mrSHEiK124's SDHC Card Benchmarks

[mrSHEiK124]

I've been looking all over the web for some decent roundup of SDHC cards that didn't just revolve around SanDisk's different cards and how they stack up - so I figured I'd try and start my own. (can we get a sticky here?)

I'm using CrystalDiskMark for my benchmarking, with a Sony MRW-EA7 reader. I have CDM set to the smallest possible file size (50 MB), which is smaller than the buffer size of most DSLRs (this is good).

Please format your entries as follows, for ease of navigation

Manufacturer:
Type/Model:
Capacity:
Class:
Rated Speed (Read/Write):
Sequential Speed (Read/Write):
Random 512K (Read/Write):
Date Purchased:
Made In:

Please include an actual photo of the card in your posession, and if possible, where it was manufactured. Go ahead and include comments if you think they're helpful.

 

[mrSHEiK124]

Manufacturer: SanDisk
Type/Model: VideoHD
Capacity: 16 GB
Class: 6
Rated Speed (Read/Write): 15MB/sec / 7MB/sec
Sequential Speed (Read/Write): 20.85 MB/s / 12.86 MB/s
Random 512K (Read/Write): 20.39 MB/s / 2.373 MB/s
Date Purchased: 06/2010
Made In: China

SanDisk has definitely underrated this card. Outperforms that POS Kingston of mine. No problems shooting RAW or 1080p with a T2i.

 

[mrSHEiK124]

Manufacturer: Kingston
Type/Model: Ultimate
Capacity: 16 GB
Class: 10
Rated Speed (Read/Write): 22 MB/s Read / 18 MB/s Write
Sequential Speed (Read/Write): 20 MB/s Read / 10.83 MB/s Write
Random 512K (Read/Write): 15.32 MB/s Read / 0.438 MB/s Write
Date Purchased: 06/2010
Made In: Taiwan

This card is a total POS. There are Class 4 cards that outperform it (write speed). It doesn't hold up to advertised write speed. I lost an entire day's worth of footage from my T2i to this card and stopped using it.

 

[mrSHEiK124]

Manufacturer: Kingston
Type/Model: Ultimate 133x
Capacity: 8 GB
Class: 6
Rated Speed (Read/Write): 100x = up to 15MB/sec write speed
Sequential Speed (Read/Write): 19.27 MB/s / 11.80 MB/s
Random 512K (Read/Write): 18.96 MB/s / 6.252 MB/s
Date Purchased: 06/2010
Made In: Taiwan

Oddly a better performer than their Class 10 card. Go figure. Never had any problems with this one.

 

[AkumaX]

cool maybe set up like a google doc for this stuff?

 

[iGas]

na

 

[zip1385]

Manufacturer: Kingston
Type/Model: SD4/16GB
Capacity: 16 GB
Class: 4
Rated Speed (Read/Write): Class 4
Sequential Speed (Read/Write): 20.44 MB/s Read / 11.96 MB/s Write
Random 512K (Read/Write): 20.17 MB/s Read / 2.243 MB/s Write
Date Purchased: 02/2010
Made In: Japan

Works in the Canon T2i and GoPro HD no problems what so ever.

 

[mrSHEiK124]

Manufacturer: Kingston
Type/Model: SD4/16GB
Capacity: 16 GB
Class: 4
Rated Speed (Read/Write): Class 4
Sequential Speed (Read/Write): 20.44 MB/s Read / 11.96 MB/s Write
Random 512K (Read/Write): 20.17 MB/s Read / 2.243 MB/s Write
Date Purchased: 02/2010
Made In: Japan

Works in the Canon T2i and GoPro HD no problems what so ever.

Made in Japan?! Wow, two Made in Taiwan Kingston cards here, more expensive, and not even as good. I feel ripped off.

 

[AkumaX]

Manufacturer: Patriot
Type/Model: LX Series PSF16GSDHC10
Capacity: 16 GB
(Sorry no pics but it looks like this - http://www.frys.com/product/5982924)

Class: 10
Rated Speed (Read/Write): ??? / 10 MB/s Write
Sequential Speed (Read/Write): 20.49 MB/s Read / 15.12 MB/s Write
Random 512K (Read/Write): 18.76 MB/s Read / 1.667 MB/s Write
Date Purchased: ~05/2010
Made In: Taiwan

Notes: I've had this card "fail" on me once (lost all pics/video). But it could have been just the card reader at the time. It's okay, the real trick is when you're recording video w/ the T2i, is to snap a bunch of pics, see if it overbuffers the memory card. Otherwise, it's a great card to transfer files from PC-PC. I still use it as my main card for the T2i.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Problem is this is so heavily reader dependent

http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=6007

this shows what happens with various readers. This is the closest to a roundup I could find.

 

[CuriousMike]

Seems like all my cards read at 20MB/sec.
My cheap Kingston 8GB card is the winner (barely); it has twice the random 512KB write performance of the other cards.

The reader I used, $7 at Frys

The cards

Manufacturer: Kingston
Type/Model: SD6/8GB-U Ultimate 133x
Capacity: 8GB
Class: 6
Rated Speed (Read/Write): n/a
Sequential Speed (Read/Write): 19.36 / 16.43
Random 512K (Read/Write): 19.07 / 7.188
Date Purchased: 2010
Made In: Taiwan

Manufacturer: Micro Center
Type/Model: 8GB SDHC Card
Capacity: 8GB
Class: 6
Rated Speed (Read/Write): n/a
Sequential Speed (Read/Write): 20.09 / 10.28
Random 512K (Read/Write): 19.90 / 3.67
Date Purchased: 2010
Made In: n/a

Manufacturer: Patriot
Type/Model:
Capacity: 4GB
Class: 6
Rated Speed (Read/Write): n/a
Sequential Speed (Read/Write): 20.85 / 10.20
Random 512K (Read/Write): 20.63 / 2.5
Date Purchased: n/a
Made In: Taiwan

Manufacturer: A Data
Type/Model: Turbo SDHC 4GB
Capacity: 4GB
Class: 6
Rated Speed (Read/Write): n/a
Sequential Speed (Read/Write): 20.82 / 14.18
Random 512K (Read/Write): 20.74 / 3.0
Date Purchased: n/a
Made In: n/a

 

[mrSHEiK124]

Problem is this is so heavily reader dependent

http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=6007

this shows what happens with various readers. This is the closest to a roundup I could find.

Ouch, might explain the difference in speeds between the two 8 GB Kingston 133x cards (me + CuriousMike).

Looks like this won't be possible/accurate unless everyone has the same reader

IIRC, hooking the camera up (T2i in this case) via USB is slower than most readers, right?

 

[CuriousMike]

I'm not convinced the readers get in the way.

The Rob Galbraith article shows a typical variance of ~ 100-200KB/sec between readers.

There certainly were instances were 1-2 MB/sec were seen, but that is the exception, not the rule.

Looking at the small sample we have here, and Robs site, cards really seem clumped together in 20, 15 and 10MB/sec ranges.

 

[mrSHEiK124]

Manufacturer: Lexar
Type/Model: Professional 133x / SD16GCRB133
Capacity: 16 GB
Class: 10
Rated Speed (Read/Write): Minimum sustained write speed 20 MB/s
Sequential Speed (Read/Write): 20.65 MB/s, 20.10 MB/s
Random 512K (Read/Write): 20.37 MB/s, 2.876 MB/s
Date Purchased: 2/2011
Made In: China

It's a steal @ $50 vs. ~$100 for Sandisk's 30 MB/s. Good for DSLR HD video.

 

[zip1385]

I have a 16GB Class 10 Transcend on the way which got a really nice review for 2 different places in terms of speed. I will have it Friday so will post up then.

 

[d4a2n0k]

Manufacturer: PNY
Type/Model: Professional / P-SDH8G10-XLR133-EF
Capacity: 8 GB
Class: 10
Rated Speed (Read/Write): up to 25MB/s Read, 20MB/s Write
Sequential Speed (Read/Write): 20.10 MB/s, 15.38 MB/s
Random 512K (Read/Write): 19.82 MB/s, 1.446 MB/s
Date Purchased: 1/2011
Made In: Korea

Pretty disappointed with these numbers.....

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

I'm not convinced the readers get in the way.

The Rob Galbraith article shows a typical variance of ~ 100-200KB/sec between readers.

There certainly were instances were 1-2 MB/sec were seen, but that is the exception, not the rule.

Looking at the small sample we have here, and Robs site, cards really seem clumped together in 20, 15 and 10MB/sec ranges.

If you look at the list of SDHC cards, just taking the first card, you see it range from 16 - 20 MB/sec.

Now that's SDHC. When it comes to CF? I see my Transcend 600x card ranging from 60 MB/sec => 90 MB/sec. It's pretty big of a difference.

 

[AkumaX]

Although not SD, thought you guys might be interested in these results

summary: reader makes a difference!
card tested: 512mb microsd

for fun, i was testing all the microsd cards i had (512mb, 1gb, 2gb, 4gb, 8gb, 16gb, 32gb) on just the sandisk microsdhc reader.

i noticed the 512mb performed remarkably well. so i retested the 512mb card on my kingston microsdhc reader, and a built-in sdcard reader attached to the front panel of the desktop, with an microsd->sd card adapter. results were a little surprising...
so i decided to use that card on other reads

 

[zip1385]

Here we go....

<picture to be added>

Manufacturer: Transcend
Type/Model: TS16GSDHC10
Capacity: 16 GB
Class: 10
Rated Speed (Read/Write): Class 10
Sequential Speed (Read/Write): 20.03 MB/s Read / 18.74 MB/s Write
Random 512K (Read/Write): 19.69 MB/s Read / 1.987 MB/s Write
Date Purchased: 02/2011
Made In: Taiwan

 

[zip1385]

Now that I think about it I think that CrystalDiskMark is not a good choice for testing these cards. Flash Memory Toolkit should work much better.