Round-Up: 15 microSDHC Cards, Benchmarked And Reviewed
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Page 1:microSDHC Cards For Mobile Devices
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Page 2:Adata microSDHC Class 6 (Class 6, 8/16 GB)
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Page 3:Kingston microSDHC Card (Class 10, 4/8/16 GB)
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Page 4:Lexar High-Speed Mobile microSDHC Card (Class 6, 16 GB And Class 10, 32 GB)
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Page 5:MemoryStar microSDHC Card (Class 6, 16 GB And Class 10, 8/16 GB)
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Page 6:Patriot LX Series microSDHC (Class 10, 16 GB)
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Page 7:SanDisk microSDHC (Class 4, 8 GB) And Mobile Ultra microSDHC (Class 4, 16 GB)
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Page 8:Samsung microSDHC Plus 8 GB (Class 6, 8 GB)
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Page 9:Silicon Power microSDHC Memory Card (Class 4, 32 GB)
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Page 10:Comparison Table And Test Configuration
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Page 11:Benchmark Results: Throughput
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Page 12:Benchmark Results: Random Reads And Writes
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Page 13:Which microSDHC Card Is Right For You?
Which microSDHC Card Is Right For You?
All of the microSDHC cards we tested perform as their vendors advertise. As a result, prospective buyers can be confident in the performance each of these models delivers.
The packaging tells you what class within the SD 2.0 specification your favorite card belongs to, indicating the minimum data transfer rate you can expect from it. We did not find a single performance disappointment. To the contrary, we found one sleeper. Although it's advertised as a Class 4 card, SanDisk's Mobile Ultra microSDHC matches the performance of the Class 10 cards we tests, going so far as to win the sequential read speed metric.
Only few manufacturers ship microSDHC cards without accessories. A SDHC adapter, which allows you to read the microSDHC card in a SDHC card reader, is included with nine of the 15 tested cards. Comparatively rare are USB readers, which are included with both Lexar cards and the SanDisk Mobile Ultra microSDHC. You'll predominantly come across USB readers when buying microSDHC cards that are not exclusively intended for mobile devices, but also for data exchange with a PC. However, none of the 15 tested cards include both adapters. The other extreme, no accessories at all, is rare: only the Adata cards and the other SanDisk model do not include any adapter at all.
- microSDHC Cards For Mobile Devices
- Adata microSDHC Class 6 (Class 6, 8/16 GB)
- Kingston microSDHC Card (Class 10, 4/8/16 GB)
- Lexar High-Speed Mobile microSDHC Card (Class 6, 16 GB And Class 10, 32 GB)
- MemoryStar microSDHC Card (Class 6, 16 GB And Class 10, 8/16 GB)
- Patriot LX Series microSDHC (Class 10, 16 GB)
- SanDisk microSDHC (Class 4, 8 GB) And Mobile Ultra microSDHC (Class 4, 16 GB)
- Samsung microSDHC Plus 8 GB (Class 6, 8 GB)
- Silicon Power microSDHC Memory Card (Class 4, 32 GB)
- Comparison Table And Test Configuration
- Benchmark Results: Throughput
- Benchmark Results: Random Reads And Writes
- Which microSDHC Card Is Right For You?
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.
$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 $40 is quite good. If you have a cheaper camera, there is much cheaper (but still good) media out there.
40$ 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.
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.
actually sandisk are exceptional cards, from past experience i have found that sandisk consistently have better performance and compatibility than many other brands. The class 4 could just be a lower binned class 10, which means not all class 4 will have this kind of performance (but will meet class 4)
@The_Trutherizer
I have often thought about such a setup too but i think the hardware and controllers required to transverse such a setup would probably not make it economically viable, still someone should do it just to say you can lol
@theprov
generally speaking no, but what you can deduce from this article is that if it's labeled class 10, then it will guarantee to meet the minimum performance of a class 10 (although i have to say i used some no name cards before labeled as class 10 but barely beat a class 4, but kingston is a good brand and should easily meet class 10 specs), if you really need better speeds then class 10 than you need to look towards the newer UHS (U1 and U2) speeds, but bear in mind their are precious few hardware that can utilize such speeds and the cards are ridiculously expensive. From my past experience i have found kingston to be on par with sandisk when it comes to performance and compatibility so i dont think your going find any bad surprises
And secondly, you do not ask the producers for a sample card. They will send you the best of their cards. Instead, you should buy them as a regular buyer. You know what I mean.
Also I have found that IO results differ wildly depending on what card reader is used. I don't understand how but I have seen cards perform at 25% the speed just by benchmarking using a different card reader.
Any testing been done by Toms in this area?
It's a common problem for people who run Android on their B&N Nook Color off of an SD card, as small random reads and writes are most of what the OS does, and the difference in performance between a class 4 Sandisk and any class 10 card is night and day.