PNY Elite microSDXC UHS-I 512GB Memory Card Capsule Review

Digital cameras and camcorders employ memory cards (flash-based removable media) for storage of captured content. There are different varieties of memory cards catering to various performance levels. CompactFlash (CF) became popular in the late 90s, but, has now been overtaken by Secure Digital (SD) cards. Many computing systems (PCs as well as smartphones) also support SD / microSD cards for augmenting local storage capabilities. We recently started in-depth evaluation of the performance of various memory cards. This piece evaluates one of the highest capacity microSDXC card currently available in the market - the PNY Elite microSDXC UHS-I 512GB version.

Introduction

SD (Secure Digital) cards were introduced in 1999, as an update to the existing MultiMediaCards (MMCs). It gained traction even in areas where CompactFlash had been preferred, thanks to its small size. Its popularity is evident by the fact that it has spawned two follow-ups in the same form factor - starting with the SDSC in 1999 for capacities between 1MB and 2GB, we got SD High Capacity (SDHC) in 2006 (up to 32GB) and SD eXtended Capacity (SDXC) in 2009 (up to 2TB). The cards also come in various sizes - standard, mini, and micro. Currently, the standard and micro sizes are more popular in the market. SD's popularity and affordability has meant that almost all consumer cameras come with a SD card slot.

Recently, we have seen a number of high-capacity microSDXC cards getting introduced. Starting with the 400GB SanDisk Ultra microSDXC UHS-I card ($153 at $0.3825/GB) introduced in August 2017, we now have the Integral 512GB and the PNY Elite 512GB in the market as well. At Computex 2018, we also saw plans from ADATA and Team Group to sell 512GB microSDXC cards. With the industry migrating to 3D NAND, the capacity per die has seen significant increase, allowing for microSDXC cards to reach these capacities. The PNY Elite microSDXC 512GB is a UHS-I card with a Class 10 (Speed Class) / U1 (UHS Speed Class) / V10 (Video Speed Class) rating.

PNY supplied us with a retail sample of their Elite 512GB card to put through our comprehensive memory card evaluation routine. Prior to taking a look at the performance numbers, we take a look at the testbed setup and evaluation methodology.

Testbed Setup and Performance Benchmarks

Evaluation of memory cards is done on Windows with the testbed outlined in the table below. The USB 3.1 Type-C port in the testbed is enabled by the Intel Alpine Ridge controller. It connects to the Z170 PCH via a PCIe 3.0 x4 link. uSD cards utilize the Lexar Professional Workflow SR2 SDHC / SDXC UHS-II USB 3.0 Reader along with a microSD to SD adapter. For this particular review, we used the adapter supplied along with the PNY Elite card in its retail package. The reader was placed in the Lexar Professional Workflow HR2 hub and uplinked through its USB 3.0 port with the help of a USB 3.0 Type-A female to Type-C male cable.

The full details of the reasoning behind choosing the above build components can be found here.

Sequential Accesses

PNY claims speeds of up to 90 MBps, but, as the speed ratings (Class 10 / U1 / V10) indicate, this is only for the reads. Real-world write speeds are bound to be much slower. For most applications, that really doesn't matter as long as the card is capable of sustaining the maximum possible rate at which the camera it is used in dumps data. We use fio workloads to emulate typical camera recording conditions. We run the workload on a fresh card, and also after simulating extended usage. Instantaneous bandwidth numbers are graphed. This gives an idea of performance consistency (whether there is appreciable degradation in performance as the amount of pre-existing data increases and / or the card is subject to wear and tear in terms of amount and type of NAND writes). Further justification and details of the testing parameters are available here.

PNY Elite microSDXC UHS I 512GBADATA Premier ONE microSDXC UHS II 256GBADATA XPG microSDXC UHS I 64GBLexar 1800x 128GBSanDisk Extreme PRO microSDXC UHS II 128GBSanDisk Extreme microSDXC UHS I 128GB

PNY Elite microSDXC UHS I 512GBADATA Premier ONE microSDXC UHS II 256GBADATA XPG microSDXC UHS I 64GBLexar 1800x 128GBSanDisk Extreme PRO microSDXC UHS II 128GBSanDisk Extreme microSDXC UHS I 128GB

With a fresh card, the writes are consistently above 20 MBps, but, after extended usage, we see dips down to the 17 - 18 MBps range. In both scenarios, the card manages to keep itself well clear of the minimum requirements for its speed rating. The read speeds meet PNY's claims of being in the 90 MBps range. Almost all of the other microSDXC cards that we have evaluated before have higher sustained write rates, but, none of them belong to the same capacity class as the PNY Elite card.

AnandTech DAS Suite - Performance Consistency

The AnandTech DAS Suite involves transferring large amounts of photos and videos to and from the storage device using robocopy. This is followed by selected workloads from PCMark 8's storage benchmark in order to evaluate scenarios such as importing media files directly into multimedia editing programs such as Adobe Photoshop. Details of these tests from the perspective of memory cards are available here.

In this subsection, we deal with performance consistency while processing the robocopy segment. The graph below shows the read and write transfer rates to the memory card while the robocopy processes took place in the background. The data for writing to the card resides in a RAM drive in the testbed. The first three sets of writes and reads correspond to the photos suite. A small gap (for the transfer of the videos suite from the primary drive to the RAM drive) is followed by three sets for the next data set. Another small RAM-drive transfer gap is followed by three sets for the Blu-ray folder. The corresponding graphs for similar cards that we have evaluated before is available via the drop-down selection.

PNY Elite microSDXC UHS I 512GBADATA Premier ONE microSDXC UHS II 256GBADATA XPG microSDXC UHS I 64GBLexar 1800x 128GBSanDisk Extreme PRO microSDXC UHS II 128GBSanDisk Extreme microSDXC UHS I 128GB

Typical of almost all memory cards, we see small files bringing down the write rates, but, the key takeaway here is that there is no consistency issue between two passes for the same data.

AnandTech DAS Suite - Bandwidth

The average transfer rates for each workload from the previous section is graphed below. Readers can get a quantitative number to compare the PNY Elite microSDXC UHS I 512GB uSD card against the ones that we have evaluated before.

Photos ReadPhotos WriteVideos ReadVideos WriteBlu-ray Folder ReadBlu-ray Folder WriteExpand All

We also look at the PCMark 8 storage bench numbers in the graphs below. Note that the bandwidth number reported in the results don't involve idle time compression. Results might appear low, but that is part of the workload characteristic. Note that the same testbed is being used for all memory cards. Therefore, comparing the numbers for each trace should be possible across different cards.

Adobe Photoshop Light ReadAdobe Photoshop Heavy ReadAdobe After Effects ReadAdobe Illustrator ReadAdobe Photoshop Light WriteAdobe Photoshop Heavy WriteAdobe After Effects WriteAdobe Illustrator WriteExpand All

The performance numbers here reflect the speed class rating of the card. As mentioned in the sequential writes section for the typical photo / video recording workload, the PNY Elite is not a speed play. Rather, it is a capacity play, which is not reflected well in this evaluation segment.

Performance Restoration

The traditional memory card use-case is to delete the files on it after the import process is completed. Some prefer to format the card either using the PC, or, through the options available in the camera menu. The first option is not a great one, given that flash-based storage devices run into bandwidth issues if garbage collection (processes such as TRIM) is not run regularly. Different memory cards have different ways to bring them to a fresh state.Based on our experience, uSD cards have to be formatted using the SD Formatter tool from the SD Association (after all the partitions are removed using the 'clean' command in diskpart).

In order to test out the effectiveness of the performance restoration process, we run the default sequential workloads in CrystalDiskMark before and after the formatting. Note that this is at the end of all our benchmark runs, and the card is in a used state at the beginning of the process. The corresponding screenshots for similar cards that we have evaluated before is available via the drop-down selection.

PNY Elite microSDXC UHS I 512GBADATA Premier ONE microSDXC UHS II 256GBADATA XPG microSDXC UHS I 64GBLexar 1800x 128GBSanDisk Extreme PRO microSDXC UHS II 128GBSanDisk Extreme microSDXC UHS I 128GB

We do see a drop in the write rate after performance restoration, but, it is similar to the numbers we see in the sustained write workload. The performance is still better than the requirements of the claimed speed rating.

Concluding Remarks

The PNY Elite microSDXC UHS-I 512GB card successfully completed our intensive benchmarking routines. It showed great performance consistency, but, emerged as an average / low-end performer with respect to the raw benchmark numbers.

In addition to raw performance and consistency, pricing is also an important aspect. This is particularly important in the casual user and semi-professional markets, where the value for money metric often trumps benchmark numbers. The table below presents the relevant data for the PNY Elite microSDXC UHS I 512GB uSD card and other similar ones that we have evaluated before. The cards are ordered by the $/GB metric.

The PNY Elite card is not meant to be a benchmarks winner - rather, PNY wants to focus on the market segment which requires high capacity. This is an attractive card for content creators in the field who want to record a lot of content between imports to a bigger PC or network-connected mass storage device. It also targets users who can't afford the downtime / recording break that is inevitable during card swaps (when using smaller capacity cards). The SanDisk Ultra microSDXC UHS-I card ($153 at $0.3825/GB) also targets the same market segment with a similar speed rating, and it has a significantly lower per-GB cost. However, the PNY Elite does edge it out with a slightly higher capacity (512GB vs. 400GB). As indicated by its speed rating, the PNY Elite doesn't sport enough performance to consistently record videos with very high bitrates. But, it should be more than enough for content in the 80 Mbps range.