Memory The SD card Speed test thread

I decided to test the speed of my SD cards this evening, with slightly surprising results! I used CrystalDiskMark Here are the results of 6 very different cards, ranging from a fiver to £45. Feel free to add your own results if you have any different cards

 

Are you testing them through usb2.0 or usb3.0?

 

The 64GB SanDisk Extreme microSDXC UHS-I card currently residing in my Surface Pro 2:



And for reference, the SanDisk SSD they put in here:

 

Testing on the Lian Li Memory card reader that came with the case.

 

That will be usb2. I wonder what the manufactures use to test as the Samsung Pro is " up to 80mb/s "

 

I think at least 3 of those tested say the same. It seems little odd that they are all so close. It has to be the reader. I hope the camera has better hardware to take advantage of the supposed speed.

 

Would you actually notice the difference in real time use?

 

Absolutely with a decent dslr. Or even any decent point and shoot with a good burst rate You really notice the time it takes for a camera to clear its buffer and write the images to the card.

Not so sure if it's only going in a tablet or a phone for storage.

 

Agreed. Faster is nicer if you're regularly copying large files to and from your card as I do with the Surface, but for generic use then the entry level cards from most reputable suppliers will do the job.

Cameras and HD video are what need the speed really.

The price difference from mid-range to top end on SD cards is eyewatering.

 

Yeah, as with most things it's a case of diminishing returns. It's quite interesting to see some actual real-world performance figures as it's all well and good manufacturers claiming that their top-end SD card can do "up to 80MB/s" and the mid-range "up to 50MB/s", but if in the real world both cards perform much of a muchness then you're really not getting much for the (considerable) extra expenditure.

 

I was quite pleased, mine is advertised as 40MB each way and it marginally exceeded that, albeit in a synthetic benchmark

 

Thanks for the education, I do tend to get decent cards for my DSLR but never really new why just that I have been advised to do so.