If you're looking for a new Compact Flash (or CF) card for your camera to get the best performance from it, then it would make sense to buy the fastest and most reliable card available. We've tested some of the fastest CompactFlash cards available. Here's what 352GBs of Compact Flash storage looks like:

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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 Lexar multi-card USB3 reader, to get the fastest possible performance, using CrystalDiskMark x64. 

When taking photos write speeds are the most important, as this is the speed at which a device such as a digital camera 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 take in continuous shooting mode. The read speed is important for when you want to view the photos or copy them onto a computer or another device.

	CompactFlash Card:	Warranty	Write MB/s	Read MB/s	Average	Recovery Software	Buy
1	SP 1100x UDMA7	Lifetime	107.0	144.1	125.5		Buy
2	PNY Elite Performance UDMA7	5 year	107.4	143.5	125.4	x	Buy
3	Sandisk Extreme Pro UDMA7	Lifetime	107.7	142.7	125.2		Buy
4	Lexar Professional 32GB 1066x*	Lifetime	94.94	138.7	117.8		Buy
5	Toshiba EXCERIA PRO 1066x	5 year	90.03	141.2	115.6		Buy
6	Toshiba EXCERIA 1000x	5 year	88.37	144.3	116.3	x	Buy
7	ProSpec Pro 1010x	Lifetime	69.35	140.6	104.9	x
8	Integral 32GB Ultima PRO 800x	5 year	61.69	104.5	83.10	x	Buy
9	Sandisk Extreme Pro UDMA6	Lifetime	58.85	93.79	76.31
10	Kingston 16GB Ultimate 600x	Lifetime	62.06	89.02	75.54
-	Sandisk 2GB Extreme III	Lifetime	13.36	12.42	12.89

* Lexar don't exist anymore, but are still available to purchase, so we have included this card for reference.

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, and some cards come with a Lifetime warranty. Although recovery of images is unlikely when a card fails physically, recovery software is available to help recover accidentally deleted files. 

Reliability can't be determined on new cards, as it could take a long time for the card to fail, if it ever does. Although, one thing to consider is how durable the card is, and if you look at PNY cards, they are waterproof, shockproof, magnetic proof and should in theory survive much more mistreatment than others.

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

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