Acquiring and storing data to SD card at high rate from 4 analog pins

How much data do you need to store per sample? I think the SD write becomes more efficient if you buffer the data and write it in larger chunks, but you only have limited memory to do the buffering. I think that 8KHz sampling of a single input is probably barely possible if you use the standard analogRead() function, and to get a fourfold increase you'd need to manage the analog reading at a lower level and perhaps reduce the resolution.