Choosing the Right CFexpress and SD Cards for the Nikon Z7 II

The Nikon Z7 II has two memory card slots. Unlike the original Z7, which relied on a single slot, the Mark II provides the redundancy and flexibility that professional workflows demand.

However, because the two slots use entirely different technologies (CFexpress Type B and SDXC UHS-II), choosing the right combination of cards is essential to avoid bottlenecking the camera’s performance. This guide breaks down exactly how to manage this dual-slot system, navigate the shifting CFexpress market, and buy cards fast enough to handle the Z7 II’s 14 fps burst rate without overpaying.

Which Z7 Generation are you shooting?

This guide covers the dual-slot Nikon Z7 II. If you are using a different model, the card slots and speed limits are completely different. Please see my dedicated guides for those cameras here:
– Nikon Z7 Memory Card Recommendations (Original Single-Slot Model)

Quick recommendations

• Slot 1 (Primary): CFexpress Type B (Preferred) or XQD
• Slot 2 (Secondary): SDXC V90 UHS-II
• Workflow Essential: Dual-Slot CFexpress B / SDXC Reader

Nikon Z7 II compatibility & requirements

The Z7 II is a versatile hybrid camera. To get the most out of the dual EXPEED 6 processors, the 14 fps RAW burst rate, and high-bitrate 4K video, you need to understand the physical limits of each slot.

For video shooters, Nikon explicitly states that for recording 4K/60p, you need a card with a sustained transfer rate of at least 250 MB/s. Slower cards will cause the recording to drop frames or stop abruptly.

Slot 1: CFexpress Type B & the 4.0 opportunity

Slot 1 is the high-performance engine of the camera. It accepts both CFexpress Type B and legacy XQD cards. While the physical form factor is identical, CFexpress is the modern standard, offering vastly superior speeds that will clear your 45.7-megapixel RAW bursts almost instantly.

Note on Types: CFexpress comes in three sizes (A, B, and C). The Z7 II only accepts Type B. Do not buy Type A (used by Sony) or the oversized Type C. Similarly, CFast cards are an entirely different format and will not fit.

Should you buy a CFexpress 4.0 card for the Z7 II?

The CFexpress market is currently transitioning from the older 2.0 spec to the newer, twice-as-fast 4.0 spec. Because the cards look identical, navigating this shift is an excellent opportunity to save some cash if you know what to look for.

The Nikon Z7 II is a CFexpress 2.0 camera. It physically lacks the PCIe Gen 4 hardware required to hit the newer 4.0 speeds. This is a hardware limitation that cannot be changed with a firmware update.

Because the CFexpress standard is backward compatible, you can put a bleeding-edge 4.0 card into the Z7 II, and it will work flawlessly. The camera simply throttles that card down to 2.0 speeds. While you won’t see an in-camera performance bump from a 4.0 card, this backward compatibility opens up some opportunities for smart buying.

In a perfectly logical market, you’d just buy the cheapest 2.0 card you could find. But the market is currently shifting. Because manufacturers are aggressively changing their production lines to the new standard, newer 4.0 cards are sometimes actually cheaper and more readily available than the legacy 2.0 cards they replaced. In a market distortion due to algorithmic pricing based on the limited availability of legacy stock, older 2.0 cards frequently show up at massively inflated prices.

The rule of thumb is to look at the sustained write speeds and go with whatever is cheaper, regardless of whether the label says 2.0 or 4.0. If you spot a 4.0 card for the same price or cheaper than its 2.0 equivalent, grabbing the newer version is a fantastic win. You keep extra money in your pocket today, and you unlock drastically faster desktop offload speeds when you get back to your desk (provided you pair it with a USB 4.0 memory card reader).

Here are excellent, reliable options for the Z7 II that easily clear the camera’s 250 MB/s requirement without making you overpay for cinema-level speeds you don’t need:

Slot 2: SDXC & the dual-slot bottleneck trap

The second slot utilizes standard SDXC cards. Because the Z7 II produces large 45.7MP RAW files and high-bitrate 4K video, it is highly recommended to use UHS-II cards here to keep your workflow moving.

More importantly, you have to be careful how you configure the camera’s menus. If you set Slot 2 to Backup Mode (writing duplicate RAW files to both cards simultaneously for an instant backup), the camera cannot clear its internal buffer until the photo is written to both locations.

If you pair a lightning-fast CFexpress card in Slot 1 with a slow UHS-I SD card in Slot 2, the entire camera will instantly throttle to the speed of the SD card. Your 14 fps burst will hit a wall almost immediately. To maximize the Z7 II’s performance in dual-write scenarios, my independent memory card speed tests point to pairing your CFexpress card with a high-speed V90 UHS-II SDXC card.

Heads up! Don’t buy an SD Express card. The Z7 II lacks the internal hardware to utilize the emerging SD Express standard. While they will physically fit, they will default to sluggish UHS-I speeds, wasting your money. Stick to standard UHS-II SDXC cards.

The golden rule & formatting quirks

The golden rule for storage media is to always format the memory card directly inside the camera before a shoot, rather than relying on your computer to do it. You can format either slot by navigating to the yellow Setup Menu (Wrench Icon) and selecting Format memory card.

The Formatting Quirk: When formatting cards in the Z7 II’s menu system, the interface will still refer to Slot 1 as the “XQD card” even when a CFexpress Type B card is inserted. This is a simple menu text oversight by Nikon and has absolutely no impact on the card’s performance.

If you accidentally format the wrong card in the field, stop shooting immediately. Because the camera only performs a high-level format that wipes the directory index, you can usually recover your deleted photos later, as long as you haven’t written new files over the old data.

If your memory card begins to act sluggishly or throws read errors after months of heavy use, a standard in-camera format might not be enough. In that case, connect the card to your computer and execute a full format instead of a quick format using a dedicated utility tool to deeply restore the flash memory.

Memory card readers

Your old XQD reader likely will not read CFexpress B cards, even though the slot looks identical, unless the reader’s hardware was explicitly designed to be cross-compatible.

To ingest both slots simultaneously without taking up multiple ports on a computer, a dual-slot reader that handles both CFexpress B and UHS-II SD cards in a single Thunderbolt 3 or USB-C connection is incredibly useful.

Backup isn’t how the camera arrives, though. Out of the box, Secondary slot function (in the photo shooting menu) is set to Overflow, where the camera fills the CFexpress card first and only starts using the SD card once the first one is full. In Overflow the SD card can’t slow your burst down, because only one card is being written to at a time. The third option, RAW Slot 1 – JPEG Slot 2, writes to both cards on every frame, so the SD card still gets a say in how fast the buffer clears.