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I'm planning on purchasing a few more memory cards for my Z7 and Z7II.  I've just been using my XQD cards up 'til now. I'm looking at various CF Express cards from Sandisk, Lexar, and Sony.  The ProGrade cards seem to be a bit cheaper or quite a bit of savings (their Gold edition cards).

I'm wondering about reliability of these cards, given their price.  Should I stay away from these or are these reliable? 

I'll pay more if that's what it takes for reliability, but I don't necessarily want to overpay either...e.g., Sony seems to charge more just because they can.  I've a few of their cards, but I don't think they're any more reliable than Sandisk or Lexar, yet the ones I'm looking at seem to simply cost more.

When Lexar was sold the original Lexar folks started ProGrade.  I have used their cards without any issue and the reviews of the ProGrade cards that I have seen have been stellar.  I have also used Sony cards but the price seems unreasonable and I don't see any reason to pay it. 

Mark L wrote:When Lexar was sold the original Lexar folks started ProGrade.  I have used their cards without any issue and the reviews of the ProGrade cards that I have seen have been stellar.  I have also used Sony cards but the price seems unreasonable and I don't see any reason to pay it. 

Oh right; thanks for the reminder of the Lexar connection.  I'd read they had some issues a few years ago, but from your perspective it sounds like they're stable now.

I'm with you on the Sony cards...just seemed like they were charging a bit extra because they can.

Thank you for the advice.

Tony

Been 100% ProGrade for several years - never an issue with their cards and their card readers are the best in the industry.

E.J. Peiker wrote:Been 100% ProGrade for several years - never an issue with their cards and their card readers are the best in the industry.

Thank you, EJ, for more great advice. I really appreciate the help in planning for my upcoming Antarctica trip.

Kind regards,

TD

TDeSanto wrote:I'm planning on purchasing a few more memory cards for my Z7 and Z7II.  I've just been using my XQD cards up 'til now. I'm looking at various CF Express cards from Sandisk, Lexar, and Sony.  The ProGrade cards seem to be a bit cheaper or quite a bit of savings (their Gold edition cards).

I'm wondering about reliability of these cards, given their price.  Should I stay away from these or are these reliable? 

I'll pay more if that's what it takes for reliability, but I don't necessarily want to overpay either...e.g., Sony seems to charge more just because they can.  I've a few of their cards, but I don't think they're any more reliable than Sandisk or Lexar, yet the ones I'm looking at seem to simply cost more.

Just a note: In fact the Sony 256 Gb is 300.- € here in Europe (Germany), too, while the Prograde Gold 256 is 175.-€. However, the Prograde Cobalt 325 Gb currently costs 580.- € while the Sony 512 Gb is 480.- €.  I know that the prices in Europe probably aren't of interest, though, but they might be an indication, too.
From what I've seen the Prograde cobalt series is better than the Prograde Gold:
https://petapixel.com/best-cfexpress-memory-cards/

I have both the Prograde cobalt 325 Gb (not the Gold though) and the Sony 512Gb/ 128Gb without any issues so far. The new Lexar Diamond is rated to be extremly fast in photo bursts. I haven't tested it and it's expensive here, too. Some argue to stay away from Lexar since the brand was sold to Longsys in China which is on the US sanction list. I personally never had any failures with Lexar, though.

Wolfgang
 

I've used Prograde for a while now, and no issues. Lexar cards are the only cards I've ever had total failures from, everything from the plastic cases coming apart to read/write failures.