Best MicroSD Memory Cards

If you're looking for a new MicroSD card for your camera, smartphone, or tablet, then it would make sense to buy the fastest and most reliable card available. Here's what 688GBs of MicroSD storage looks like:

Here is a list of all the cards we have tested, sorted with the quickest average speeds at the top. We tested these cards using a MicroSD USB3 UHS-II card reader to get the fastest possible performance, using CrystalDiskMark. 

We tested the fastest UHS-I and UHS-II cards available to us. To make the most of the high speed available with UHS-II cards, you'll need a camera or device compatible with UHS-II cards, as well as a memory card reader that supports UHS-II. UHS-II cards can be used in UHS-I cameras and card readers, but you won't get the benefit of the additional speed. On the left, above, you can see the extra contacts on the UHS-II card.

When taking photos write speeds are the most important, as this is the speed at which a device such as a digital camera or smartphone can write photos to the memory card, if this is slow, then it may slow down your shot to shot time or the amount of photos you can continuously take. The read speed is important for when you want to view the photos or copy them onto a computer or another device.

	MicroSD Card Tested:	Write MB/s	Read MB/s	Average	Recovery Software	Buy
1	Lexar Professional UHS-II 64GB	64.72	195.2	129.96		Buy
2	Sandisk Extreme Pro 16GB	81.3	94.68	87.99	x	Buy
3	Samsung PRO Plus 64GB	82.34	93.35	87.84	x	Buy
4	Transcend Ultimate 633x 64GB U:3	82.19	93.37	87.78		Buy
5	Samsung EVO Plus 256GB	80.95	90.48	85.71	x	Buy
6	Toshiba EXCERIA 64GB Endurance	68.16	93.11	80.64	x	Buy
7	Toshiba EXCERIA 64GB	45.11	94.12	69.61	x	Buy
8	PNY Turbo 32GB	42.08	93.48	67.78	x	Buy
9	Sony 64GB	69.58	65.13	67.35	x	Buy
10	Lexar 633x 32GB U:3	41.5	85.88	63.69	x	Buy
11	Integral ultima PRO X 32GB U:3	31.33	92.48	61.90	x	Buy
12	Sandisk Ultra 16GB U:1	11.9	45.61	28.75	x	Buy

Another important factor to consider is warranty and reliability, ideally, you would want the most reliable card possible so that your photos are never lost, however, if the card does fail then a long warranty will mean that the manufacturer should replace or repair your card. Although recovery of images is unlikely when a card fails physically, recovery software is available to help recover accidentally deleted files, and some of these cards come with free recovery software. 

What is the fastest MicroSD memory card?

The fastest MicroSD memory card we've tested, is the Lexar Profesional UHS-II 64GB card, however, to get the best out of this, you'll need a device that supports UHS-II, and not many do at the moment. It's also got relatively slow write speeds compared to standard UHS-I memory cards. If you're using a UHS-I device, then the fastest MicroSD memory card we've tested is the Sandisk Extreme Pro, with an average combined read/write speed of 87.99MB/s.

What is the most reliable MicroSD memory card?

Reliability can't easily be determined on new cards, as it could take a long time for the card to fail if it ever does. However, one thing to consider is how durable the card is, and if you look at Samsung cards, they are waterproof, shockproof, magnetic proof and come with a 10-year warranty so should survive much more mistreatment than others, as we found out in our test of one of their microSD cards. Toshiba EXCERIA Endurance cards are also temperature-proof, waterproof, x-ray proof, and shockproof, designed to withstand up to 3000 hours of FullHD recording, so would be ideal for an always-on security camera or dashcam.

What is the biggest capacity MicroSD memory card?

The largest capacity MicroSD memory card is the 1TB (1000MB) Sandisk Extreme 1TB microSDXC memory card. This is a Class 10, UHS-I, U3, V30 memory card priced at £288. If you're looking for something more reasonably priced, then there is the Samsung EVO Plus 512GB microSDXC memory card, priced at £85.

Our top picks:

• Lexar Professional 1800x MicroSDXC 64GB Card - £130 Amazon UK
• Sandisk Extreme PRO MicroSDXC 32GB Card - £12 Amazon UK
• Samsung PRO+ MicroSDXC 32GB Card - £33 Amazon UK
• Transcend Ultimate MicroSDHC 32GB Card - £7 Amazon UK
• Toshiba EXCERIA Endurance M303E 64GB Card - £22 Amazon UK

If you're looking for the fastest SD card, have a look at our Top 10 Best SD Memory Cards.

Find out more about memory cards, in our complete guide to memory cards.