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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.
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.
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.