SanDisk is the First to Cram 4TB into a microSD and 8TB into an SD Card
Lately, memory card manufacturers have been trying to cram as much storage onto SD and microSD cards and SanDisk is no exception. Samsung, Kioxia, and Micron have all released storage dense memory cards in recent years but SanDisk has them all beat with a new 4TB microSD and massive 8TB SD.
Announced as part of the company’s display at the Future of Memory and Storage Conference in Santa Clara, California this week, Western Digital announced that it would be displaying two new memory card solutions that will be made available under its SanDisk brand. Describing the achievement as “ground-breaking,” the company introduced the world’s first 4TB microSD card and the world’s first 8TB SD card, designed to be used with smartphones, gaming devices, drones, cameras and laptops.
Both cards are only UHS-I, meaning SanDisk continued the trend of sacrificing speed for capacity. SD cards and especially microSD cards have limited physical space to work with, meaning no manufacturer has been successfully able to combine high capacity with high speed. There simply isn’t enough room for the second line of contacts required for the faster UHS-II performance. Development of SDexpress has also, rightfully, stalled due to the number of issues with the format, so manufacturers like Western Digital have simply chosen to iterate on existing designs and impress with high storage capacity numbers while downplaying any sacrifices to speed.
Speaking of speed, Western Digital doesn’t note any other information on these cards including their V rating. SanDisk’s current 1TB card offerings that feature UHS-I technology cap out at the promise of 30 MB/s minimum transfer speeds, which means that while they might spike as high as 200 MB/s, they don’t maintain it. SanDisk’s 1.5TB microSD card is even worse off, only promising to maintain 10 MB/s with its miserable V10 rating. Since SanDisk says its cards are designed to be used in drones and cameras, the hope is that they would hit at least V30, although for many cameras even that simply won’t be fast enough to unlock long bursts of photos (even at lower 24-megapixel resolutions) or high frame rate or high bitrate 4K video.
Still, cramming 8TB onto an SD card and 4TB onto a microSD card is remarkable. Western Digital didn’t stop there either and is also demonstrating the first-ever 16TB portable SSD as a proof of concept called the SanDisk Desk Drive, which it says has “unprecedented space and performance to keep up with the ever-growing creation and consumption of rich and engaging content.”
SanDisk’s brand took a massive hit last year when it was found to have sold portable SSDs that would suddenly stop working. The company never acknowledged the issue with PetaPixel and when representatives from the company finally did reach out last month regarding sales and product availability, again ghosted when PetaPixel brought up the problems with portable SSDs and asked for an update.
Western Digital appears as though it wants to pretend that situation never happened and likely hopes the shiny high-capacity promises of its new memory cards and portable SSDs will be enough for photographers and filmmakers to forget its past transgressions. PetaPixel will still not recommend any Western Digital or SanDisk portable storage solution.
Image credits: Header photo licensed via Depositphotos.
