The Best MicroSD Cards for All Your Flash Memory Needs TechRadar Pro

The Best MicroSD Cards for All Your Flash Memory Needs TechRadar Pro
The Best MicroSD Cards for All Your Flash Memory Needs
Our lives revolve around the data we create daily, at work, when we’re out and about, or inside our homes. There are so many files and folders we want to carry – documents, movies, pictures, and videos – but our tablets and smartphones can only accommodate so much. So what’s the solution? MicroSD cards may be the panacea: users can use these memory cards to move files around seamlessly and securely. With so many options available, identifying the best microSD cards on the market is no easy feat. But we’ve...
The Best MicroSD Cards for All Your Flash Memory Needs
Our lives revolve around the data we create daily, at work, when we’re out and about, or inside our homes. There are so many files and folders we want to carry – documents, movies, pictures, and videos – but our tablets and smartphones can only accommodate so much. So what’s the solution? MicroSD cards may be the panacea: users can use these memory cards to move files around seamlessly and securely. With so many options available, identifying the best microSD cards on the market is no easy feat. But we’ve carefully selected the top microSD flash memory cards you can use in smartphones, cameras, drones, and game consoles, like the Nintendo Switch. I have personally tested most of the microSD cards listed below. Below is our pick of the best microSD cards currently available in terms of pricing, performance, and reliability. Remember that it is advisable to have if you lose your card (they’re tiny; bear that in mind). As of July 2023, the giant microSD card in capacity is the 1.5TB Micron i400, while Kioxia has promised a 2TB microSD card for the end of 2023. Silicon Power 1TB A1 MicroSD: The Best Budget Option
The Silicon Power 1TB A1 microSD looks like ‘one card to rule them all’ at first glance. A low price point paired with reasonably fast read and write speeds makes it a more-than-desirable option. And while we don’t expect these cards to hit top numbers in testing, we did find this card only reached a write speed of 58MB/s, less than the advertised 80MBps. A read speed of 90MB/s is also a touch shy of claimed max read speeds. But considering how little this card costs, it’s a capable storage device that should more than match most devices you throw at it. We were pleasantly surprised to see its performance at such a low price. Samsung Pro Endurance: The Best MicroSD Card for Endurance
Samsung is the world’s largest flash memory manufacturer in the world and the Pro Endurance microSD card capitalizes on this claim to stardom to position itself as one of the best microSD cards for endurance. So no, you won’t buy it for capacity, value for money, or speed. Samsung claims it is engineered to deliver “long-lasting performance” and is perfect for CCTV surveillance cameras, body cams, dash cams, and even drones. Perhaps more importantly, the 256GB version of this card has been tested to record and rewrite up to 16 years of full HD footage (140,160 hours). It has a rated speed of up to 100MBps (in read) and 40MBps (in write) although this will depend on the host device. What could seal the deal though is the amount of battering that this card has endured during real-world tests: up to 72 hours in 1-meter depth of seawater and drops up to five meters (16.4 feet). Enough to kill a human being but not this card. Teamgroup Elite A1: The Fastest MicroSD Card
Teamgroup claims that this microSD card, the Elite A1, can read up to 100MB/s and write 50MB/s, and in tests, it came pretty close to those speeds. This makes it a very fast card, and with smaller files, it’s even faster, which means this is a great card as an all-rounder memory card. While not as cheap as Silicon Power, it makes up for it thanks to a lifetime warranty, the only one in this price range (remember, it costs less than $100) to offer this.
Micron i400: The Largest Capacity MicroSD Card
We haven’t reviewed the Micron i400 but if you’re after a large-capacity microSD card at all costs, then this 1.5TB industrial microSD card is what you should buy. Mind you, it is expensive at more than $400, which is about three times more than what you’d pay for a 1TB microSD card per unit storage. Like the Samsung Pro Endurance card above, it is geared towards continuous read/write use cases, the ability of the card to withstand continuous rewriting, often in harsh conditions, like in an exter...