Are MicroSD cards faster with or without adapters?

We made this video pretty much to answer one of our own questions: Does using a full-size SD card adapter with a microSD card have any effect on performance? WELL WE'LL SEE!

Buy SD cards:

Episode Credits:
Host: Linus Sebastian
Writer: Jack Sui
Editor: Kalvin Shum

[AlvinChuang]

TLDR; adapter makes no difference to speed. They tested 7 to check.

[glitchsmasher]

Adapters just rewire the pins of the MicroSD to the full sized one, the pinout is incredibly similar.

[tpcs]

Thanks Linus and ncix for this video.  I've been curious about this off and on, although it's been very down low on my pc tech priority list.

[saveraptor]

Brought you by Tic Tac Tech Tips! TTTT

[dacasman]

Why would there be a difference? the adapter is simply an extension of the pins. there is no chip or anything in the adapter.

[SuperDrifter]

Came here with a question, left the video with the same question. Gr8

[FNIX]

Another question in this topic: is there diffrent speeds on the adapters? I have an old adapter laying here and it is only marked with Micro SD and SDHC, but my newest one is marked Micro SD / SDHC / SDXC. I hav not tried to see if there is a difference. I have thought that the adaptors was just an mechanical thing that extended the leads from MicroSD over to SD memorycard size.
I have experienced that the diffrent SDXC readers will also make a huge diffrence in speed. My newest Logik is USB3.0 and work a lot faster than one nonamed but still marked SDXC.

[programgamer]

"Today on NCIX we proved exactly nothing thanks to science!"

Uhm, ok thanks I guess

[themangix]

Starting at 2:32, Linus started talking like how AustinEvans does, especially on that "negligible" part. o_O)

[rondlh]

If you open the adapter then you will only find some passive wiring. The adapter just realigns the pins to the pin layout and dimensions of the card it converts to. But note, the supported protocols can be different for the different card sizes. So if you need and SD card, just by an SD card, and not and micro SD cards with an adapter. You will get better speeds that way.

[lunalu]

8 years later, with me transitioning into a 6.2K video workflow, i can finally use the info in this video, all hail linus tech tips lmao

[bayf]

This video could literally not have been posted at a more perfect time, as I just asked myself this question yesterday :) Aweseome and thanks Linus NCIX Tips

[auroragios]

This video is pure gold, found my answer today with the proper test Linus has taken. WOW

[xaviermoeradji]

I was here 5 years ago and now I'm here again

[ClassicsTelevision]

He actually missed the tictac box... 0:10

[SONOFAZOMBIE]

Got a feeling she wanted to know _Full sized SD cards_ vs _Micro SD cards in an adaptor_

But she messed up her words...

[Archeael]

I think it was pretty much obvious; even if the adapter could work at a much higher speed, the microSD would still work at its standard rates. If you run your car at max speeds on a highway and you're in the slowest lane, changing to another lane won't make your car faster.
Your vids are great Linus, keep it up.

[jeeeef]

Great topic! Please do more 'answering questions' type videos like this one!

[kendelion]

now my doubts have been cleared! I also tried to benchmark things before but ncix doing this tests makes it more concrete! :D

[jerryg]

In practice there would be no user difference. When measuring the difference the very tiny difference would maybe have to do with the propagation delay of the added conductors inside of the SD card adapter to use the micro SD card.

The frequencies used for the clocking and data processing is very high and thus any chance of conductor difference can be measured. With using USB devices if taking precise measurements simply adding a small extension between the device and the port may show some slight or tiny difference.