Is an SD As Fast As a USB Flash Drive?
As computers evolve, different types of technology overlap, so confusion arises about which technology is faster or better. For example: Is a USB flash drive faster than an SD card?
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USB flash drives
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A flash drive is a portable storage device about the size of a cigarette lighter that plugs into a USB port on your computer. This is not to be confused with a "USB drive," which usually refers to an external hard drive that connects to your computer through a USB cable.
SD cards
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In this context, "SD" stands for Secure Digital. This is a type of memory card that you will usually find in a digital camera and sometimes in a cell phone or portable media device.
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USB speed
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A USB flash drive uses the USB "bus" in your computer. This bus can be thought of as several lanes of traffic on a highway. USB 2.0's lanes move at up to 400 megabits per second, or 60 megabytes per second.
SD card speed
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SD cards speeds are broken down into classes from 2 to 45. These numbers represent the device's speed in megabits per second. The highest class available is 10, which translates to a maximum speed of 10 megabytes per second.
USB prevails
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As SD card technology evolves, higher classes will become available, but the rate of SD technology is currently outpaced by USB.
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