SanDisk's officially-licensed microSD Express Card for the Nintendo Switch 2 offers impressive raw throughput, potentially positioning it as a top contender for users prioritizing storage speed. In testing, the card consistently outperformed competing options from Samsung and PNY across various metrics.
Performance: Throughput
While the sequential read and write speeds advertised by manufacturers, such as SanDisk's 880 MB/s reads and 650 MB/s writes, are high, they don't fully represent real-world performance with video games. Game transfers involve numerous small files, leading to constant starts and stops that significantly slow down the process. Therefore, a card's ability to handle these intermittent transfers is crucial.
Testing file transfers between the SanDisk card and the Switch 2 in docked mode revealed its strengths. Writing Mario Kart World, a 22GB game, to the card achieved 94 MB/s. Moving games back to the console's internal storage was slightly slower, averaging 91 MB/s. For Resident Evil 4, transfers averaged 105 MB/s to the card and 80 MB/s back to the console. Super Smash Bros. transfers saw 95 MB/s to the card and 85 MB/s from it. The 8.9GB Donkey Kong Bananza transferred at a rapid 122 MB/s to the card, taking just over a minute, with an average of 88 MB/s when transferred back to internal storage.
Compared to other cards, SanDisk's offering generally provided faster write speeds. While the Samsung P9 Express showed competitive read speeds when moving games to internal storage, it was slower on other transfers. The PNY card offered similar read speeds but significantly slower write performance, taking over seven minutes to write Mario Kart World compared to SanDisk's approximately four minutes. For users frequently moving games on and off their Switch 2, the SanDisk card can offer substantial time savings.
Performance: Load Times
In terms of actual game loading times, the SanDisk card performed comparably to the Samsung and PNY cards. Donkey Kong Bananza loaded in 21 seconds, the same as the other tested cards. Mario Kart World averaged 19.4 seconds, a fraction of a second slower than the PNY card but about two seconds faster than the Samsung P9. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom loaded in 8.5 seconds, nearly a full second faster than both other cards.
Overall, the SanDisk card matches the performance of other high-end options. While loading from the Switch 2's internal storage is marginally faster for most games, the difference is negligible, with most games loading only a fraction of a second quicker from the console itself.
Verdict
Despite its impressive file transfer speeds, the SanDisk microSD Express card comes at a premium price. The 512GB model tested costs $250, considerably more than alternatives like the PNY option at $124. Even SanDisk's 256GB version at $82 is hard to justify when a 512GB Onn card from Walmart is available for only $3 more. However, prices for microSD Express cards fluctuate. With potential sales that can reduce the cost by up to $100, the SanDisk card becomes a more viable option worth considering.