SanDisk owns the top 3 spots on Amazon’s best selling SD Card list. They offer a wide selection of memory card that caters to different kinds of user. SanDisk has a great image for being durable and reliable SD Cards. So, if you are to ask camera owners about what SD Card are they using or what card brand is the best, you would often hear SanDisk.
The top-selling memory card on Amazon’s website is the SanDisk Ultra. It is a card that offers a reasonable price that doesn’t lack performance. The 64 GB variant, in particular, has over 200 thousand customer ratings on Amazon with 84% of the customers rating the card five-stars.
200,000 customers are no joke. This shows how much value the SanDisk Ultra offers considering its price. Now, to know more about the card, let’s check some technical specifications.
Sandisk Ultra: Specifications
The 64 GB variant of the SanDisk Ultra is priced at less than $20. It has up to 100 MB per second transfer speed and features an A1 rated performance for loading applications.
Memory Card Performance
Memory cards from SanDisk are known for their great performance. It has been to the preferred brand for ordinary camera users and most professional photographers.
On the technical side, Let us see how the SanDisk Ultra’s read and write speeds perform.
Write Speed
Memory write speed identifies the ability of an SD Card to store information from the camera at a given speed. For instance, a GoPro camera with a 4k 60 FPS video setting needs to transfer data to the SD Card at a rate of 7.5 MB per second. So, if you try recording 4k videos on an SD Card with write speeds lower than 7.5 MB per second you are going to encounter SD Card errors and the camera would crash.
You don’t want to be the person with a camera but misses every moment on an event because their SD Card keeps on failing. In this case, you should consider the memory card’s write speed before buying one.
The SanDisk Ultra has a write speed of up to 10 MB per second which is a bit slow. But, considering the price you can’t complain more.
Check out some numbers on SanDisk Ultra’s performance from Camera Memory Speed
| SanDisk Ultra | Seq. Write 1000MB MB/s | Rand. Write 512KB MB/s | Rand. Write 4KB MB/s QD1 | Rand. Write 4KB IOPS QD1 | Rand. Write 4KB MB/s QD32 | Rand. Write 4KB IOPS QD32 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SanDisk UHS-1 Card Reader | 65.789 | 21.829 | 1.399 | 365.7 | 1.537 | 419.4 |
| Hama USB 3.0 SD Card Reader | 69.895 | 30.213 | 2.326 | 311.9 | 2.328 | 512.5 |
| Lexar Professional SR2 Card Reader | 67.055 | 29.818 | 1.274 | 599.2 | 2.275 | 599.5 |
| SanDisk Extreme Pro SD Reader | 67.468 | 28.967 | 1.469 | 402.8 | 1.634 | 443.0 |
| Hama USB Type-C 3.1 Card Reader | 67.644 | 30.014 | 2.313 | 508.9 | 2337 | 514.8 |
| Sony S1 High Speed UHS-II Reader | 67.113 | 28.771 | 1.430 | 393.3 | 1.518 | 414.7 |
Read Speed
After using your camera to record videos and capture photos, you are probably going to transfer those files to your computer. This is where memory read speeds are important. Read speeds identify the file transfer speed that an SD Card can handle while copying files to a computer or another storage device.
Large file transfer can take some time especially if you are about to transfer files with sizes of 20 GB or more. You would find your self staring on the computer for hours just waiting for the file transfer to finish.
SanDisk Ultra has a read speed of up to 80 MB per second which is decent considering its price. This is also the reason why SanDisk memory cards are awesome. They offer all-around performance on all their cards at a decent price. Some brands can be cheaper compared to SanDisk models but when you take a look at the technical specifications, those cards would often have slow read speeds.
Take a look at some benchmark results from Camera Memory Speed
| SanDisk Ultra | Seq. Read 1000MB MB/s | Rand. Read 512KB MB/s | Rand. Read 4KB MB/s QD1 | Rand. Read 4KB IOPS QD1 | Rand. Read 4KB MB/s QD32 | Rand. Read 4KB IOPS QD32 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SanDisk UHS-1 Card Reader | 100.987 | 95.663 | 2.545 | 765.4 | 2.790 | 869.2 |
| Hama USB 3.0 SD Card Reader | 88.269 | 81.046 | 3.685 | 1187.8 | 3.857 | 1229.9 |
| Lexar Professional SR2 Card Reader | 88.269 | 80.831 | 3.730 | 1198.9 | 3.857 | 1229.9 |
| Lexar LRWM04U-7000 UHS-II Reader | 88.259 | 70.164 | 3.683 | 1187.4 | 3.843 | 1226.6 |
| Hama USB Type-C 3.1 Card Reader | 89.978 | 70.044 | 3.888 | 1137.6 | 3.884 | 1236.5 |
| SanDisk Extreme Pro SD UHS-II Reader/Writer | 89.969 | 72.349 | 2.501 | 998.9 | 2.904 | 1097.2 |
Speed Test
This speed test shows the performance of a Sandisk Ultra 128GB Micro SDXC UHS-I Card with Adapter – 100MB/s U1 A1 – SDSQUAR-128G-GN6MA testing with CrystalMark.
Memory Card Sizes
You can get the SanDisk Ultra in:
- 32 GB
- 64 GB
- 128 GB
- 200 GB
- 256 GB
- 400 GB
- 512 GB
Devices that Work Well with Sandisk Ultra
Most of the time, SanDisk memory cards would work without any problems on most devices that support SD Card expansion. To be specific, you can check the list below on where the SanDisk Ultra is compatible.
- Smartphones – smartphones don’t demand crazy fast read and write speeds on SD cards to work. The SanDisk ultra would work on any smartphone that supports storage expansion. It is great for saving games, photos, music, and videos.
- Dash Cameras – with the increase in car owners buying dash cams for protection, the need for SD cards also increase. If you are looking for a budget-friendly memory card to use on your dash cameras, the SanDisk Ultra would be a great fit. Given that most dash cams do not require high read and write speeds and often record videos at 1080P or lower resolutions, the Ultra model would surely handle recordings from your dashcam perfectly.
- Handheld Consoles – consoles like the Playstation Portable and the newer Nintendo switch uses SD Cards to save games. The SanDisk Ultra has a decent read speed which is important to speed up loading of games to your console.
- Cameras – while some cameras demand high write speeds for 4k video recording, the SanDisk Ultra can still handle 1080P video settings on any professional cameras. If you are not looking to record 4k videos on your camera or your camera does not support 4k video recording, buying the SanDisk ultra can also be a great option budget-wise.
Should You Get a Sandisk Ultra for Your Camera?
To answer this question, you should look into a couple of things if you are considering to buy the SanDisk Ultra for your camera. If you own a camera that doesn’t support 4k video recording or you are not looking to shooting videos at 4k resolution, then you can consider buying the SanDisk Ultra.
Now, for the price of the SanDisk Ultra, you would get decent read and write speeds with support for FHD video recordings. It is rated at class 10 with reading speeds of up to 80 MB per second. It has an A1 performance rating on loading applications and you get the reliability and durability from the SanDisk brand.
However, if you are a professional photographer this card may not fit your needs. Given today’s standards, 4k videos are required especially for professionals. Now, you can sometimes get away with 4k video recording on the SanDisk Ultra but, you wouldn’t want to be gambling on your luck every time you are shooting videos. Getting memory cards with higher read and write speed is advisable for higher end cameras.
Another thing to consider, it is advisable to get at least an SD Card with 64 GB storage capacity. With modern cameras capable of shooting 4k and higher video resolution the file size of videos also increases.
For example, a 32 GB memory card would record 1 and half hours of 1080P video what more if you are setting the resolution to 1440P or 4k. Also, the 32 GB variant is just 5 dollars cheaper compared to the 64 GB storage option which is twice the storage capacity.
You can also consider getting the 128GB + 64GB storage bundle on Amazon:
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Alternative SD Card
If you are a professional who is looking for an alternative SD Card that is that doesn’t break the bank, you can try checking the SanDisk Extreme model. It has a read speed of up to 90 MB per second and write speed of 40 MB per second. It has a variety of storage options and has a lifetime manufacturer’s warranty.
Click Here to check out our comparison between the SanDisk Ultra and SanDisk Extreme.
Related Articles:
- Memory Card Battle: Samsung Evo Plus vs SanDisk Extreme
- 7 Best (FAST) Sandisk Micro SD Cards
- 8 Best sd cards for gopro hero 8 [GoPro Recommended]
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