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HANDHELDVERDICT

Free download · storage cheat-sheet

The SD Card Speed Cheat-Sheet

The one-page cheat-sheet we run every storage question against. Print it, hold any card up to it, and the marketing number, the rating that actually matters, and the counterfeit tells sort themselves out in about two minutes. It won't tell you which card is trendy — it tells you which one keeps up with your library.

What's inside

  • The one rating that actually changes handheld performance — and the three that mostly do not
  • A plain A1-vs-A2 decision tree for retro versus PC-handheld libraries
  • How to spot and test a counterfeit card before it eats your collection
  • When to stop buying cards and add internal NVMe storage instead
  • For gaming, read the A-class first — A1 or A2 — because loading games is random I/O
  • A1 sets a random-I/O floor most retro and many PC-handheld libraries never exceed
  • A2 raises the floor, but only shows real gains on hardware that supports it
  • U3 and V30 rate sustained sequential speed — that matters for video capture, not game loads
  • The big MB/s number on the front is sequential; it is the least important spec for handhelds
  • Match capacity to your library: retro is compact; PC-handheld AAA runs 50–100GB per title
  • Buy from a trusted seller — counterfeit high-capacity cards are the classic way to lose a library
  • Prices far below market for the capacity are the counterfeit tell — walk away
  • Verify true capacity with a card-test utility before trusting anything you cannot re-copy
  • On a PC handheld, an internal NVMe (M.2 2230) beats any microSD for big native games