Performance

The performance of SDHC memory cards can vary greatly, both when it comes to read and write speeds. The Lexar 8 GB Class 2 card I received for testing is labeled as Class 2 because it achieve a sustainable write speed across the entire storage area of 2 MB/s. The Class-system is only meant to provide you an idea of how the card performs and leaves out certain important performance aspects such as read speeds and random access time. All of the memory cards tested where hooked up to my PC via an SDHC to USB adapter made by SanDisk. This card reader should not bottleneck the performance in any way since it is made for high speed class 6 cards. All tests were done on the formatted card without any data on it.


To test the read speed of the card I fired up HDTach 3.0.1.0 and initiated the short test. It came as quite a surprise to see this entry level 8 GB SDHC card muster a very even 20 MB/s read speed. Considering that it is designed only to meet the most basic criteria put up by the SDHC Association, its read performance exceeds all expectations.


ATTO's Disk Benchmark program tests both read and write speeds at different block sizes. This should give you an idea of its core performance in a large variety of data transmissions. Once again the Lexar Class 2 card proves that it is well worth the price. The read and write performance is really good, and the write speed even goes beyond what it is intended to deliver. The progression of read and write speeds from small to large block sizes is pretty normal, the bigger the blocks the higher the speeds.


The read speeds of this card rivals that of the very fastest SDHC cards on the market today. The Lexar Class 2 SDHC card comes close to the performance of the SanDisk Extreme III Class 6 cards both in the 2 GB and 8 GB variant, which is really good.


The random access time which HDTach reported was really low for the Lexar card. Not even the 2 GB SanDisk Extreme III could match it.


Burst read speeds were exactly the same for all three cards.


Read speeds reported by ATTO with a block size of 1024 kb were no surprise at all the two SanDisk cards are only marginally better when it comes to read speeds. The Lexar is really close although it only costs half as much as the SanDisk Extreme III 8 GB card.


At 1024 kb block size the Lexar write speed exceeds its own rating, which probably has something to do with the way the SDHC interest group determines what class the card belongs in.