able to figure this out. I get this with some of my Lexar cards and some Transcend cards. Throw a few shots on your card to see if that fixes some problems when bursting.
-If your UHS-II card is running really slow, shine a flashlight into your X-T2 and make sure none of the pins are bent. I’ve seen this happen. So be careful when inserting your cards into your camera, never force them.
-Make sure the gold-plated connectors on your memory cards are clean. Every so often when I put a card into the camera doing these tests it will run super slow. I’ll take it out, wipe it down, then everything is fine again. So check the pins on your card and give them a nice wipe-down with your shirt or something.
Do I really need a UHS-II memory card?
Honestly, probably not. The Fujifilm X-T2 has a nice 1GB buffer that takes a while to fill. The UHS-I do run pretty quick as well, some UHS-II cards often don’t even run much faster than UHS-I cards anyway. So unless you do a lot of burst shooting or even a lot of HDR photography where you’re bracketing a lot, you can likely get by just fine with UHS-I.
What Size Memory Card Should I Get – 32GB or 64GB?
Personally, I rarely fill a 32GB card. In my X-T2 I run two 32GB cards, so if I do fill one, it will just overflow to the other card. This almost never happens unless I’m shooting a video. So if you do find yourself shooting a lot of videos, go with the 64GB cards, otherwise, two 32GB have been working great for me.
Best SD Memory Card Fuji X-T2 Conclusions
After finishing the test, I had to double-check my results, I’ve never seen a camera perform this well with SD cards and it surprised me it did so much better than the X-Pro2. This makes the Fujifilm X-T2 one of the fastest cameras at writing to memory cards on the market, completely destroying all of the competition. Aside from the Canon 1DX II with its insanely fast CFast memory cards of course.
To truly maximize the potential of your X-T2 you should stick with the Lexar 2000x or Toshiba UHS-II memory cards. Nothing else compares to the speed you get from these two cards. However, if you just need a card to run in your second slot as a backup or overflow, then a fast UHS-I card may suit your needs just fine.
| **This website contains affiliate links. We will earn a small commission on purchases made through these links. Some of the links used in these articles will direct you to Amazon. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. |
Can you please test SANDISK microSDXC Extreme Pro 64 GB with SD adapter? I find the microSDXC card prices lower than SDXC card.
I have a bunch of new cards I’ll be testing, and there is a new Sony UHS-II that was just announced. I’ll test a few micro’s when that new Sony comes in. But it likely won’t be for a few weeks. You can check the USB r/w speeds on the GoPro page for the Sandisk card. https://alikgriffin.com/best-memory-cards-for-the-gopro-hero5/
Seems like it runs about the same speed.
I don’t usually test micro cards though because as you can see from the GoPro page, there are a ton of them and these test are a lot of work.
If you want though, I can throw one in my X-T2 just to see how it works.
Thanks for the link.
I am trying to understand if there is any speed difference between microsdxc and sdxc card, since you had already listed SANDISK SDXC Extreme Pro 64 GB in your test results I was hoping to know the performance of microSDXC version which seems to retail for less price for some strange reason. If you happen to have same brand and speed class micro and sd please run one test as I am curious to know if there is any penalty when choosing microsdxc. If its same I wonder why cameras dont go for microSDXC?
I own most micro SD cards out there and have tested them. I find a lot of the older or cheaper brands either run very hot, or have very inconsistent behavior. Even with Sandisk cards you need to be aware where the cards come from and the serials, because there are some older models that are just garbage, I’ve seen reports of them melting in devices. Like the old Sandisk Ultra. The new Ultra is great though.
I haven’t run across any problems with the Extreme Pros, except for in the GoPro camera, for some reason GoPro cameras hate Extreme Pros. (not the cards fault) If you buy micro SD cards just make sure to buy the new models if you can, sometimes they are labeled on Amazon. There are even UHS-II micro SD cards now.
Ultimately I think it’s all the same components, same flash etc, just configured in a smaller size.
The reason I don’t like using micro SD cards is they are extremely small and very easy to misplace. They’re fine in phones or other devices where you never remove them once place, but man, those things are so small. Just never take it out of the adapter.
okay but what would be old (how old) and where does it say so? thanks!
Most of the stuff on Amazon is ok as long as you go with the good brands. There was a Sandisk Ultra card, I think made in Malaysia that was performing very poorly. Check out that Gopro page I linked you above for info on that. And sorry for the late reply on this stuff.
Thank you for this. I was looking for some recommendations and this article explained things perfectly. Have you experienced any problems with the Lexar X2000 after longer use? There are a lot of 1 star reviews on Amazon complaining that the card failed after just a few weeks of use. I ended up going with the Sandisk 64GB since I don’t need the burst speeds. Thanks again.
No prob, I haven’t had any issues with Lexar, although I’ve heard people have had some issues, but only recently. Possibly a bad batch went out or something.
In practice the more full drives get the slower they get. Also, some cards depending on the flash and the controller will write to different sections on the card to make the flash last longer since all flash have a limited amount of write cycles.
However, your typical card that doesn’t do that will only slow down if your deleting photos off the card and the cards data becomes fragmented. So I don’t think you’ll have problems with smaller cards, but it isn’t something I’ve tested on these cards.
It’s hard to know which type of flash or controller is in each card since these companies don’t advertise it.
thanks for this too. How about updating the ranking with Sandisk Extreme Pro 64GB 300MB/s and other fast cards?
That’s coming. There are a few new cards I’m waiting for first, like the new Sony UHS-II card.
Thank you for the great article. Just upgraded to Lexar
Anyone have the answer to the above “strap” question?
It’s the LeicaTime Deluxe Strap. I believe the color was Rally but I can’t remember for sure. http://leicatime.com/
Thank you
What happens if there are different speed cards in the slots? So slot1 uhsii and slot2 uhsi or slower
It depends on how you’re using them. If you’re shooting RAW+JPEG and raw is going to slot 1 and JPEG is going to slot 2, you won’t see a huge slow down except for the slow down that happens from putting extra pressure on the processor to make two files. If you’re backing up to slot 2 then you’ll slow down the whole system to the slowest card. If you’re doing Overflow, you’ll get UHS-II speeds until that card is full then it will slow down to the speed of card 2.
Thanks for that.
Makes sense when you think about it.
hi, thanks for the helpful post! Here’s my question. I ordered the Sandisk Extreme Pro UHS-II Micro SD (275 MByte/s) . It comes with a USB-Stick-Adapter. Not a SD-Card-Adapter. I asked Sandisk via Amazon and via customer Care if the Sandisk SD-Adapter can do that speed. Now guess what. On Amazon they reply No. And via email another guy replied, YES, any SD-Adapter can do that speed. Both from Custumer care!! In order to test it, I cannot unpack it without destroying the package, thus cannot return it. So…any clues? I just wanted the micro version, so i can use it both in my Gopro 5 Hero AND the Fuji XT2.
Also, that version of the Sandisk Extreme card isn’t very fast. If you can still return the card, for close to the same price you could probably get the Delkin UHS-II 250MB/s which is faster and less expensive, and just a simple ol Sandisk Extreme micro card for your GoPro since the GoPro does not need or even use fast cards. It has a bottleneck that is rather pathetic. I think it was around 7MB/s.
thanks Alik!! But the extreme Pro isn’t very fast? 275 MB looks fast to me. Now I get it, the GoPro can’t use that speed, but the XT2 can, right? Do you mean the specs dont match reality with the Extreme Pro, is it slower than those 275MB/s? thanks for pointing me to the Delkin, but i’m somewhat nervous about using a brand i have never heard of. Might be mere ignorance =)
On the chart above I have a column that shows how fast the card performs in the camera. The Sandisk UHS-II 300MB/s card runs at 147MB/s the X-T2 vs the other Sandisk UHS-II which is the 280MB/s card which runs at 92MB/s in the X-T2. While it’s fast in a computer, cameras use the cards differently. I’ve actually been using Delkin for a long time. Never had any problems yet, except one. I was using a Delkin micro SD card in my X100F, and the card kept coming loose within the SD adapter causes memory card disconnection errors. Switching to a different brand of adapter fixed this.
thanks man, you’ve been extremely helpful. Crazy how the seemingly good solution can be bad or useless. So i’ll return the micro and get a SD. One might rely on the specs, how hard can it be thinks me =). Oh well, thanks!
thanks, i thought the Extreme Pro makes the GoPro faster. Well now, it it does not, then i’ll avoid that cheap adapter i guess, and just buy an SD for the XT2.
one more thing, you’re saying “In second place is the Toshiba UHS-II.” But according to the chart that’s the Sandisk with 147 MB/s. Did you add the Sandisk later ?
Yes.