There are a variety of different types of data cards used in your devices. One of the more popular types of cards is the SD Card (Secure Digital). While it has been used in some phones, most current smartphones have moved to microSD cards if they support storage cards (iPhones and iPads don’t). Typically you would find SD cards used in digital cameras, camcorders and tablets these days. While SD cards are the generic name, there are multiple flavors that govern the maximum capacity of the card. You’ll certainly want to find out the flavor supported by your device before you invest in a new card.

Why would you want more than the card you have now? A simple answer is that you would be buying a card that holds more data. This allows you to shoot more photos, movies and just plain store more data. There may also be occasions when it isn’t convenient to offload the data from a single card so you’ll want to have multiple cards to swap in and out as they get near capacity. Suffice it to say, these cards are far less expensive than the cost of film and developing in the old days of photography!

Below I’ve listed 7 SDHC cards at different sizes and data transfer speeds. A higher class number indicates faster data transfer speeds. Note that the prices listed are what I saw on Amazon at the time this post was written. The prices you see could certainly be higher or lower.

• SanDisk 8 GB SDHC Class 4 – $7.19
• Transcend 8 GB SDHC Class 10 – $8.99
• SanDisk 16 GB SDHC Class 4 – $11.45
• Transcend 16 GB SDHC Class 10 – $12.72
• SanDisk 32 GB SDHC Class 4 – $18.94
• Transcend 32 GB SDHC Class 10 – $23.42
• SanDisk Extreme 32 GB SDHC Class 10 – $34.32

Remember it is also a good idea to have a standalone cardreader instead of plugging your device into your computer to offload data. Read Use a Card Reader For Reading Data on All Cards for the details.