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In recent months, we have completed a few articles on ProGrade Digital storage devices, as well as their card readers. Our first report was on the 1700 Gold and Cobalt CFExpressB Memory Cards along with their Thunderbolt 3 Dual CFExpress Card Reader, which is posted here, We next covered their 1700 Cobalt 650GB CFExpressB Card with their Dual Slot CFExpress/SD Card Reader, which is posted here. On the Test Bench Today, we have the ProGrade Gold 256GB V60 MicroSD Memory Card, and with that, they also sent along their Dual MicroSD Card Reader. Check out ProGrade’s website here.
We have kind of grown attached to these readers for several reasons, the first of which is each utilizes Type-C connectors to get the top possible speed from the drive being read. While we can bring in speeds of 1700MB/s with CFExpress Type B, many might be surprised that the MicroSD Gold cards we are testing today will also reach 280MB/s when being read in that top reader. Something I also like is the fact that the base of each is magnetic so they are stackable as shown in this shot.
The ProGrade Gold MicroSD V60 Card is available in 64, 128 and 256GB capacities and has a video rating of V60 which means that it will maintain a sustained video write speed of 60MB/s…which actually brings us into the 8K recording area. It is also Class 10 U3 and these can be understood through this chart from the SD Association which regulates such cards:
The ProGrade Gold 256GB V60 MicroSD card we are testing today has performance specifications of 250MB/s read and 140MB/s write, has been optimized for 4K and comes with a 3-year limited warranty.
ProGrade MicroSD cards come with an adapter that will allow full speeds to be realized, whether using the card in its larger or smaller format. This can be seen with the additional contacts on the back of both the card and adapter.
Checking Amazon, we can see the 256GB version of the proGrade Gold V60 MicroSD that we are testing today at $54.99. Also worthy of mention and looking at the back of the MicroSD card above, we see that each card includes an etched serial number for security purposes.
Let’s take a look at some benchmarks on the next page…
Wow. I visited their website, and found this very interesting information here:
https://shop.progradedigital.com/pages/prograde-digital-microsdxc-uhs-ii-v60-card
“REFRESH PRO ENABLED
Our microSDXC memory cards include everything you need for uninterrupted high-speed photography and video capture – including Refresh Pro. Refresh Pro performs two key functions: health monitoring and sanitizing. The health function measures the overall health of the memory card and provides feedback on the remaining life of the flash memory. The sanitize operation performs a deep clean, restoring the memory card to its original factory performance. Sanitize has been a function of CFast(TM) cards since they were introduced and ProGrade Digital now brings this functionality to SDXC(TM), microSD(TM), and CFexpress (TM) cards. ”
I guess Refresh Pro software is provided with the purchase of their cards. It is a nice feature though:
https://shop.progradedigital.com/pages/prograde-digital-refresh-pro-software
There are 3 testimonials near the bottom of of the page in the first link I provided. The one by Kennith W. is quite telling about how robust the construction and quality of these cards are.
Les, you have the price of the 128 GB card listed, not the 256 GB card.
As always, great review. I appreciate that you add the SD Association chart with your SD reviews, as their different classes are confusing.
If you need the best, ProGrade would be about impossible to beat.
Maybe you could add a new Review category for MicroSD, SD and CFExpress cards and card readers, as this category has become more important to everyone in the past couple of years due to all of the growth of electronic devices that depend on them.
Thanks for the review, Les. I probably would not have heard of this company it weren’t for you.
We are working with Refresh Pro and Recovery Pro now and I may amend th article. As for the links, the 256GB is not avail so it is defaulting to the $128GB. Tx ahead.
I’m glad you’re testing Refresh Pro and Recovery Pro. I’m interested in learning about this software. If you do amend this article, would you please note at the top of the article that it has been updated? That way I’ll know to re-read it.
Thanks, Les
BTW, have you heard any rumors about any new/future technology for SD/MicroSD cards that might improve their speeds, especially in RND4K Q1T1? I realize that the overall quality and reliability has steadily improved over the years, but it would be nice to see transfer speeds of small file sizes increase.