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SanDisk Breaks Storage Record With 400GB MicroSD Card (extremetech.com)
SanDisk has managed to cram 400GB into a microSD card, making it the largest microSD card currently on the market. The company said the capacity breakthrough was the result of Western Digital, the company that owns SanDisk, "leveraging its proprietary memory technology and design and production processes that allow for more bits per die." The nitty-gritty details weren't revealed beyond that. ExtremeTech reports: The speed appears to come with a tradeoff. SanDisk trumpets its A1 speed rating, saying: "Rated A1, the SanDisk Ultra microSD card is optimized for apps, delivering faster app launch and performance that provides a better smartphone experience." This is a generous reading of the A1's target performance specification. Last year, the SD Association released a report discussing the App Performance Class memory card specification and why the spec was created in the first place. When Android added support for running applications from an SD card, there was a need to make certain the cards people bought would be quick enough to run apps in the first place. The A1 is rated for 1500 read and 500 write IOPS, with a sequential transfer speed of 10MB/s.
This SanDisk drive should run applications just fine. SanDisk claims it can be used for recording video, not just storing it. But it's not going to be fast enough for 4K data; Class 10 devices are limited to 10MB/s of sequential write performance. Obviously not all phones support shooting in 4K anyway, so whether this is a limitation will depend on what device you plan to plug it into. The 100MB/s speed trumpeted by Western Digital is a reference to read speeds; write speeds are lower and likely closer to the 10MB/s sequential target mentioned above. The microSD card is expected to retail for $250.
This SanDisk drive should run applications just fine. SanDisk claims it can be used for recording video, not just storing it. But it's not going to be fast enough for 4K data; Class 10 devices are limited to 10MB/s of sequential write performance. Obviously not all phones support shooting in 4K anyway, so whether this is a limitation will depend on what device you plan to plug it into. The 100MB/s speed trumpeted by Western Digital is a reference to read speeds; write speeds are lower and likely closer to the 10MB/s sequential target mentioned above. The microSD card is expected to retail for $250.
Maybe I'm missing something, but how do you record videos without storing them?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
border agent: we need to scan your phone and its SDcard for national security
/.er: of course. wouldnt want the terrorists to win!
...weeks LATER...
Border patrol captain: so let me get this straight. the reason everything from the phones to the cameras and the gates are running at a crawl is because one citizens phone contained 400gb of individual zip bombs marked "terrorist_plot.zip" so you guys just went from machine to machine trying to unzip them? where is he now?
border agent: oh he left days ago.
Good people go to bed earlier.
I thought flash memory devices always had to be enumerated in fake arbitrary powers of 2.
SanDisk claims it can be used for recording video, not just storing it.
Don't feel bad, I read it wrong, too. Let's make it simple. The first part is "SanDisk claims it can be used for recording video." As AC above noted, the second part is easy to get wrong. I also read it at first as "just not storing it". The correct reading is "not only storing it." A good replacement might go like, "The device can store video, of course, but can also keep up with record speeds."
A dingo ate my sig...
But it's not going to be fast enough for 4K data; Class 10 devices are limited to 10MB/s of sequential write performance. Obviously not all phones support shooting in 4K anyway, so whether this is a limitation will depend on what device you plan to plug it into. The 100MB/s speed trumpeted by Western Digital is a reference to read speeds; write speeds are lower and likely closer to the 10MB/s sequential target mentioned above.
A very brief glance at what Class 10 and A1 and U1 rating mean show that this is a hopelessly wrong summary. The card will almost certainly write video (sustained sequential writes) at much higher than 10MB/s. It is rated for 1080p video. It might or might not be able to write 4k video.
In my experience the stated "supported" capacity on phones and other devices is really just the largest card the manufacturer has actively tested on that device, something they obviously couldn't do if larger cards didn't exist when the device was still in pre-release testing. It doesn't mean larger cards won't work just fine if you pop one in and try yourself, it's just not guaranteed unless the manufacturer goes back to test it as bigger cards come out. The SDXC standard theoretically goes all the way up to 2TB, so anything that supports SDXC cards *might* work just fine with these new cards, no one knows for sure until someone tries.
It will be a failure, since it will not fit any microSD port...
--- Illogical Spock
Have gnu, will travel.
Rumor is that this card uses QLC (quad-level cell) tech, which if true, would mean a very low number of rewrites possible. It would also mean poor performance. I know I wouldn't want to bet 400GB of irreplaceable data on unproven tech.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
So what's that in porn-phone-hours?
I ask only from idle curiosity, of course.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
The SDXC standard theoretically goes all the way up to 2TB, so anything that supports SDXC cards *might* work just fine with these new cards, no one knows for sure until someone tries.
That last part is more key than anything else. There have been a few points in the past where the standards have changed but the form factors have not. Combined with filesystem changes. Both 2GB and 32GB had technological limits. That pretty much introduced the concept of advertising "supported" capacities.
That said, any company that implements SDXC should theoretically be able to go to 2TB. What they don't advertise is "works with SD cards up to 2TB" because:
a) Someone will rightfully call them out on the fact that they hadn't tested that.
b) There's a chance that a new standard will come in at 1TB and manufacturers will release those 1TB and 2TB cards with a different standard that can't be read. Then the vendor will get called out on their marketing.
I wonder whether unadvertised SDXC capabilities exist in devices, where the electric signals all work, but without the OS support for the patented ExFAT file system. You can't advertise SDXC without ExFAT support, but surely you are allowed to make an electrical connection?
Avantslash: low-bandwidth mobile slashdot.
... and if it doesn't, you can't blame them and ask for a refund. I have 64GB in many max 32GB things and never had an issue.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
It's probably 384GB plus magic maths where 1KB doesn't need the last 24 bytes to be legit...which makes it 410GB and leaves 10GB of overhead.
If they had a 512GB uSD card they would definitely be selling that.
You can get rich if you own a politician, but you have to be rich to buy one in the first place.
Fill up 400GB? Sure, depending on your use this isn't extremely difficult. Read it back? Yes, I've pretty good faith in Sandisk selling a product that has been tested and actually works.
How much wear leveling do you expect to need on a card you don't even believe people will be able to fill up in the first place though? You can't argue both sides and not be wrong on at least one anyhow. You seem to confuse this with knock-off 256GB cards that were (or are) for sale from knock-off chinese vendors that don't actually have that capacity.
You can get rich if you own a politician, but you have to be rich to buy one in the first place.
My ancient (Pentium M era) Fujitsu Lifebook's built-in SD reader reads a 32GB SDHC card without issue. SDHC wasn't a standard for ~2 years after the laptop was built, and 32GB cards seem to have spawned ~2 years after that. Not sure if the reader received a firmware update or anything to that effect.
Point is, it's a bit hit-and-miss, but the answer to your first question it "maybe"; it's a bit difficult to test with hardware that does not yet exist.
Regarding your second question: you want cloud. You're getting cloud. Because the makers of the phone know you need it. You can't be trusted with your own data, so they'll take it off your hands.
There is no XUL, only WebExtensions...
The point is that it's a step toward something incredibly usedful: dog-slow large-capacitry SD cards with extremely limited wear leveling. If you can make 'em cheap and reliable enough (the two problems that I deleted from your description) you can finally have a car music player that doesn't need a hard disk.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Yeah, but this one's a micro SD card. they're smaller then a regular sd card (like the one you linked)
The costs don't work. This is supposed to MSRP for $250, and hold 400GB. This example of an LTO5 tape costs about $22, and holds 3TB. https://www.amazon.com/LTO5-Ul...