13 SDHC Memory Cards Reviewed

PNY Optima and Optima Pro (32 GB, 4 GB)

PNY sent us two SDHC cards for review: an Optima card at 32 GB, and an Optima Pro model at 4 GB capacity. Optima cards are rated Class 4, and they are available in 4 GB, 8 GB, 16 GB and 32 GB sizes; the Optima Pro series is Class 6 rated and can be purchased at 4 GB, 8 GB and 16 GB. The 32 GB top model is still rather expensive, at $149.99, but you’ll get the largest available SD card capacity for your money. Read throughput reached 15.5 MB/s, while sequential writes were between 9.7 and 10.8 MB/s.

We were surprised to see the write performance numbers of the Optima Pro card, which was designed to be the faster card. It maxed out at 8.4 to 9.0 MB/s, which is actually less than the regular Optima card reached, and is the slowest write performance in this roundup. It is still well within the necessary 6 MB/s minimum sequential write throughput, but you’d expect something better from the top model. Read performance, however, was nice, as the Optima Pro maxed out our test environment at up to 19.7 MB/s.