Sony a6100 Memory Card Recommendations

Quick recommendations on SD cards for the Sony a6100

If you just want some quick recommendations, here you go. Any of these will work well in the a6100. These SD cards meet the needs of the a6100’s feature, have a strong track record of reliability, are readily available, and are usually cost-effective.

Sony a6100 SD card requirements

A memory card is an essential accessory to make the camera work, but the Sony a6100 doesn’t come with a memory card as standard. It’s not really an optional extra, but as Sony points out in their manual, memory cards are “sold separately.”

Some retailers put together a deal bundle that might include some accessories, including a memory card, but chances are you’ll have to pick up a memory card separately. Or maybe you want something bigger with larger storage capacity — the cards that are included in bundles are often on the small side and might fill up quickly, especially if you’re on a trip.

NOTE: The Sony a6100 is sometimes known as the Alpha a6100, the Alpha 6100, the ILCE-6100, or the α6100. Because heaven forbid that there might be a simpler option.

But what type of memory card does the Sony a6100 take? That’s why I’ve put this post together–hopefully, to help you get out shooting sooner and taking full advantage of all the features of your new camera rather than spending your time searching the web and trying to make sense of cryptic technical codes. I’ve been buying and testing numerous SD cards for several years and have put many of the most popular SD cards on the market through their paces.

The Sony a6100 is an interchangeable lens mirrorless camera with a 24-megapixel APS-C sensor. It can save JPG and RAW formats and has a burst shooting mode of up to 11 frames per second. And it shoots 4K video at a bitrate of up to 100Mbps.

It has a single UHS-I memory card slot. Sony lists a bunch of media for compatibility:

Memory Stick PRO Duo, Memory Stick PRO-HG Duo, Memory Stick Micro (M2), SD memory card, SDHC memory card (UHS-I compliant), SDXC memory card (UHS-I compliant), microSD memory card, microSDHC memory card, microSDXC memory card

But not all of those are equally practical or sensible options. The various types of Memory Stick are Sony formats, and they don’t tend to be widely available in stores. And while it’s technically possible to use a microSD card in an adapter in an SD port–true of any SD port–it’s really not a first-choice method.

So I’m focusing here on the formats that make the most sense: SDXC and SDHC. These types of memory cards are readily available, cost-effective, and there are multiple brands and models to choose from.

The video bitrate refers to the amount of data being written to the memory card when shooting video footage. When using the 4K modes, it’s up to a relatively high 100Mbps. You’ll need a card that can keep up with that, but it’s still well below some higher-end models that can shoot at up to 400Mb/s.

So the a6100 needs a card that is relatively fast, but it doesn’t need the fastest SD card that money can buy.

Because of the way that cameras interface with memory cards, once you have a card that meets the requirements of the camera, you don’t get any extra benefit by inserting a card with high specs and performance that exceeds the camera’s capabilities.¹ And, naturally, high-performance cards are more expensive. So why pay extra for high performance that your a6100 can’t use? By all means, if you already have a fast SD card on hand, you can use it in the a6100, but it won’t get you any extra performance in the camera (it might when downloading the photos and videos to a computer).

That said, in the recommendations below, I’m factoring in cost-effectiveness as well. And because memory card manufacturers are coming out with newer, faster models all the time, it’s quite possible that the most cost-effective cards are faster than your camera needs. But that’s a case where it makes sense to go with the cost-effective option even if its performance exceeds the requirements of the camera.

Detailed version

So which SD card should you get for your Sony a6100? Here’s the more detailed version.

Practical recommendations

If you go looking in the a6100’s manual, you’ll find that it recommends a card that’s rated at U3 in order to be able to take advantage of the camera’s top video modes. Most SD cards these days are moving beyond the U3/U1 video speed rating system to a newer system.

This is what you’ll find in the manual:

So what I’m aiming to do here is provide some practical recommendations on which SD cards to get for the Sony a6100 so you can spend less time searching online and more time out shooting. I’m not trying to list every SD card that works in the a6100–there are others that will work just fine as well. I’m focusing here on ones that offer a good combination of meeting the requirements of all of the a6100’s features, are readily available at major retailers, are cost-effective, and come from major manufacturers with track records for good-quality cards. I’m also basing this on my own SD speed tests.

So here’s more detailed information on these cards, along with some others.

Making sense of SD card specifications

You’ll find a range of different acronyms and codes on SD cards. Here’s a quick overview of which to look for.

SDHC vs SDXC

Most of the cards you’ll see available have either SDHC or SDXC printed on them. The Sony a6100 will work with both SDHC and SDXC cards (and, for that matter, just plain SD cards, but they’re hard to find these days).

These are categories assigned by the SD Association, which is the organization that oversees and develops the standards for SD and microSD cards. The difference between those two specifications is in the filesystem they’re formatted with–the SDHC specification uses FAT32 formatting, while the SDXC specification uses exFAT–but when it comes to buying memory cards, the practical difference is that cards 32GB and smaller will be labeled SDHC and cards 64GB and larger will be labeled SDXC.

In the a6100, there’s an advantage to using an SDXC card rather than an SDHC if you’re shooting in the highest video modes. If you use an SDHC card, the a6100 will break the video into segments no larger than 4GB. It’s a process called chaptering, and it’s done because the FAT32 filesystem used on SDHC cards only supports a maximum file size of 4GB. They can be rejoined in video editing apps, but that’s a separate step that’s not always convenient. By contrast, the exFAT filesystem used on SDXC cards supports far larger files, so the a6100 doesn’t break videos into smaller chunks on SDXC cards.

There’s really no right answer when it comes to what size to get–it’s mostly a matter of convenience so that you don’t keep running out of space. As is probably obvious, you can fit twice as many photos on a 64GB card as on a 32GB card. And that’s handy when you’re travelling. The most logical sizes for this camera in terms of convenience and price are probably the 128GB or 256GB sizes. But if you want to use a larger or smaller one, say 512GB or 64GB, go right ahead–they’ll work just fine.

UHS-I vs. UHS-II

The current generations of SD cards also have UHS-I or UHS-II on them (or often just an I or II). This refers to the type of interface that’s used to connect to the cards. It stands for ultra-high-speed bus.

UHS-I is the older, simpler bus interface. UHS-II is newer and potentially faster. The catch is that you only get the extra benefit of UHS-II if the device is also UHS-II. But the spec is designed to be backward compatible, so you can use UHS-II cards in UHS-I devices, but you will only get the speed of UHS-I.

The Sony a6100 has a UHS-I interface, so, as a practical matter, there’s no benefit to using UHS-II cards in it (but it’s perfectly fine to do so if you already have a UHS-II card on hand).

Video Speed Classes

The SD Association has come out with various rating systems over the years to help buyers choose a card that’s suitable for use in cameras. Because recording high-resolution video (or, more specifically, high-bitrate video) is often the most demanding operation in terms of a camera and its memory card, it’s known as a video speed class rating system.

Most cards available now have a mix of old and new speed class codes printed on them. And while it’s helpful, it’s still an imperfect system for judging the speed of an SD card.

As a practical matter in the Sony a6100, cards that have any of these on them should be fast enough:

• V30
• V60
• U3

V90 is also fine, but it’s overkill for the a6100.

There’s a separate rating system that you might also see on some cards. They might have an A1 or A2 on them. You can ignore that when choosing an SD card for a camera. It’s designed for the kinds of operations that gaming devices and smartphones do.

What size SD card to use in the Sony a6100

The a6100 is compatible with SDHC and SDXC cards. That means you can use cards from 4GB all the way to the largest cards currently available, which are 512GB and 1TB cards.

The current sweet spot for a combination of convenience, being readily available, and being cost-effective is probably around the 128GB to 512GB range. But you can use larger or smaller ones if you prefer–it’s mostly a matter of convenience of how much video footage or photo data you can store on the card before it fills up, and you have to download to a computer or some other device.

Sony has provided these estimates for the number of a6100 photos that should fit on a memory card:

And they’ve done the same for video:

So why get a good memory card?

A better memory card isn’t going to help you take better photos or improve image quality. But it can let you take advantage of all of the camera’s features. A card that’s not fast enough to keep up with the camera can cause issues like locking up, dropped frames, and overheating.

There’s also the issue of reliability. There are plenty of junk memory cards on the market. Not only do they have flaky performance, but they’re also more likely to fail. And that means the risk of losing your photos and videos.

At the same time, you don’t want to pay extra for a high-performance SD card that’s overkill for the camera.

How to format SD cards

When you buy a new SD card, you should format it before use and then regularly after that. If you’re formatting a card that you’ve been using, be sure that you’ve downloaded the photos and videos first–formatting deletes everything on the card.

Here’s some information on how to format the memory card.

How to format memory cards in the Sony a6100

It is best practice to always format memory cards in the camera that you’ll be using them in. That sets the card up with the filesystem, folder hierarchy, and, in some cameras, a database file, so that the card is just how the camera expects. That greatly reduces the risk of unexpected errors and unpleasant surprises.

On the Sony a6100, you can find the format function under:

MENU > Setup (the toolbox icon) > Format

How to format SD cards with a computer

Having said that, it is still possible to format memory cards using a card reader and computer. You get a lot more flexibility that way, but also some extra risk if things aren’t set up just how the camera wants them. It’s also sometimes a good troubleshooting step if you’re having issues with a memory card.

There are some things to watch out for, particularly when it comes to choosing which filesystem to use. So I’ve put together guides on how to format SD cards on Mac and how to use the free SD Card Formatter app for Windows or Mac.

FAQs about Sony a6100 memory cards

Notes & References:

1. Depending on your computer and memory card reader setup, you might get some speed benefit when putting a faster memory card into your card reader and downloading images to your computer. [↩︎]