SanDisk Extreme VS Extreme Pro VS Extreme Plus: Which Is Best?

Ariel Mu
7 min readApr 26, 2020

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Overview of the SanDisk Memory Cards

SanDisk memory card is a type of electronic storage device that’s used for storing digital data. A great many portable electronic devices especially cameras require a memory card to store data. Nowadays, SanDisk memory cards are becoming the first choice when many consumers choose a memory card for portable devices.

However, a variety of SanDisk memory cards such as the Extreme, Extreme Pro, and Extreme Plus series let lots of consumers dazzle. It’s hard to choose a suitable one. SanDisk Extreme vs Extreme Pro vs Plus, what’s the difference and which is best?

SanDisk Extreme Range

SanDisk Extreme range is a type of high-performance microSD card. It is an ideal choice for your smartphones, action cameras, and drones. With the SanDisk Extreme microSDXC memory card, you can capture 4K UHD video recording, Full HD video, and high-resolution photos.

The Extreme series boasts many advantages such as fast data transferring speed, good compatibility, and durability. Besides, you will have lifetime limited warranty and multiple storage capacity options.

SanDisk Extreme Pro

If you want to use a memory card with the fastest transfer speed, this SanDisk Extreme Pro microSDXC memory card should be your best choice. It owns the world’s fastest transfer speed (up to 275mb/s) and can be used in extreme environments.

This product uses the included USB 3.0 reader that can help achieve maximum transfer speed on your devices. Similarly, it allows you to record smooth 4K UHD video and HD video. It also has lifetime limited warranty.

SanDisk Extreme Plus

With the same red and gold colors, SanDisk Extreme Plus looks extremely similar to SanDisk Extreme card. This Extreme Plus series can record Full 1080p HD video and playback. Well, it also has lifetime limited warranty. Thanks for the new UHS Speed Class 3 specification, SanDisk Extreme Plus owns a relatively high transfer speed.

Right now, you may have an overall impression of the 3 types of SanDisk SD memory cards. SanDisk Extreme vs Extreme Plus vs Pro, what’s the difference and which is best? Let’s move on.

SanDisk Extreme vs Extreme Pro vs Plus: 4 Main Differences

In this part, we mainly focus on 4 main differences between SanDisk Extreme Plus vs Pro vs Extreme, including data speed, capacity, compatibility, durability, and price.

Data Speed

When it comes to a memory card, a great many people take the data transfer speed into their first consideration. SanDisk memory card should be one of the fastest SD memory cards especially its SanDisk Extreme Pro series.

According to a survey, the 3 types of SanDisk SD memory cards have different data transfer speeds. With the fastest transfer speed of 275MB/s, SanDisk Extreme Pro microSDXC card wins SanDisk Extreme and SanDisk Extreme Plus.

A 64GB SanDisk Extreme microSDXC memory card can be up to 160MB/s read and 60MB/s write speeds, while a 64 GB SanDisk Extreme Plus microSDXC memory card can be up to 170MB/s read and 90MB/s write speeds.

The above date speeds are a theoretical number of the maximum transfer speed. In fact, the actual data transfer speeds depend on specific memory cards. For instance, the form factor, adapter included, and even capacity have an impact on the transfer speed of an SD memory card.

Do you want to know the exact speed of SanDisk Extreme Pro vs Extreme Plus? Here you can utilize a free tool — MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition. It can help you perform a disk benchmark freely.

This powerful software can be used to resize partition, convert MBR to GPT, convert NTFS to FAT without data loss, analyze disk space, etc. Besides, this tool has helped millions of users to fix some tricky problems such as BSOD, Windows update errors, and so on.

Step 1. Plug your SanDisk memory card into a card reader, and then connect it to your computer.

Step 2. Launch MiniTool Partition Wizard to get its main interface and click on the Disk Benchmark feature on the top toolbar.

Step 3. Select the drive letter of your SanDisk Extreme memory card from the drop-down menu, and then you can further specify the test parameters and click on the Start button.

Step 4. After a little time, you will see the test results including transfer size, the random/sequential reading and writing speed, etc.

Capacity

Storage capacity determines how much data you can save. So, storage capacity is another important factor when purchasing a SanDisk memory card. The capacity of a memory card depends on the file system that is used for data storage.

In addition, you may notice the card format when purchasing a memory card, which also limits the storage capacity. There are 4 major card formats including SD (SDSC), SDHC, SDXC, and SDUC. The supported the storage capacity and file systems vary according to different memory card formats.

For example, an SD card can store up to 2GB, an SDHC card has the maximum capacity of 32GB, while an SDXC card can support up to 2TB. SDUC is the newest card format that can support up to 128TB. The SD and SDHC memory card is mainly formatted to the FAT file system, while SDXC and SDUC are mainly formatted to exFAT file system.

At present, most SanDisk memory cards are designed with the microSDXC format. To compare SanDisk Extreme vs Extreme Plus vs Extreme Pro more smoothly, we mainly focus on the microSDXC memory card lineups.

According to the form above, you can find that the SanDisk Extreme lineup has more available capacity options than the other 2 types of memory cards.

Compatibility

SanDisk Extreme Plus vs Pro, which has better compatibility? It is necessary to make a compatibility check when buying a memory card. Here is the compatibility of the 3 types of SanDisk microSDXC memory cards:

SanDisk Extreme:

The SanDisk Extreme microSDXC UHS-1 card can be compatible with the supporting host devices below.

  • microSDHC UHS-1 and microSDHC
  • microSDXC UHS-1 and microSDXC

SanDisk Extreme Pro:

This memory card is compatible with many devices such as your action camera, drone, interchangeable-lens camera, smartphone, and tablet host devices.

  • microSDHC, microSDHC UHS-1, microSDHC UHS-II
  • microSDXC, microSDXC UHS-1, microSDXC UHS-II

SanDisk Extreme Plus:

This memory card can be compatible with these supporting host devices and cameras.

  • All microSDHC
  • microSDXC, microSDXC UHS-1

Price

The last difference between SanDisk Extreme and Extreme Pro is their prices. According to the data we gathered from Amazon, the SanDisk Extreme Pro lineup is more expensive than SanDisk Extreme and SanDisk Extreme Plus.

Usually, the larger capacity your memory card holds, the more money you need to pay for. A 64GB SanDisk Extreme microSDXC memory card will charge you $12.99, a 64GB SanDisk Extreme Plus card will charge you $38.99, while a 64GB SanDisk Extreme Pro will charge you $60.25.

SanDisk Extreme Pro vs Extreme Plus which is better? According to the comparison, it is obvious that SanDisk Extreme Pro is better than the Plus series on the terms of data speed, compatibility, and capacity options. If you don’t care its relatively high price, the SanDisk Extreme Pro will be an ideal choice.

Best Software to Manage Your SanDisk Memory Card

No matter what type of SanDisk memory card you want to choose, you have to manage your SD card effectively. Before using a new SD card, you need to format it to the right file system so that it can be used for your portable devices.

How to prepare your SD card effectively? You can use a trusted storage device management tool — MiniTool Partition Wizard. With this program, you can format it easily. Here’s how to do that:

Step 1. Open this software to get its main interface, and then select the memory card and click on the Format Partition feature from the left pane.

Step 2. Select a suitable file system from the drop-down menu and click on the OK button to go on. Here you can choose FAT32 or exFAT file system.

Step 3. Click on the Apply button to execute the SD card formatting operation.

SanDisk Extreme vs Extreme Pro vs Plus, what’s the difference, and which one is best? How to manage your SD memory card effectively? If you are also trying to figure these questions out, this post is what you are looking for. Click to tweet

Bottom Line

SanDisk Extreme vs Extreme Plus vs Pro, what’s the difference? Which one is best? Now, I believe that you already have a clear answer to the questions. If you have any questions about MiniTool Partition Wizard, please send us an e-mail via [email protected] . We also appreciate any endeavor that makes us go further.

SanDisk Extreme VS Extreme Pro FAQ

Originally published at https://www.partitionwizard.com on April 26, 2020.

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