Introduced on January 17, 2011, the SanDisk Extreme Pro is the fastest SD card to date. At 45MB/s (45 Megabytes per second, read *and* write), this card is 1.5x faster than its predecessor, the SanDisk Extreme [8GB, 16GB, 32GB], which is rated 30MB/s (class 10). Like its predecessor, the SanDisk Extreme Pro comes in storage capacities of 8GB, 16GB, and 32GB.
- UHS Speed Class 1
This SD card is rated UHS Class 1 (commonly denoted as UHS-I or UHS-1). The UHS-I speed class rating was introduced by the SD Association in June 2010, and should not be confused with the older speed class rating that designates a memory card as class 2, class 4, class 6, and class 10 (for write speeds of at least 2 MB/s, 4 MB/s, 6 MB/s, and 10 MB/s, respectively). Memory cards that are rated UHS-I support data transfer speeds of up to 104 MB/s.
As an aside, on January 5, 2011, the SD Association announced yet another speed class rating -- UHS Class 2 (UHS-II or UHS-2) -- for memory cards that support data transfer speeds of up to 312 MB/s.
- Compatibility
This SD card is backwards compatible with any device that supports SDHC (SD, High Capacity) and SDXC (SD, Extended Capacity). SDHC cards are memory cards that have capacities that range from 4GB to 32GB (FAT 32 file system). SDXC cards are memory cards that have capacities that range from 64GB to 2TB (exFAT file system).
I have no trouble using this card on my older devices, such as my Canon Rebel XSi (introduced in January 2008), HP iPAQ 111 (introduced in September 2007), and a generic memory card reader.
- Performance
A faster speed rating does not mean faster performance. To take full advantage of the 45 MB/s speed, you will need a device that supports the new UHS bus interface (the Nikon D7000 is currently the only such device that I know of).
My rebel XSi is, not surprisingly, unable to take advantage of the UHS bus interface. I ran some tests to see how the SanDisk Extreme Pro stacked up to each of my class 4, class 6, and class 10 SD cards by noting the time it took the Rebel to write data from its buffer to each of the SD cards.
The results:
Class 4: ~9 sec (Kingston)
Class 6: ~10 sec (Transcend)
Class 10: ~6 sec (RiData)
UHS Class 1: ~6 sec (SanDisk Extreme Pro)
Conclusion:
There is no appreciable performance gain beyond Class 10 because at speeds upwards of Class 10 (i.e. >10 MB/s), the bottleneck lies with the speed at which my camera is capable of writing data from its buffer to the memory card.
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To recap: although the SanDisk Extreme Pro is backwards compatible with devices that support SDHC cards, you will only be able benefit from the its 45MB/s read/write speed if your device is able to take advantage of the new UHS bus interface. Regardless, the SanDisk Extreme Pro is definitely worth considering as a means of "future proofing" your memory cards. Moreover, as of this writing, the SanDisk Extreme Pro 8GB, 16GB, and 32 GB cards are actually priced near or below prices for their SanDisk Extreme (30 MB/s) counterparts! Highly recommended. SanDisk Flash 16 GB SDHC Flash Memory Card SDSDXP1-016G (Black)
I recently purchased a Nikon D7000 and planned to use the old memory card I had lying around until I could upgrade to one with more capacity. The old card I had was a sandisk ultra SD card, rated at 15 MB/s. I noticed that when shooting 14-bit RAW on the D7000, I could only get 10 shots in the buffer, which amounts to less than 2 seconds on continuous high. In testing the camera just to find its limits, I found that once the buffer was full, it took almost 3 seconds for me to be able to shoot another picture with my old card (this is based off of the EXIF data, so it's not exact). I wasn't terribly surprised, since the card was not rated to be particularly fast. Occasionally, when shooting sports, I could see myself hitting the buffer limit, so I decided that when looking for a new card, I needed to look at something that could write a little faster and make the camera's buffer stretch a bit farther.
I was looking at the Sandisk Extreme SD card, which was rated at 30 MB/s and was very well received, but came across this card, which uses a new standard to achieve speeds of up to 45 MB/s. There were very few reviews when I bought it, but since this card was actually cheaper than the tried and true Extreme SD card for the same capacity, I decided to spring for it. I also discovered that the D7000 actually supports the new (UHS-1) SD standard and thus could take advantage of the increased speed.
In my own tests, I found that the camera allowed me to continue shooting about 1 frame per second after filling the buffer. Unlike my old, slower card, I didn't feel like the camera had just stalled when hitting the buffer limit. I didn't time how long it took each card to completely empty the buffer once full, but I'm confident this card would do it much faster. Needless to say, I was very pleased with the increase in speed (and thus usability) this card added to the camera.
Obviously I can't comment on reliability at this point, but I suspect it will be on par with most other sandisk products--which is very good. My final verdict is this, if you have a camera that can support the faster speeds (like the D7000), this card might be a great choice for you. As long as it continues to be the same price as the older model, it is a no-brainer in my mind. If your camera doesn't support the faster speeds, or you never expect to fill the buffer on your camera, then these high speed cards may not be worth the expense to you. Hopefully my review can help you decide whether it's worth stepping up to the newer cards in your situation. - Sdhc - Nikon - Sandisk - 16 Gb'
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