Our Picks
Best for most users: Sandisk Extreme V30 Pro 64GB
Best for heavy users: Sandisk Extreme V30 128GB
Note: These micro SD cards are also compatible with the DJI Mavic Pro as we have tested them when I was working in DJI.
As the Mavic 2 Pro/Zoom only comes with 8GB internal storage, it is far from enough for most drone pilots to shoot 4K videos. So microSD cards are must-have accessories you will need.
Both Mavic 2 Pro and Zoom support recording 4K videos at 100 Mbps (Megabits per second). You will need to choose a reliable one that offers a sustained write speed. If the microSD card fails to keep up you will get dropped frames, which means useless videos.
The question is how do I know if my sd card is compatible with Mavic 2?
If you have already got a few micro sd cards used for DSLR, action camera or other digital cameras or phones, you just need to make sure that they meet the following requirements given by DJI, then it should be no problem.
Mavic 2 Pro micro SD card requirements:
- Supporting Micro SD with capacity up to 128 GB and R/W speed up to UHS-I Speed Grade 3
If you don’t have an sd memory card in handy, then you will need to buy a new one.
The quickest way is to choose one from This DJI Recommended List according to your preference, all these memory cards were tested many hours by DJI R&D team.
Or you can keep reading to check my recommendations.
Why you should trust me?
As the founder of Cutofdrone, I have nearly 5 years of experience working with DJI. During my time there, I participated in every major new product launch including the DJI Mavic 2 Pro/Zoom. As the person who involved in the launch of Mavic 2, I introduced the Mavic 2 microSD cards that are now selling on the DJI Store.
I am also an experienced drone pilot, and I own a Phantom 3 Advanced, a Mavic Pro and a Mavic 2 Pro. I have more than 10 micro SD cards for my drones. The SD cards recommended in this article are what I am currently using for my Mavic 2 Pro and Mavic Pro.
What you should consider when buying the best sd card for the Mavic 2 Pro / Zoom?
Manufacturer’s recommendation. This is the first thing you should pay attention to. According to DJI, the Mavic 2 Pro/Zoom supports micro SD with the capacity up to 128GB and both reading and writing speed up to UHS-I Speed Grade 3. So any sd card you select should meet this requirement.
Write and Read Speed. The Max video bitrate of the Mavic 2 is 100 Mbps (12.5 MB/S). So the writing speed of the SD card you choose must meet or be greater than this. Reading speed is also something you should pay attention to. When it comes to backup your aerial videos to your computer or other, cards with faster read speed will save you more time.
Size. The Mavic 2 Pro/Zoom supports up to 128GB microSD card. But it’s not always the bigger the better. You may easily forget to backup your data when using a large sd card, if you crash your drone, you may lose them all. If you don’t have to record 4K videos for longer than two hours every time, then a smaller size is better though you may need to backup regularly.
Brand. A brand sd card means better reliability and customer service.
Quantity. Most of the time sd cards are extremely durable and reliable, but there still exists the possibility that it may just break or get damaged because of improper storage. Also, if you want to record videos that exceed the capacity of the card, you will also need an extra one. So getting only one sd card is too risky, especially when you are unable to get a new one easily during traveling, camping or hiking.
Cost. Compared to other drone accessories, the sd card is much more affordable. As you normally need a few of them for backup or longer video recording, the cost is also one of the things you need to look at. The price of those exceeds 64GB are more expensive while both 32G and 64GB have the best value for money.
The best Mavic 2 Pro SD card Review
After checking with former DJI colleagues, talking to a few experts, and reading user and professional reviews on other websites, we believe the best memory cards for Mavic 2 Pro/Zoom pilots are as follows.
The Sandisk Extreme V30 Pro 64GB
When shooting 4K videos, the Mavic 2 generates nearly 30GB data per hour. A 64GB microSD card can hold 2 hours‘ 4K video. As one battery only supports a using time of fewer than 30 minutes. It may even less if you retrieve the drone at 20% battery power and keep recording videos. To fill a 64GB card, you will need at least 5 batteries.
If you need to shoot videos for more than two hours, it’s recommended to get two 64GB cards in case a crash happens and you may lose all your valuable data.
The Sandisk Extreme V30 128GB
The 128GB one is recommended for those who may need to shoot 4K videos for more than 2 hours. If you often have to shoot videos for more than two hours, then the 128GB one is the best for you. You don’t need to backup your SD card data frequently or change a new one when you are in the middle of shooting. It’s more efficient and saves you time and trouble.
What else you may need for using and managing your SD cards
Memory Card Case
As micro SD cards are so small that you may easily lose or damage them if not well protected. A memory card case will become a necessity for managing 2 or more sd cards. Sometimes managing your sd cards can also be a little bit tricky if you have several identical ones. The best solution is to get a memory card case. This one that has the most reviews can hold 22 sd cards and has labels for easy management might be a good choice for you.
Backup device
Every drone pilot knows that a crash is sometimes inevitable. It might be caused by the change of the environment, the misbehavior of the drone itself or mistakes the pilot makes. So back up your files regularly is of vital importance for drone users.
Normally you can transfer your data to your computer with an SD card reader, or copy them to your phone or tablet with a Lightning to SD Card reader. If you don’t have your computer with you or your phone has limited space for storing tens or hundreds of gigabytes of videos, a relatively inexpensive option is to use a portable hard drive like Western Digital My Passport Wireless Pro model 
Drone SD Card Troubleshooting
A common SD card issue for most drone pilots is that videos have dropped frames. Here are the possible reasons and solutions:
- Playing your 4K drone videos on a mobile device or computer that doesn’t support 4K videos, it’s most likely your video playback will look like dropping frames. If you don’t know this, you may think something wrong with your microSD card, it’s not compatible with your drone or it’s a defective one.
- You get the right SD card, and your phone, tablet or computer are powerful enough to play 4K, but the video playing program you use doesn’t compatible. Your video playback might also be looked choppy. Just find a better application that fully supports 4K videos before you think it’s an SD card issue.
- You get the recommended SD card, the compatible device, and program, but the video files are still unusable, then it’s most likely to be an SD card issue. Find a testing program to check the write and read speed, if the speed doesn’t hold water, you should contact the seller or manufacturer to return the defective one and get a replacement.
Other things you need to know about the Mavic 2 Pro/Zoom SD Card.
1. Does Mavic 2 come with an SD card?
No. But it comes with 8G built-in internal storage. That means if you forget to buy an SD card in the first place, you can still take aerial photos and videos. The problem is you will be running out of storage soon.
2. What is DJI Mavic 2 Pro/Zoom max SD card size?
It supports micro SD with the capacity up to 128GB.
3. What is the sd card compatibility of Mavic 2 Pro/Zoom?
The Mavic 2 supports microSD cards with both reading and writing speed up to UHS-I Speed Grade 3.
4. Where can you find Mavic 2 Pro SD Card slot?
Where can you find the Mavic Pro SD Card slot?
How to format Mavic Pro sd card with DJI GO 4 App?
DJI Recommended Mavic 2 Pro / Zoom sd Card List:
32G
Sandisk V30
Sandisk Extreme V30 Pro
128G
Sandisk Extreme V30
Sandisk Extreme Pro V30
Kingston Canvas Go!
Kingston Canvas Go!
If you want to choose a different card, make sure you read the following recommendations from Josh Straub:
While it’s true that the Mavic 2 records video at “100 Mbps”, without explaining the distinction between Mbps and MB/s, most readers will likely draw the wrong conclusion and be left thinking they need an SD card that can write at 100MB/s, which is MUCH more expensive than what they actually need.
The key is the difference between Mbps and MB/s. There are 8 bits in a byte. It’s proper to use this exact capitalization to make the distinction clear, unfortunately, it’s common to see the two mixed (even by companies).
100 Mbps means “100 megabits per second”. Since there are 8 bits in 1 byte, this could also correctly be stated as “12.5 MB/s” (12 megabytes per second.)
Megabytes are the value people are most familiar with in everyday usage of computers and smartphones. Same for Gigabytes (1000 Megabytes = 1 GB, actually 1024 Megabytes to be exact but that’s another story.)
For some reason, video recording (and internet speeds) is nearly always described in the misleading megabits format. So you always have to divide by 8 to find the REAL number that’s actually useful for buying an SD card.
Conclusion: to support 100 Mbps recording, you theoretically need a minimum of 12.5 MB/s WRITE RATE. (Read rates are always higher, but also *irrelevant*here.) In reality, you probably need at least 15 MB/s or so. Ultimately, your card either supports the write rate of 100Mbps (12.5 MB/s), or it doesn’t. There are zero benefits in a drone using a 30MB/s card over a much cheaper 20MB/s card. Both will perform identically in the drone bc the drone only records at a constant 100Mbps bitrate and never any higher.
It’s just that each SD card varies somewhat in performance, anyone who has ever used an SD card tester program can attest to this. So that’s why I say 15MB/s or higher would be my advice, so you have some margin for error.
For more Memory Card Knowledge, you can visit: https://www.sdcard.org/consumers/choices/speed_class/index.html
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I recently purchased a Mavic 2 Zoom and I haven’t been able to format the micro disk. The drone gives me an error “No disk” in the ap. I have a SanDisk Ultra Plus 64gb V10 disk in it. I’ve read other forums and apparently I’m not alone, this seems to be a common problem. I tried formatting the disk in the laptop using both rapid and slow methods. I’ve tried removing and inserting several times, which was one recommendation. Do you have any advice on how I can get my drone to read the disk?
Hi Roy, have you tried formatting the sd card with your Mavic 2 Zoom? If it’s still not working, you can try a new card. If both of these don’t work, I guess you will need to contact DJI support.
There’s an error in the article that should be corrected.
While it’s true that the Mavic 2 records video at “100 Mbps”, without explaining the distinction between Mbps and MB/s, most readers will likely draw the wrong conclusion and be left thinking they need an SD card that can write at 100MB/s, which is MUCH more expensive than what they actually need.
The key is the difference between Mbps and MB/s. There are 8 bits in a byte. It’s proper to use this exact capitalization to make the distinction clear, unfortunately it’s common to see the two mixed (even by companies).
100 Mbps means “100 megabits per second”. Since there’s 8 bits in 1 byte, this could also correctly be stated as “12.5 MB/s” (12 megabytes per second.)
Megabytes are the value people are most familiar with in everyday usage of computers and smartphones. Same for Gigabytes (1000 Megabytes = 1 GB, actually 1024 Megabytes to be exact but that’s another story.)
For some reason, video recording (and internet speeds) is nearly always described in the misleading megabits format. So you always have to divide by 8 to find the REAL number that’s actually useful for buying an SD card.
Conclusion: to support 100 Mbps recording, you theoretically need a minimum of 12.5 MB/s WRITE RATE. (Read rates are always higher, but also *irrelevant*here.) In reality you probably need at least 15 MB/s or so. Ultimately, your card either supports the write rate of 100Mbps (12.5 MB/s), or it doesn’t. There’s zero benefit in a drone using a 30MB/s card over a much cheaper 20MB/s card. Both will perform identical in the drone bc the drone only records at a constant 100Mbps bitrate and never any higher.
It’s just that each SD card varies somewhat in performance, anyone who has ever used an SD card tester program can attest to this. So that’s why I say 15MB/s or higher would be my advice, so you have some margin for error.
PS: the best solution to this confusing issue is to use proper SI notation, which is “Mb” for megabit (note the small “b”), and “MB” for megabyte (capital B).
Also, in reality there are 1024 MB in 1 GB, NOT 1000. But hard disk manufacturers have always cheated by using 1000 for some reason. This is why your “ 1TB” (1000GB = 1TB) hard disk always ends up being only around 931GB in reality. The solution to this is another proper SI notation: MiB for TRUE megabytes and GiB for TRUE gigabytes (based on 1024) with MB and GB being left because they are vague and could mean x1000 or 1024 since so many people incorrectly confuse the two. But EVERYBODY writing GiB or MiB means true 1024-based values. (They actually use the terms “mebibyte” and “gibibyte”, but I’ve never actually heard anyone say those out loud, lol.)
Hi Josh, Thank you very much for pointing this out. You are absolutely right, 100 Mbps means a card of at least 12.5 MB/S writing speed card will work for Mavic 2. I will update the article. But I still recommend Mavic 2 pilots go with the DJI tested sd cards, here is the reason: All these sd cards were tested a few hundred hours before releasing the Mavic 2, the purpose is not only about the compatibility but also the sustainability, some sd cards would have dropped-frames 4K videos after recording for a long time. That’s why they had to prepare an SD card list upon launch.
Of course, I don’t mean only the ones in this list would work for Mavic 2, DJI didn’t test all the qualified ones in the market, there are sure some sd cards outside the list can work perfectly fine, but it’s better to go with the manufacturer’s recommendation.