The Ultimate Guide To Memory Cards

A comparison and speed tests between all the most popular memory cards and how they perform in various cameras and computers.

Best Memory Cards By Camera

A list of memory card speed tests in each camera. Over the last several years I’ve been testing the most popular memory cards in each camera to find which memory cards work the best in each camera. Use this guide to find the best memory cards for your camera.

I’ve broken the list down between camera brands.

Canon Memory Card Tests

Canon cameras in general have always had the best memory card performance. Their processors and bus speeds seem to be superior to a lot of the competition with the way memory cards work and how consistent they are between all their cameras.

Most memory cards work for Canon but they do not official support Sony memory cards.

Sony Memory Card Tests

Sony cameras until recently have been plagued by a bus speed bottleneck. Most of their cameras are only capable of write to memory cards at a speed of about 30MB/s. New cameras like the Sony A9 and the A7rIII finally have improved memory card performance.

When shooting video in Sony cameras you will not be able to use Samsung memory cards, they are not compatible.

Fujifilm Memory Card Tests

Second to Canon Fujifilm has always has incredible memory card performance between all their cameras.

Nikon Memory Card Tests

Nikon is somewhere between Canon and Fujifilm. Some of their cameras have the 30MB/s bottleneck some don’t. 

Panasonic Memory Card Tests

Like Sony cameras Panasonic typically has poor memory card performance. They have the a similar 35MB/s bottleneck bus speed as Sony. The GH5 gets around this by using UHS-II memory cards which have dual lanes, so you get around 36Mb/s + 36Mb/s with a combined speed of around 70MB/s. Many Fujifilm, Canon and Nikon cameras get these same speeds with only UHS-I cards. 

Olympus Memory Card Tests

Some of Olympus’s older cameras have bus speed bottlenecks which restricted memory card write speeds. The new Pen-F however is much quicker. I still have a few more Olympus cameras to test out.

Pentax Memory Card Tests

I haven’t tested to many Pentax cameras but the Pentax K-1 performs very similar to the Sony A7r. It has a bus speed bottleneck so memory card write speeds are limited to about 30MB/s. 

GoPro Memory Card Tests

The GoPro Hero 5 was notorious for having issues with memory cards. A lot of great memory cards like the Sandisk Extreme Pro just wouldn’t work properly. However, the Hero 6 uses all new hardware and most of the memory card issues seen in older cameras have disappeared. 

Drones Memory Card Tests

Every memory card I’ve tested in the DJI spark worked great. The camera on the Spark doesn’t really have great performance and it doesn’t require very fast memory card write speeds.

SmartPhones Memory Card Tests

The Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+ is one of the few popular smart phones to allow memory cards. I’ve tested most of the Micro SD memory cards in this smart phone to see which perform the best. The results are very surprising as performance between cards varies wildly.

Memory Card Types And Performance

SD Memory Card USB 3.0 Speed Chart

SD memory cards are the most popular type of memory card.

This list contains both UHS-II and UHS-I memory cards. To obtain the read and write speeds I use the Lexar SR2 in Windows 10 via USB 3.0.

Micro SD Memory Card Speed Charts

Micro SD memory cards are now extremely popular in smaller electronic devices, drones and action cameras. They usually match the performance of the larger SD memory cards, but are much smaller. I don’t recommend using micro SD memory cards in cameras that require regular SD cards because you have to adapt the card and sometimes various adapters can cause connection issues between the card and camera.

XQD Memory Card Speed Charts

Currently Sony the only company manufacturing XQD memory cards. Lexar was but they’ve since have been discontinued.

I want to retest some of these cards in a new computer using Windows 10 as I don’t get great performance on a Mac or on my older MacPro 2009 with bootcamp.

These tests here were done with my old MacPro 2009 in bootcamp using Crystal Disk. On my Macbook Pro (Mid 2014) using AJA System Test, the cards run slightly slower. Although I think the the slower speeds is because I’m testing via USB XQD memory card readers rather than Thunderbolt.

CFast Memory Cards

CFast Memory cards seem to be a lot faster then XQD memory cards. Albeit, XQD memory cards are rated with some great specs, I just don’t see that in the real world compared to CFast memory cards. It also could be that I was using a Thunderbolt memory card reader when testing CFast. I haven’t been able to find any Thunderbolt reader for XQD.

When looking at in-camera comparisons, for example Sony A9 to the Canon 1DX II, the CFast memory cards are about 110MB/s faster.

Very few still cameras actually use CFast memory cards today and they are mostly seen in video cameras.

CF Memory Cards

CF memory cards are starting to show their age. Canon still uses them in some of their full frame cameras but I imagine they’ll be completely gone with the next generation of cameras and replaced by either CFast or XQD.

Memory Card FAQ

What Do All The Numbers And Letters On Memory Cards Mean?

SDHC – SDHC indicates that a card is going to use the 32-bit Fat32 file structure. This can have some performance limitations on cards. Some of the new Speed Classes like V30, V60 aren’t available on these fat32 cards. Also, you’ll see a file size limit of around 4GB. 

SDXC – SDXC indicates that the card is going to be 64-bit using the exFat file structure. This means you get all the of what technology memory cards have to offer. The V30, v60 speed classes and larger file sizes.

Class 10 – This is an older designation that they still put on memory cards. There use to be other classes written on memory cards, typically it would be a number inside a circle. Now every card is pretty much Class 10 and new Speed Classes have come around like U1 / U3 and V30 / V60 etc. So it’s all getting a little cluttered. Class 10 will give you a minimum guaranteed write speed of 10MB/s.

U1 / U3 – These are speed classes like Class 10 that indicate the minimum write speed a card is capable of. U1 is 10MB/s and U3 is 30MB/s. Typically if you’re shooting high bitrate video, you’ll want the U3 cards. Some cameras like Sony’s won’t even let you use their advanced video codecs without a U3 memory card.

V30 / V60 / V90 – This is the latest speed class. Just like Class 10 and U1 / U3, this speed class has to do with guaranteed minimum write speeds. V30 = 30MB/s, V60 = 60MB/s and so forth.

UHS-I / UHS-II – UHS-I and UHS-II memory cards are built completely different. UHS-II memory cards have a second set of pins that basically give the memory cards dual lanes to read and write data to and from. This makes these memory cards potentially twice as fasted when used in UHS-II devices.

Memory Card Trouble Shooting

Memory Card Not Working

There are several reasons a memory card may not work and I’ll list a few that I’ve seen or have personally dealt with.

1. Bad Memory Card – Every so often you can get a bad memory card, either they are DOA or they are just defective and die after a short time. Most memory card brands offer a 10-year to lifetime warranty. Sony cards usually only offer a 1-year warranty. So you can always send your card back and try a new one. 

2. Brand Incompatibility – Some camera brands don’t like some memory cards. For example Sony cards do not like Samsung memory cards and they will not work for video. Canon says their cameras don’t like Sony cards, although I’ve yet to have problems with Sony cards in Canon cameras, but those are a few example. If you’re having issues with a certain card in a camera, try a different brand. Sandisk cards work perfect in most cameras.

3. Memory Card Is Slow – Again you could have a defective memory card, or, you could have a counterfeit memory card. If you bought your memory card off of Ebay and you didn’t buy it from the manufacturer or trusted camera store, chances are, you could have a counterfeit memory card. Always make sure you buy your memory cards from a trusted source. BHphoto, Amazon, Adorama etc.