Delkin Memory Cards: 256gb v. 325gb

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padrepaul

padrepaul

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Hi all,

I own 2 Delkin Memory cards, and am planning on getting a third.

I ran into issues with the 256gb card while photographing a great gray owl in that it would hit the buffer quickly; after just 20 shots on the burst, it would slow down. They took the cards back and sent me two idential ones, and they do seem a bit better.

However in talking to a camera shop owner, Mark Comon of Pauls, he wrote me saying Delkin thought the 256gb would be fine with the Z9, but that particular one wasn't able to keep up as good, so they came out with the 325gb one which is the latest one, and much faster. Just curious what folks think who shoot Delkin: if you've used these is there a noticable improvement in the slightly larger, newer card?

I'll be getting the third card for my Z8; right now I have a Sony CF Express card in it, and it does hit the buffer after 20 too and is even a little slower than the Delkin. I'm not expecting full uninterrupted shooting for 100 shots, but speed matters with birds, and I'd use the older Delkin cards as my second slot card on the Z9 and in the Z8 with the Sony as the 4th card in case of need.

Mark is great as he said before I bought the new card to write Delkin. I did, and they sent me the replacment cards (though I wish they would have sent me a 325), and I know he's not just trying to sell me a card. I could use it, so figure it may be the best option for bird photography.

Thanks,
Paul
 
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Planning for a multiday trip caused me to go through the CF Express B cards I have acquired over several years. The test body was a Z9 at 20 fps shooting losess compressed Raw, with 4.0 firmware. Delkin Black 325 and Cobalt 325 were the fastest giving burst durations a little over 70 images before slow down. Surprising me, 4 Delkin Power 128 cards were almost as fast averaging 68 images. I have a number of other cards, Delkin Power 256, 512, 1,000 and 2,000. These all clustered around 39-40 burst images before slow down. Since I almost never shoot a continuous burst that long, using any of these second tier cards essentially makes no difference for my wildlife shooting. I have a ProGrade Gold 128 that stumbled at 29 burst images. I also tested a Sony G series 128 XQD card. It came in at 30 images. The best XQD card was as good as the slowest CF Express. I use the slow cards for studio and other portrait work where speed is not at all important. My thoughts, if you shoot a lot of birds in flight, go with one of the fastest cards available. For larger mammals and anything else, the second tier cards work just as well and you can save a bit of money. I would avoid the budget cards because I do not have faith in their reliability.
 
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padrepaul said:
Hi all,

I own 2 Delkin Memory cards, and am planning on getting a third.

I ran into issues with the 256gb card while photographing a great gray owl in that it would hit the buffer quickly; after just 20 shots on the burst, it would slow down. They took the cards back and sent me two idential ones, and they do seem a bit better.

However in talking to a camera shop owner, Mark Comon of Pauls, he wrote me saying Delkin thought the 256gb would be fine with the Z9, but that particular one wasn't able to keep up as good, so they came out with the 325gb one which is the latest one, and much faster. Just curious what folks think who shoot Delkin: if you've used these is there a noticable improvement in the slightly larger, newer card?

I'll be getting the third card for my Z8; right now I have a Sony CF Express card in it, and it does hit the buffer after 20 too and is even a little slower than the Delkin. I'm not expecting full uninterrupted shooting for 100 shots, but speed matters with birds, and I'd use the older Delkin cards as my second slot card on the Z9 and in the Z8 with the Sony as the 4th card in case of need.

Mark is great as he said before I bought the new card to write Delkin. I did, and they sent me the replacment cards (though I wish they would have sent me a 325), and I know he's not just trying to sell me a card. I could use it, so figure it may be the best option for bird photography.

Thanks,
Paul
Click to expand...
Can you clarify which Delkin CFexpress card you have? And which RAW format are you shooting? I am using the Delkin Black cards (a 512 and 650) and both can shoot 80 shots before going from 20 fps to 16 fps at lossless RAW.
 
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Hi,

It was a Delkin Black and a Delkin Power green card. The sales rep at Pauls said avoid the green card as it will eventually fail. Both were 256gb cards replaced; the 325gb I paid for and is the newer fastest card.
 
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padrepaul said:
Hi all,

I own 2 Delkin Memory cards, and am planning on getting a third.

I ran into issues with the 256gb card while photographing a great gray owl in that it would hit the buffer quickly; after just 20 shots on the burst, it would slow down. They took the cards back and sent me two idential ones, and they do seem a bit better.

However in talking to a camera shop owner, Mark Comon of Pauls, he wrote me saying Delkin thought the 256gb would be fine with the Z9, but that particular one wasn't able to keep up as good, so they came out with the 325gb one which is the latest one, and much faster. Just curious what folks think who shoot Delkin: if you've used these is there a noticable improvement in the slightly larger, newer card?

I'll be getting the third card for my Z8; right now I have a Sony CF Express card in it, and it does hit the buffer after 20 too and is even a little slower than the Delkin. I'm not expecting full uninterrupted shooting for 100 shots, but speed matters with birds, and I'd use the older Delkin cards as my second slot card on the Z9 and in the Z8 with the Sony as the 4th card in case of need.

Mark is great as he said before I bought the new card to write Delkin. I did, and they sent me the replacment cards (though I wish they would have sent me a 325), and I know he's not just trying to sell me a card. I could use it, so figure it may be the best option for bird photography.

Thanks,
Paul
Click to expand...
I have two Delkin Black 325Gb cards. I've not experienced a buffering problem using them with my Z9. My bursts at 20 fps usually go for 2 to 3 seconds or so.
 
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padrepaul said:
Hi,

It was a Delkin Black and a Delkin Power green card. The sales rep at Pauls said avoid the green card as it will eventually fail. Both were 256gb cards replaced; the 325gb I paid for and is the newer fastest card.
Click to expand...
I might avoid the sales rep at Paul's.

I've not yet seen anything negative regarding the longevity of Delkin's CFe cards. The Power G4 cards (new) seem to offer a strong value for their speed. Those larger than 512GB have a nice sustained speed increase as well.

FWIW Delkin offers a limited lifetime warranty on the cards. I realize that doesn't help much if you've lost shots and one goes bad.
 
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John Navitsky said:
i’d take his statement with a huge grain of salt, lol
Click to expand...

No complaints, and I didn't sense he was upselling. His words were simply the green one is designed to fail at a certain point; the black is far better. My friend who is more into cars and watches You Tube stuff on car repairs pointed out a mechanic who compared Chevy to Toyota/Honda trucks; the mechanic when criticized for not owning a Chevy says he makes all of his money off of Chevys. They were especially in the 70s designed to not last long and have fail out of owner loyalty. Toyotas were known to run and run but have body issues with rust. Not trying to start a debate (I drive a Honda CRV) but I've always felt I get the "straight dope" from the Paul's guys. Hopefully the green card won't have issues later on.
 
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  • Delkin Power and Delkin Black are different. Black is faster than the equivalent Delkin Power
  • The Delkin Power 128 is fine with the Z9 on bursts. Larger versions of Delkin Power are counterintuitively slower.
  • The Delkin Black 150Gb is faster and is often well priced at B&H
  • For larger size cards buy Delkin Black.
  • Settings for burst photography on the Z9 and 8 should write to one card only. Forget backup for Drive 2, it slows the whole camera. Drive 2 is for Overflow.
  • Set your FPS to 15 is a popular strategy and a good thing to partner with a function button which does a RSF (hold) which boosts it to 20FPS when you need it.
  • Use HE* (High Efficiency Star) as the RAW default.
 
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BigIUFan said:
I might avoid the sales rep at Paul's.

I've not yet seen anything negative regarding the longevity of Delkin's CFe cards. The Power G4 cards (new) seem to offer a strong value for their speed. Those larger than 512GB have a nice sustained speed increase as well.

FWIW Delkin offers a limited lifetime warranty on the cards. I realize that doesn't help much if you've lost shots and one goes bad.
Click to expand...

Green Delkin Power cards seem to me to be pretty good cards. The tests for the 128Gb for example, show good sustained speed and low temperature. Both are very good signs and suggest they are a well made card.
We don’t always need to record video at 8K. For that you need a card with fast sustained write speeds. In that case Delkin Black is from all accounts an excellent card for 8K video.
If you just take photographs, there is nothing wrong with Delkin regardless of colour.
If anyone has actual data on card failures, please provide details.
 
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I know early on the 256 Delkin Power (Green label) cards needed FW update to reach the speeds shown by the 128GB card. The 128GB card is neck and neck with the best Black series and Prograde Cobalt cards. But the early testing at SSDReview had the larger capacity cards not doing very well.

I'm not sure if the FW update on the cards did bring them up to the standards of the 128GB??

Probably best to look for this new V4.0 Power card to get best performance although I haven't seen any tests on them yet.
Looking at B&H seems pricing on the V4 cards is lower than the previous version.
 
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Testing when the Z9 first arrived showed that the Cobalt versions of the ProGrade would work without problems found with the less expensive cards of theirs. The Delkin Black 512 is also one that works well with the Z9.

I recently purchased two of the Delkin Power 2TB CFexpress cards and had zero problems when shooting long bursts at 20 fps with Raw capture and no issues shooting video at 4K60P. They sold for $500 at the time but the price has increased to $700 so no longer a great value.
 
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Calson said:
Testing when the Z9 first arrived showed that the Cobalt versions of the ProGrade would work without problems found with the less expensive cards of theirs. The Delkin Black 512 is also one that works well with the Z9.

I recently purchased two of the Delkin Power 2TB CFexpress cards and had zero problems when shooting long bursts at 20 fps with Raw capture and no issues shooting video at 4K60P. They sold for $500 at the time but the price has increased to $700 so no longer a great value.
Click to expand...
I too bought one Delkin Power 2TB card when it was on sale and thought it was fine. However you might be interested (or anyone else) that this card has been now replaced with the Delkin Power 2TB G4 card which is even faster and cheaper than the $700 card ($580). So no longer a reason to buy the old Power card:
 
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The Delkin Black V1 128GB card i know had a min sus write speed (MSWS) of 1710MB/s and the V2 150GB was only 1530MB/s and were claimed by Delkin to be faster which they aren't. I never looked at the larger cards so the V2 larger cards could be faster then the V1 cards. I just left the Delkin cards alone and got the Cobalt 325GB cards. I also got a Velocity CINE 128GB card when I got my Z9 back in Jan 13th 2022 for $150. They are a private label card made By Delkin and are a Black card. Same exactly speeds of 1710MB/s MSWS and same warranty, guaranteed 48 hour lifetime replacement.
 
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