Memory Performance

Here are performance measurements for various memory cards. Remember that for digital cameras write performance is the most important because it can limit a camera's shooting speed. Read performance is important when a digital camera is in playback mode. The following measurements were all done using the same USB 2.0 multi-format card reader. The contents of the table below show that practical performance can be very different from advertised performance. Memory cards are often advertised with either a speed rating (4X,10X,40X, etc.) or a memory bandwidth (4MB/s, 8 MB/s, 12 MB/s etc.) rating yet read and write speeds are very different.

Type	Card	Size	Write Speed	Read Speed
Accepts Secure Digital (SD) memory.	ATP MicroSD 80X	256 MB	3209 K/s	5693 K/s
Accepts Secure Digital (SD) memory.	Corsair 60X	512 MB	1776 K/s	6270 K/s
Accepts xD memory.	Fuji	16 MB	688 K/s	4270 K/s
Accepts xD memory.	Fuji Type M*This abysmal write-speed does not seem to affect the Fuji Finepix F10s speedy performance, but makes it very slow to download images and video. And yes, we triple-checked the performance!	1 GB	147 K/s	1957 K/s
Accepts Compact Flash Type I memory.	Fuji xD to CF Type 1 Adapter*Size depends on the xD card inserted into the adapter.	0 MB	564 K/s	822 K/s
Accepts Compact Flash memory.	Hitachi Microdrive*FAT32: The raw performance of the 6 GB microdrive is supposed to be higher but that is what we measured. We suspect that the FAT32 file system must cause some devices to operate extremely slowly. The 6 GB microdive operates that slowly in our benchmark system and our Konica-Minolta digital cameras. At this time, we are unable to confirm since this is the only FAT32 memory we have.	6 GB	177 K/s	1758 K/s
Accepts Compact Flash memory.	IBM Microdrive	1 GB	1482 K/s	4216 K/s
Accepts Secure Digital (SD) memory.	Kingmax 150X	2 GB	2149 K/s	5478 K/s
Accepts Secure Digital (SD) memory.	Kingmax Platinum 66X	512 MB	1591 K/s	6158 K/s
Accepts Compact Flash Type I memory.	Kingston Elite Pro 50X	2 GB	2898 K/s	5718 K/s
Accepts Compact Flash Type I memory.	Kingston Ultimate 100X	2 GB	1767 K/s	6272 K/s
Accepts Compact Flash Type I memory.	Lexar 40X	512 MB	1869 K/s	4771 K/s
Accepts Memory Stick Duo memory.	Lexar Platinum II	1 GB	2373 K/s	7691 K/s
Accepts Compact Flash Type I memory.	Lexar Pro 80X	2 GB	2990 K/s	5475 K/s
Accepts xD memory.	Olympus Type H	1 GB	567 K/s	3478 K/s
Accepts Secure Digital (SD) memory.	Sandisk	16 MB	1200 K/s	4720 K/s
Accepts Memory Stick memory.	Sandisk Pro	512 MB	1099 K/s	7655 K/s
Accepts Secure Digital (SD) memory.	Sandisk Ultra II Plus*Has a built-in USB interface	2 GB	1537 K/s	6858 K/s
Accepts Compact Flash Type I memory.	Sony MS Duo Adaptor*Size depends on the Memory Stick Duo card inserted into the adapter.	0 MB	1636 K/s	3312 K/s
Accepts Secure Digital (SD) memory.	Verbatim	256 MB	1760 K/s	4792 K/s