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SD Card recommendations

Alacrity59

Wanting for wisdom
I have a few things that use SD cards to store pictures, video, and audio. Some of my devices have a limit of 32 gb. This actually seems to be a good amount of memory for me as . . . well. . . the number of various recordings with 32 gb is pretty massive for a guy who grew up using a 12 picture roll of film in a brownie hawkeye camera.

I have a Nikon D5100, a Zoom H4n pro, and a couple of other devices. Currently I think they all have Lexar Professional 400x cards.

Already it has been several years . . . and I'm looking to have a backup when these things die . . . and perhaps even be replacing them before they die.

What do you guys recommend? Should I have some high speed cards for taking pics of birds on the wing. Slower cards for Audio?

What do you guys use . . . where do you get them . . . and what has value?
 

Rhody

I'm a Lumberjack.
I’ll watch this thread as the multiple speeds read write and versions of sdt cards seems very confusing
 
Well, Nikon D5100 does max 1080p motion and 4fps 100 highest quality JPEGs or 20 RAW images, ergo you can easily get away with SDXC UHS-II V10 class with 4K recording capability. In that case the lowest cost per GB would be recommended. If future-proofing is a concern you wouldn't be wrong in pursuing anything starting from SDXC UHS-II V30 which is 8K data-rate recording capable to SDXC UHS-II V90. My humble suggestions are as follows:

Kingston SDS2/256GB Canvas Select Plus 100 MB/s Read, Class 10 UHS-I - https://tinyurl.com/4dsrzdct

SanDisk Ultra 256GB SDXC, 120 MB/s Read, Class 10, UHS-I, V10 - https://tinyurl.com/37as2jex

SanDisk Extreme Pro 256GB SDXC, 150MB/s Read, Class 10, U3, V30 - https://tinyurl.com/54mtzphp

As expected the proposals are in line with the write-speed requirements at some of the lowest prices available from a reputable manufacturer and with solid reviews. Note that all the reported speeds are mostly read speeds, which for all intents and purposes are of marginal interest, but for the application at hand - photography and/or videography - write speed is crucial as read speed becomes relevant for post and other workflow-related processes (write/read ratios are nonlinear). Please check the Kingston reference SD classes below and note the reported speeds as minimum write rate.

Opera Snapshot_2021-10-14_035130_www.kingston.com.png
 
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Eben Stone

Staff member
A high speed card will not make any difference for photos. It only makes a difference when recording video or when downloading the photos/videos from the card to your PC (and if you're using a card reader instead of USB cable, you also require a high speed card reader to notice the benefits of a high speed card).

Be very careful where you purchase your SD cards from. There are a lot of fakes out there. There are a lot of fakes sold on ebay and Amazon by 3rd party sellers. This warning also applies to other memory such as USB flash drives.

From experience, I have not had any problems with SanDisk, as long as you don't get the ones in the plain white package, or the ones that say ”for archival purposes". In my experience both the SanDisk Ultra and SanDisk Extreme are great.
 

Alacrity59

Wanting for wisdom
OK I'm kinda getting some advice. Nobody seems to see my 32 gb limit.

I was wondering where to purchase . . . at best I get watch out on eBay . . .

I figure I'm not the only one confused . . ..

I like what Eben Stone posted.
 
OK I'm kinda getting some advice. Nobody seems to see my 32 gb limit.

I was wondering where to purchase . . . at best I get watch out on eBay . . .

I figure I'm not the only one confused . . ..

I like what Eben Stone posted.
2 of the 3 suggestions made have the 32 GB version available. Additionally, you can go for any reputable manufacturer and stick with class 10/U1 if your only concern is storage.
 
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Another vote for Sandisk or Lexar. I use the Sandisk Extreme, but if your devices are limited to 32Gb, they probably won’t see the performance advantage of the extreme, so you could save a few bucks by dropping down a grade.
 
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Reactions: Anu
@Anu already provided a nice table with the data you need. In addition to @Eben Stone : whatever you buy, there really are a lot of fakes. You can recognize them only post purchase, unfortunately, so be sure to do a test after you unpack. Under Windows, H2testw is a good tool; under Linux, use dosfsck.
I would like to add another bit of info. If you mean "backup" as in "archiving", save yourself the headache and invest in cloud storage. The well-known multinationals offer the cheapest prices by far, but if you are concerned about privacy look for "end-to-end encryption" or "homomorphic encryption". I have several free accounts with different providers, one is Mega (cryptograhically most advanced AFAIK) and the rest are using Nextcloud (cryptograhically not up to date, i.e. no privacy unless self-hosted).
 
@Anu already provided a nice table with the data you need. In addition to @Eben Stone : whatever you buy, there really are a lot of fakes. You can recognize them only post purchase, unfortunately, so be sure to do a test after you unpack. Under Windows, H2testw is a good tool; under Linux, use dosfsck.
I would like to add another bit of info. If you mean "backup" as in "archiving", save yourself the headache and invest in cloud storage. The well-known multinationals offer the cheapest prices by far, but if you are concerned about privacy look for "end-to-end encryption" or "homomorphic encryption". I have several free accounts with different providers, one is Mega (cryptograhically most advanced AFAIK) and the rest are using Nextcloud (cryptograhically not up to date, i.e. no privacy unless self-hosted).

Good points ! Cloud storage has proven reliable enough for bulk storage in the last 10 years, even though some people are still squeamish about a potential migration and -in some cases- understandably so. For the professional aficionado that's no longer the case as there's enough experience and trust buildup with said platforms. Sadly enough, that's another rabbit hole for some.
 
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