Are you wondering how fast is your SD card? If so, you’ve landed in the right place!
Fortunately, there are several free tools around the internet that you can use to test your SD card speed and capacity.
In this article, you’ll discover what are the five best free software for testing SD Card speed.
5 Best Free SD Card Speed Test Tools
The tools i present you today can be used to verify whether an SD card’s capacity is real and not “fake”. Usually there are two ways by which a buyer of SD cards can be cheated. One is by giving inaccurate information about card capacity. For example, advertising the card capacity as 256GB when it really only has 16GB capacity.
The other way is by giving false information about the SD card speed. Read this article to learn everything about SD Card Speed Class (speed class, UHS, and video speed class).
Here are the 5 best free SD Card speed testing tools:
Blackmagic Disk Speed Test
Blackmagic Disk Speed Test is one of the best tools if you own a Mac. It’s a useful free utility is designed to test the speed of SD and microSD cards. The only limitation of this tool is that it’s designed for people who work with large files, such as video clips. Blackmagic Disk Speed Test writes large blocks of data to the storage device. It then reads that data block to verify the performance of the drive/SD card. However, this also means that the test takes a lot of time to complete.
H2testw
H2testw is a super-reliable tool that’s able to test the true capacity and read/write speed of your SD/mircoSD card or drive. This software was originally developed by a German software engineer. That’s why its website and the software is in German language. However, once downloaded, you simply need to run the installer. It will give you the option to use English as the default language. The only minor limitation to H2testw is the fact that it’s a bit old, which means that the software hasn’t been optimized for larger-capacity drives. As a result, it may take a bit longer to complete the test.
USBDeview
USBDeview is a portable utility by Nirsoft that allows you to find your USB device or SD/microSD Card and test its true speed. After you’ve found the SD card, you just need select it and press Start Test. It will sequentially read and write a 100MB file to get the true scores. You can then choose to publish the test results if you wish by clicking the button and ticking the box to agree to publish the results.
SpeedOut
SpeedOut is a simple tool to quickly measure the sequential read and write speed of your flash drive/SD Card. The program runs the tests at a low level. It means that the scores aren’t affected by the drive file system. To start the test, you need to first choose your USB drive from the drop-down (if you’ve more than one). SpeedOut will then run 4 passes for both reading and writing tests and display the average for each. The scores can be saved or copied by right clicking on the title bar. SpeedOut is a non-destructive tool, which means that no files are overwritten and the SD Card/Flash Drive doesn’t need formatting to run the test.
ChipGenius
While all the tools above write data to the SD card in order to determine its speed and capacity, ChipGenius doesn’t write any data at all! Instead, this tool locates the manufacturer information as well as storage information programmed into the SD card storage. It then cross references this information with its database. After this process is done, it reports the findings back to you. For example, if you purchased a 64GB Class 10 SanDisk SD card, but ChipGenius reports that it’s actually an 8GB Class 6 Emtec, then you know that you’ve been cheated. The main advantage of this tool is that the test process is much quicker. However, many shady sellers today know how to cover their tracks. So, ChipGenius may not be able to identify every fake card floating around on the Web, just the poorly programmed ones.
- CAPTURE LARGER THAN LIFE. Unlock startling 5K[3] point-of-view and pristine high-res...
- SPEED BARRIERS SHATTERED. Save precious moments with rapid read speeds up to...
- MAXIMIZE WITH MASSIVE CAPACITY. Record longer and store more with up to 2TB[1] of...
Conclusion
In addition to the software mentioned above, there are several others that you can use to check the speed of your SD Card. These include: Disk Speed / Performance Test, CrystalDiskMark, SD Card Speed, Flash Memory Toolkit, A1 SD Bench and so on.
While these tests may come in handy after you’ve purchased an SD card, you should always beware of fake, bad quality and unbranded SD cards. So, be extra cautious while making the purchase. Always go for genuine, high-rated sellers and well-known brand products.
Check out reliable SD Memory Cards here >
If you are looking to buy an SD card compatible with your GoPro camera, then check out this article >>
Thanks for reading!
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- What SD Card SPEED do YOU NEED for Recording Videos?
- How to Fix Corrupted SD Cards
- How to Format Micro SD Cards
Frequently Asked Questions
What’s the fastest way to tell if an SD card is fake before I trust it in my camera?
Run ChipGenius first – it reads the chip’s actual manufacturer and capacity data in seconds without writing anything, so it will immediately flag a card that claims 256GB but is really built on 16GB of flash. If you want to double check, follow up with H2testw, which will show write errors the moment you exceed the card’s real capacity.
Do I need a fast SD card for the GoPro Hero 13 Black or the new Mission 1 cameras?
Yes. GoPro officially recommends UHS-3 (U3) or V30-rated microSD cards for Hero 13 Black’s 5.3K60 footage, and I would go with a V60 card for the Mission 1 series’ 8K open-gate modes since the bitrates are much higher. Any of the five tools in this article will confirm whether a card is actually hitting those speeds instead of just being labeled for them.
Can I run these SD card speed tests on a Mac?
Blackmagic Disk Speed Test is the one built for macOS, and it’s still free on the Mac App Store. It writes and reads large blocks continuously, which makes it good for confirming sustained speeds for 4K or 5.3K video rather than just a quick burst number.
Why does my brand new SD card test slower than the speed printed on the box?
The advertised number is almost always a best case burst read speed measured in a lab, not the sustained write speed that actually matters for continuous video recording. Run SpeedOut or Blackmagic Disk Speed Test to see real sustained write numbers, and expect them to land noticeably below the marketing figure.
Where do most counterfeit SD cards come from, and how do I avoid them?
They show up most often through third party sellers on Amazon, AliExpress, and eBay. I buy only from listings sold and shipped by Amazon or an authorized retailer, and I still run a quick ChipGenius or H2testw check on the day a card arrives before I trust it on a shoot.
Which of these five tools should I use if I just want a quick answer?
Start with ChipGenius since it only reads the card’s stored chip ID and skips writing data entirely, so it takes seconds instead of the hour or more a full H2testw pass takes on a large capacity card. Only fall back to H2testw or SpeedOut if ChipGenius flags something questionable.
