Round-Up: 15 microSDHC Cards, Benchmarked And Reviewed

Features
By Manuel Masiero, Achim Roos
published

With rated write performance as high as 10 MB/s and capacities as high as 32 GB, there's plenty of choice in the microSDHC marketplace. Do the contenders actually hit their performance targets? Interestingly, some of them are actually quite a bit better!

Comparison Table And Test Configuration

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ManufacturerAdataAdataKingstonKingston
DesignationmicroSDHC Class 6microSDHC Class 6microSDHC CardmicroSDHC Card
ModelAUSDH8GCL6-RAUSDH16GCL6-RSDC10/4GBSDC10/8GB
Class661010
Capacity8 GB16 GB4 GB8 GB
Other Capacities4, 16 GB4, 8 GB8, 16, 32 GB4, 16, 32 GB
SDHC Adapter / USB Card ReaderNo / NoNo / NoYes / NoYes / No
Price$10$19$11$17
WarrantyLifetimeLifetimeLifetimeLifetime
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ManufacturerKingstonLexarLexarMemoryStar
DesignationmicroSDHC CardHigh-Speed Mobile microSDHC Card (Performance Kit)High-Speed Mobile microSDHC Card (Performance Kit)microSDHC Card
ModelSDC10/16GBLSDMI16GBSBNARLSDMI32GBSBNARN/A
Class1061010
Capacity16 GB16 GB32 GB8 GB
Other Capacities4, 8, 32 GB8, 32 GB8, 16 GB4, 16, 32 GB
SDHC Adapter / USB Card ReaderYes / NoNo / YesNo / YesYes / No
Price$55$31$81N/A
WarrantyLifetime10 Years10 Years10 Years
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ManufacturerMemoryStarMemoryStarPatriotSandisk
DesignationmicroSDHC CardmicroSDHC CardLX Series microSDHCmicroSDHC
ModelN/AN/APSF16GMCSDHC10SDSDQ-008G-E11M
Class106104
Capacity16 GB16 GB16 GB8 GB
Other Capacities4, 8, 32 GB4, 8, 32 GB4, 8, 32 GB4, 16, 32 GB
SDHC Adapter / USB Card ReaderYes / NoYes / NoYes / NoNo / No
PriceN/AN/A$22$22
Warranty10 Years10 Years5 Years5 Years
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ManufacturerSandiskSamsungSilicon Power
DesignationMobile Ultra microSDHCmicroSD Plusmicro SDHC Memory Card
ModelSDSDQY-016G-A11MMB-MP8GASP032GBSTH004V10-SP
Class464
Capacity16 GB8 GB32 GB
Other Capacities4, 8 GB16 GB4, 8, 16 GB
SDHC Adapter / USB Card ReaderNo / YesYes / NoYes / No
Price$84N/AN/A
Warranty10 Years10 YearsLifetime

Test System

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System Hardware
HardwareDetails
CPUIntel Core i7-920 (Bloomfield) 45 nm, 2.66 GHz, 8 MB Shared L3 Cache
Motherboard (LGA 1366)Supermicro X8SAX, Revision: 1.1, Chipset: Intel X58 + ICH10R, BIOS: 1.0B
RAM3 x 1 GB DDR3-1333 Corsair CM3X1024-1333C9DHX
Hard DriveSeagate NL35 400 GB, ST3400832NS, 7200 RPM, SATA 1.5Gb/s, 8 MB Cache
Storage ControllerHighpoint Rocket 620, Marvell 88SE9128
Power SupplyOCZ EliteXstream 800 W, OCZ800EXS-EU
Benchmarks
Performance MeasurementsCrystalDiskMark 3.0
System Software & Driver
Operating SystemWindows Vista Ultimate SP1
Manuel Masiero
38 Comments Comment from the forums
  • sayakbiswas
    interesting read, but there should hv been more 32gb sticks.....they r quite affordable nowadays...
    Reply
  • BulkZerker
    sayakbiswasinteresting read, but there should hv been more 32gb sticks.....they r quite affordable nowadays...
    I wouldn't consider $40+ (shipped) affordable. Also you have to think that Tom's isn't necessarily buying these cards for personal or business use. 9x out of 10 these cards are donated by their respective companies. Or a warehouse such as Tiger Direct/Newegg.
    Reply
  • CaedenV
    last summer I needed some memory sticks for my video camera and decided on a pair of 16GB PNY Professional SD cards which I have been very happy with. Read maxes out my USB port, and writing is consistently above 19MB/s during file transfers.
    Reply
  • In your test setup, I could not find a description of the interface that you use to connect these cards to the PC.
    Reply
  • CaedenV
    BulkZerkerI wouldn't consider $40+ (shipped) affordable. Also you have to think that Tom's isn't necessarily buying these cards for personal or business use. 9x out of 10 these cards are donated by their respective companies. Or a warehouse such as Tiger Direct/Newegg.$40 IS affordable for fast and dense media. You do not put fast huge SD cards in a cell phone or cheap camera, you put them in high end still cameras, and budget (but quality) video cameras. Considering when I picked mine up the nearest competition for fast SD cards were in the $80+ range, and I picked up 2 at that price I would say that $40 is quite good. If you have a cheaper camera, there is much cheaper (but still good) media out there.
    Reply
  • stridervm
    Would it be possible that Sandisk gave you a mislabeled Class 4 Micro SD card? Quite suspicious that they would have Class 4 cards that would perform like at least a class 6 one....
    Reply
  • The_Trutherizer
    I've always wondered how good these things would do in a RAID configuration. Say you got a Raid controller capable of handling 32 drives and you found a way to hook up microSD cards to it. What performance would you get? And would it be economically viable at all?
    Reply
  • sayakbiswas
    BulkZerkerI wouldn't consider $40+ (shipped) affordable. Also you have to think that Tom's isn't necessarily buying these cards for personal or business use. 9x out of 10 these cards are donated by their respective companies. Or a warehouse such as Tiger Direct/Newegg.

    40$ for 32gb MicroSDHC is affordable when you consider the fact that 64gb MicroSDXC cards costs 280$+. I am employing a Nikon D7000 dslr when im thinking about these cards.
    Reply
  • theprov
    Can i assume that a "32 gb class 10 kingston micro sd" perform at least as much as a 16 gb? I'm buying a 32 gb soon, and i don't want to find out bad surprises....
    Reply
  • happyballz
    Should have tested them all in one size or in two different sizes (one small one big).. performance does vary, and sometimes significantly because of design mistakes between the sizes etc.

    On a side note what is the deal with tom's being such crappy optimized webpage? I open 5-6 tabs and everything crawls to a molasses-slow on my laptop. I can open 15-20 tabs in other sites no problem.

    Reply