The best SD cards you can buy

The SanDisk Extreme UHS SDHC is an affordable SD card with a design that won't wreak your data.

Drop the Pro from the name of our top pick, and you have a slower but still reliable SD card. The SanDisk Extreme UHS SDHC is easy to find for around $10, making it good for users on a budget or for picking up multiple cards at once.

The fastest SD cards are overkill for a lot of cameras, and if you buy a card that's faster than your camera, you're spending more without gaining more. The 40 MB/s write speed isn't as ideal for 4K or those 50-megapixel RAW photos, but it's more than enough for hobbyists and lower-resolution devices.

While casual users won't notice a speed difference over the pricier cards, a durability difference would be glaringly obvious. Thankfully, SanDisk still makes this card resistant to water, shock, extreme temperatures, and X-rays — just not as robust as the Pro version. Available in 16 GB and 32 GB capacities, this SD card is cheap in price without being cheap on quality.

Pros: Low price, durable design

Cons: Slower than our top pick

The Sony SF-G Tough UHS-II SDHC is so fast, it's future proof — and it's water and dustproof too.

Why settle for double-digit speeds when you can get triple? While the speeds of our top pick are more than enough for most photographers, the Sony SF-G Tough series hits write speeds of up to 299 MB/s, which is good for even 8K video thanks to a V90 video speed class. There aren't many devices around today that require that much speed, but this card is so fast that, theoretically, you likely won't need to update years down the road when the megapixel counts continue to climb and consumers finally can record 8K video.

There's a reason that "tough" is right in the name — the card is built to not only survive a ride in the washing machine but to stick around even after three days under water. The card is also constructed to guard against dust, drops, bends, extreme temperatures, and more. That durability comes from an exterior that's made from one piece, and while the design is solid, it also means there's no write protection switch to keep you from accidentally deleting files on the card.

Another downside is the price. The 32 GB version costs around $70 — which is fine if you need all that speed and durability, but is likely overkill for others.

Pros: Extreme durability and speed

Cons: No write protection switch, expensive

If you need space the size of a small external hard drive in a card that's about the size of your thumb, the Lexar 1 TB Professional 633x UHS-I SDXC is a good choice.

A 32 GB card may be sufficient for most users, but the Lexar Professional UHS-I SDXC series offers capacities all the way up to a terabyte — that's a lot of data on a standard-sized SD card. You probably don't need to shoot a terabyte of video or photos at a time, but high- capacity SD cards are excellent ways to expand the space on your laptop and other devices without carrying around a bulky external hard drive.

The 95 MB/s read speed will help when using the SD card for data storage, and when you do write to the card, it has a respectable — though not best-in-class — 70 MB/s write speed. That's enough for 4K video, 3D video, and RAW bursts as well as handling other large files.

Lexar doesn't advertise any durability claims with this card outside of temperature, however, so it won't withstand abuse like the Sony Tough or SanDisk Extreme Pro. High-capacity cards are expensive, but this one is a little less so — the Lexar slides in at approximately $200 less than the 1 TB SanDisk Extreme Pro.

Pros: One of the more affordable 1 TB cards, fast read speeds

Cons: Less durable design with slower write speeds than our top pick

With a 150 MB/s read speed, accessing files on the Lexar Professional 1000x UHS-II SDHC is quick.

The 95 MB/s speeds of our top pick is good, but it's not as great as the file-transfer speeds of the Lexar Professional 1000x UHS-II SDHC, with a 150 MB/s maximum read speed. The 60 MB/s write speed is still enough to handle 4K and RAW bursts, while the higher read speed allows for faster transfers, which means quicker file transfers from camera to computer.

Like the Lexar Professional 633x on our list, this SD card doesn't offer the same durability as the SanDisk Extreme Pro or the Sony Tough series. And despite that difference, it lists for roughly the same price for similar capacities as the SanDisk Extreme Pro. A handful of reviewers claim they've lost data from card read-errors, but this is another card that I and many photographers have used without any issues.

This Lexar comes in capacities from 32 GB to 256 GB, with a price ranging from about $13 to $60.

Pros: Fast read speeds

Cons: Slower write speeds and less durability