Product Description

Serious professional photographers who demand one of the fastest, most rugged, and most durable memory cards on the market should choose the SanDisk Extreme III SD card. Built to work under the most challenging conditions, with SanDisk Extreme III you’ll get more speed, better performance, and unmatched reliability

Product Details

• Brand: SanDisk
• Model: SDSDX3-2048-901
• Dimensions: 1.50" h x 4.50" w x 6.00" l, .25 pounds
• Memory: 2000MB

Features

• Built to perform in the most extreme environments and temperatures
• Designed to meet the critical speed and performance needs of serious professional photographers
• Lets you quickly capture, view, upload and transfer large image files 
• Minimum 20MB/second sequential read and write
• Data recovery software ensures your photos will be there even if you delete them accidentally 

From the manufacturer
Serious professional photographers who demand one of the fastest, most rugged, and most durable memory cards on the market should choose the SanDisk Extreme III SD card. Built to work under the most challenging conditions, with SanDisk Extreme III you’ll get more speed, better performance, and unmatched reliability.

That’s because only SanDisk Extreme III memory cards feature innovative ESP Technology for the fastest speeds and highest performance. ESP stands for "Enhanced Super-Parallel Processing". Simply put, it means you are getting the fastest read/write speeds available – an amazing minimum 20MB per second sequential read and write speed – speed you’ll definitely appreciate whenever you find yourself shooting and storing pictures in harsh environments, extreme temperatures or at high altitudes.

Every SanDisk Extreme III SD card comes with RescuePRO so you can recover images, documents, mail, video, music – just about any digital file, with ease. Built with leading-edge media recovery algorithms, RescuePRO lets you preview recoverable data before you try to retrieve it. With RescuePro’s unique recovery algorithm for MPEG audio and MPEG video recovery (MPEG-1/2/3) what you see, and what you hear, is what you can recover.

Advanced Features:

• Designed to meet the critical speed and performance needs of serious professional photographers—lets you quickly capture, view, upload and transfer large image files
• Ideal for demanding photo shoots under severe weather conditions—heat, cold, wind, rain, snow, etc.
• Built to perform in the most extreme environments and temperatures—from -13 to 185 degrees F
• Min 20MB/second sequential read and write
• Durable, reliable and thoroughly tested—temperature tested (heat and cold); shock and vibration tested
• Data recovery software—ensures your photos will always be there (even if you delete them accidentally)
• Dedicated, priority technical support hotline for direct customers of SanDisk Extreme products
• Included travel case keeps your memory cards organized
• Lifetime limited warranty

Customer Reviews

Good, but usually not better than an Ultra
With my equipment, this 'Extreme' card is faster than an 'Ultra' only in a few situations. Usually, the two cards perform identically, and you can buy three Ultra's for the price of two 'Extremes'.

The 'Extreme' captured 29 RAW images in 30 seconds, while an Ultra captured only 23 (the camera supposedly can capture 3 frames/second). Using the computer's USB 2.0 card reader, the Extreme uploaded just a tad slower than the Ultra (1.2 seconds/frame, vs. 1.15 seconds/frame). When capturing JPG's, the two cards were about equal (85 vs. 86 frames in 30 seconds) with the Ultra a tad faster... a negligible difference.

If the camera could capture 5 frames/second instead of 3, or the card reader were faster, the 'Extreme' card might have been faster than the 'Ultra'; but this is the equipment I have.

So, if you know your equipment can take advantage of the extra speed and you'd rather have the slight speed advantage than have three cards ($29/each) for the price of two ($43/each), consider the 'Extreme'. Otherwise, I'd recommend using the 'Ultra'.

Fast Memory but the need could be questionable .
Most Digital SLR's including those below 1000.00 dollars have an integrated buffer system that allows for minimum 3 shots per second. Because of this, the photos are not directly being written to the card immediately and this type of card is not needed. If you are shooting in burst mode - (As many shots continuously), then this card makes sense. Think of it as pouring water into a pitcher that has a hole in the bottom. if you fill the water faster than the water leaving the pitcher, you will need this card. It allow's the buffer memory to transfer more quickly to the card.

If you have a digital SLR and taking a shot every minute or so, you don't need this card. Go for an inexpensive SD card with more memory. It would be fine.

I would also recommend the Extreme card to someone who has a point and shoot camera since there is next to no buffer memory that transfer's the photo data to the card and the camera is more dependent on the write speed of the card.

might be more than you need
i'll cut to the chase. the sandisk extreme is comparable to the lexar professional series. both are recommended for professional sports shooters and maybe wedding photographers. for everyone else, it might be better to be ultra than extreme. i'll explain: unless your camera shoots at 5 fps or faster you don't need this -- the next-speediest sandisk card, the ultra II, is plenty fast for any dslr 3 fps or slower. the only place the extreme makes a real-world difference is in burst speed, which will vary depending on the size of your camera's buffer and, of course, your camera itself. oh, and the downloading speed from camera to computer via usb might be a bit quicker with this. other than that, it's a high-quality memory card from a reputable company. used to be more expensive but prices are falling fast, so for the price it's not a bad deal (although it wouldn't hurt to search other sites for deals).