SanDisk Extreme III 30MB/sec 8GB SDHC Card Review

Sep 15 2009, 12:00am CDT | by Shane McGlaun

Today I am going to look at the newest SDHC card from SanDisk called the Extreme III 30MB/s edition 8GB SDHC cards. The SDHC card is a super fast card that is ideal for DSLR cameras and other device s like netbooks that have SDHC card slots for extra storage. Read the SanDisk Extreme III SDHC card review for all the details.

Gallery

1 images

Benchmarks

Features & Specifications
SanDisk promises that the SanDisk Extreme III SDHC has a read/write speed of 30MB/sec . The card comes in 4GB, 8GB, 16GB, and 32GB capacities. The cards are class 10 and exceed the requirements for HD video recording. The 4GB card costs $70.99, the 8GB costs $119.99, and the 16GB costs $195.99.

In Use
To test The SanDisk Extreme III SDHC I used Sandra 2009 Lite. The first test with Sandra 2009 that I ran on the SanDisk Extreme III SDHC was the removable storage benchmark with the card plugged into a USB card reader connected to my PC. The SanDisk Extreme III SDHC has a drive index of 3991 ops/minute and an endurance factor of 11.90. Write speed with 2MB files was 10.37MB/s read speed and 8.17MB/s write.

After testing the card in a USB reader, I decided to pop it into my Nikon D80 DSLR and see how it works. The card was plenty fast for shooting bursts and would keep up with my DSLR and shoot pictures as long as I held the shutter button down. On the slower SDHC card I normally use after ten or so shots, the write queue of the camera would be filled and things would get very slow.

Using the SanDisk Extreme III SDHC with its much greater speed meant that there was never a queue of more than two images waiting to be written to the card and 90% of the time there was only one image being written. With my old SDHC card often when I took my finger off the shutter button the camera would continue to write making it very slow until all the images were done. The SanDisk Extreme III SDHC is able to write images as fast as the camera can take them without any issues. The speed with the SanDisk Extreme III SDHC is very impressive.

The downside to all of the speed that the SanDisk Extreme III SDHC offers is that the memory card is very expensive. In fact, it is just about five times as expensive as a similar capacity SDHC card with less speed. Does the speed really matter? That really depends on what you will be doing. If you shoot lots of high-resolution images with a DSLR and the lag between the shutter press and the image being written to your memory card is a bottleneck for your work, the SanDisk Extreme III SDHC is the answer to your problem. However, if you are an average enthusiast looking for a nice new SDHC card, odds are you would be just as well served by a normal SDHC with more capacity for much less money.

Verdict

Conclusion

Pros

Very fast
Great for DSLR users

Cons

Very expensive

Verdict
The SanDisk Extreme III SDHC is hands down the fastest SDHC card I have ever tested and works with aplomb in a DSLR camera capable of shooting fast bursts. If you don’t shoot lots of bursts, you may be as well served by a slower and less pricy SDHC card.

8.0

where to buy

Buy from Amazon

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Shane McGlaun
Leading our review center, Shane knows technology inside out. His extensive experience in testing computer hardware and consumer electronics enable him to effectively qualify new products and trends. If you want us review your product, please contact Shane.
Shane can be contacted directly at shane@i4u.com.