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 Compact Flash Type I memory. | Lexar Pro 80X | 2 GB | 2990 K/s | 5475 K/s | |
Accepts Compact Flash Type I memory. | Kingston Elite Pro 50X | 2 GB | 2898 K/s | 5718 K/s | |
Accepts Secure Digital (SD) memory. | Kingston Elite Pro 50X | 2 GB | 2685 K/s | 7762 K/s | |
Accepts Memory Stick Duo memory. | Lexar Platinum II | 1 GB | 2373 K/s | 7691 K/s | |
Accepts Secure Digital (SD) memory. | Kingmax 150X | 2 GB | 2149 K/s | 5478 K/s | |
Accepts Compact Flash Type I memory. | Lexar 40X | 1 GB | 1929 K/s | 4764 K/s | |
Accepts Compact Flash Type I memory. | Lexar 40X | 512 MB | 1869 K/s | 4771 K/s | |
Accepts Secure Digital (SD) memory. | Corsair 60X | 512 MB | 1776 K/s | 6270 K/s | |
Accepts Compact Flash Type I memory. | Kingston Ultimate 100X | 2 GB | 1767 K/s | 6272 K/s | |
Accepts Secure Digital (SD) memory. | Verbatim | 256 MB | 1760 K/s | 4792 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. | Kingmax Platinum 66X | 512 MB | 1591 K/s | 6158 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 memory. | IBM Microdrive | 1 GB | 1482 K/s | 4216 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 xD memory. | Fuji | 16 MB | 688 K/s | 4270 K/s | |
Accepts Compact Flash Type I memory. | Sandisk | 16 MB | 646 K/s | 1712 K/s | |
Accepts xD memory. | Olympus Type H | 1 GB | 567 K/s | 3478 K/s | |
Accepts xD memory. | Fuji | 512 MB | 564 K/s | 2940 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 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 |
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