ADATA Premier Pro UHS-I U1 Class 10 32GB SDHC Memory Card Review

With the widespread emergence of the latest Secure Digital specification and the UHS speed class, ADATA has released some of the fastest SD memory cards on the market in the Premier Pro UHS-I U1 line-up. Can the theoretical performance prove its use in real world scenarios? Based on the latest SDA 3.0 specification, the UHS-I, or Ultra-High Speed Phase 1, interface used on ADATA's Premier Pro memory cards gives them sequential speeds of up to 95 MB/s read and 45 MB/s write. Available in capacities of 16 and 32GB, with a 64GB SDXC variant existing, ADATA is targeting professional photographers and enthusiasts that crave ultra-fast storage for their SD-compatible devices. With sequential speeds comparable to those of many 2.5" hard drives, can the ADATA Premier Pro UHS-I U1 32GB SDHC memory card translate numbers on a specification sheet into real world performance? Specifications: Capacity: 16GB/32GB Standard: SDA 3.0 Performance (Sequential): 95 MB/s Read, 45 MB/s Write Performance (Random): 1300 IOPS Read, 100 IOPS Write Warranty: Lifetime ADATA supplies the Premier Pro memory card in a transparent, plastic shield that is surrounded by a small amount of packaging containing the product's details. The read and write speeds make an appearance on the packaging's front to tempt consumers into a purchase. A table that outlines the number of photos or videos each capacity of memory card can store is located on the packaging's rear side. ADATA's water-, shock- and other damage-proof Premier Pro is identical to any other SD card, with the exception of the company's individual sticker. ADATA lists the read and write speeds as well as the card's 32GB capacity on the sticker, along with other specifications. To connect ADATA's Premier Pro memory card to our test system, we used the Kingston MobileLite G3 USB 3.0 card reader which is available for a competitive price from Amazon. The adapter supports SD, microSD and Memory Stick Pro Duo memory cards. Test Procedures: We connected the ADATA Premier Pro UHS-I U1 Class 10 32GB SDHC Memory Card to our Kingston MobileLite G3 USB 3.0 card reader to eliminate bottlenecks associated with built-in, USB 2.0 card reading devices. We then attached the card reader to one of our Asus P8Z77-V motherboard's native USB 3.0 ports for testing procedures. Each test was repeated to ensure the results were consistent. Test Results: CrystalDiskMark is a useful benchmark to measure theoretical performance levels of hard drives, SSDs, memory cards and other data storage devices. We are using V3.0.1 x64. Reaching sequential speeds of over 90 MB/s for read and almost 50 MB/s for write, ADATA has produced a very fast SDHC memory card in the Premier Pro. Worth noting is the non-existent performance drop when moving from compressible to incompressible data. For reference, only the sequential read performance of a 320GB Seagate 7200.12 HDD is able to surpass the Premier Pro's read performance, with the other 3 read results going in favour of the ADATA memory card. The ATTO Disk Benchmark performance measurement tool is compatible with Microsoft Windows. We used ATTO to measure the ADATA Premier Pro SDHC memory card's sequential read and write performance. ADATA's claims of 95 MB/s sequential read and 45 MB/s sequential write speeds were legitimate with the Premier Pro achieving excellent sequential performance in the ATTO Disk benchmark. Real world performance is the most important aspect of a modern memory card. We put the ADATA Premier Pro UHS-I SDHC memory card through a variety of demanding tests to see if its synthetic benchmark results are representative of the real world performance that is available. To eliminate any potential bottlenecks, we copied every folder and file from an ADATA SP300 mSATA SSD that is capable of over 250 MB/s sequential read and write performance, as detailed in our review of the drive that you can read here. We used a stopwatch to measure the time taken to transfer the files in each test. Dividing the total folder size by the time taken to copy all of the files, we can deduce the average transfer speeds. Test Results: Our first test represented transferring the photos and videos taken while attending an event such as an air show, football match, theme park or even a holiday. We used our folder that contained the 525 files, 31 of which were videos with the other 494 being 14 Megapixel JPG photos, created during the RIAT 2012 air show. The total folder size was 4,669 MB. Transferring over 4.5GB worth of photos and videos in less than 2 minutes and 30 seconds shows that the ADATA Premier Pro UHS-I SDHC memory card can offer excellent time-saving benefits for professional and enthusiast photographers. While the real world transfer rates aren't as remarkable as the card's synthetic speeds, averaging over 30 MB/s with a folder containing 525 files is still impressive performance. For the second real world test, we used a folder that was 8,161 MB in size and contained 5,655 files spread across 1,369 sub-folders. This test was intended to outline the ADATA Premier Pro memory card's performance when transferring a variety of file types of varying sizes located in many different folders, simultaneously. This represents the demanding type of work load that users wanting a data-transferring SD card will put it through. With such a demanding work load and continuously varying files, the transfer rates of ADATA's Premier Pro SDHC memory card dropped in comparison to the photo and video copying test. Nevertheless, copying the folder that was almost 8GB in size in a time of less than 6 minutes and 30 seconds is performance that most users would deem sufficient. While these numbers may be much lower than the synthetic benchmarks' speeds, the performance is actually very good, when taking the folder's size and varied file nature into account. The ADATA Premier Pro UHS-I U1 Class 10 32GB SDHC Memory Card is a very fast storage device that lives up to its 'Ultra-High Speed' class rating. Synthetic benchmark results show that the UHS-I class memory card is able to offer read performance that is generally better than a mainstream 3.5" hard drive. Write performance is also very good, although not quite as impressive as the read scores. The write performance isn't a major concern due to the memory card's target audience - one that will benefit from the ultra-fast read speeds when transferring a large quantity of files to their computer. Real world performance is very good, although the numbers aren't quite as impressive as those displayed by the synthetic benchmarks. Being able to transfer enough photos and videos to fill a single-layer DVD in less than 2 minutes and 30 seconds is excellent performance. The average transfer rates of around 30 MB/s may seem a long way off the synthetic numbers, but they are average speeds. With a demanding 8GB work load consisting of more than five-and-a-half thousand files being transferred in just over 6 minutes, it is safe to say that most users will be very impressed by the ADATA Premier Pro UHS-I U1 SDHC memory card's real world performance. Available from Amazon for £25.14, the 32GB ADATA Premier Pro UHS-I U1 is more expensive than your average 32GB memory card, but that's because it isn't 'your average 32GB memory card', not at all. A competing model from Sony will make your wallet over £15 lighter in comparison to ADATA's option. Even SanDisk's similarly-priced competitors can only offer half the maximum read speed of ADATA's Premier Pro SD cards. If you regularly transfer large quantities of data from your camera or SD-compatible devices, the ADATA Premier Pro UHS-I U1 memory card may just pay back its competitive price tag with the time saved via its ultra-fast transfer speeds. Pros: Very fast read and write speeds. Good real world transfer rates. Competitively priced for a UHS-I U1, Class 10 SD card. Available in 16, 32 and 64GB capacities. Cons: Price may be too high for some consumers to justify the additional speed. KitGuru says: Competitively priced and very fast, ADATA's Premier Pro range of UHS-I U1, Class 10 memory cards are formidable contenders in the crowded SD card market.