SanDisk Breaks Storage Record With 400GB MicroSD Card

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.

OK, it's late, but...

[Hognoxious]

SanDisk claims it can be used for recording video, not just storing it.

Maybe I'm missing something, but how do you record videos without storing them?

Re:

[kiviQr]

It is common for devices to have buffer that allows you to store certain amount of data while you offload it to storage device. Most high end DSLR use it.

Re:

[Gussington]

Maybe I'm missing something, but how do you record videos without storing them?

I think you read it the wrong way around.
To give an example, you could have some high speed cards you use to record your videos, then transfer them at a lower speed to a high capacity card that isn't capable of handling real time recording speeds. They are saying this card is capable of both.

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[tlhIngan]

Maybe I'm missing something, but how do you record videos without storing them?

There's several problems. A lot of "fast" SD cards are really quite slow - they let you write maybe 16MB or so really quickly, then they transfer that to the slower larger flash array. So if you're a photographer, they will start writing really quickly but then it slows down if you're doing a motor-drive shorts. If you're a casual user and snap a photo now and again, the card appears fast.

The problem is large cards can be slower,

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[torkus]

Uhm, no...they don't. SD cards do not have an on-card write cache or any magic reason for them to slow down after 16MB.

A CAMERA has a memory buffer to allow burst shots and not lock up while writing to the memory card...and windows will buffer writes as well to external drives/media depending on your configuration.

Larger cards tend to be slower (often bc people go cheap) but there are plenty of large, fast cards as well. Just ask any pro photographer if google is broken.

Re:

[TheRaven64]

Record implies storing at the rate that the data is produced. Depending on the device, you may have a fairly small amount of buffering. You need to be able to accept a constant stream of data at around 30Mb/s, with a fairly small buffer, for a period of tens of minutes, which means that things like garbage collection in the controller can't block writes enough that this causes back-pressure and data loss.

Re:

[Hognoxious]

Record implies storing at the rate that the data is produced.

Yes, I know.

I think I read "not just" as "just not".

Re:Optimized for Apps?

[Shrubbman]

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.

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[thegarbz]

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

Re:

[hankwang]

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?

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

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[thegreatbob]

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

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Can They Do That??

[Bing Tsher E]

I thought flash memory devices always had to be enumerated in fake arbitrary powers of 2.

Re:

[torkus]

It doesn't have to be, but you're looking at it wrong anyhow.

Each SD card is not a monolithic flash chip as they've all (afaik) gone with 3D stacking to increase density. Combine that with a bit of overhead AND the magical conversion between x^2 GB and 10^x GB measuring (I usually refuse to use GiB vs GB but it suits the discussion here) and you've got 400GB. A nice round number instead of the 'awkward' but accurate 384GB.

1GiB = 1.07GB

So 6 stacked 64GiB (or 12x32) layers = 384GiB = ~410GB minus some overh

Re:

[TheRaven64]

Nope. Memories are typically powers of two because that lets you make the most efficient use of addressing lines. If you have 32 addressing lines, then you can address 4GiB of memory with each possible value on the wire representing one address. If you have an amount of memory that isn't a power of two, then you are making inefficient use of the addressing lines. This has become less important with serial protocols (you don't need more wires, you just have a small amount of redundant data for the interf

Record speed

[glitch!]

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."

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[toonces33]

Write-only memory was invented decades ago, so being able to play back would make the thing more useful.

Re:

[anybody_out_there]

whoosh!

This is WOM [wikipedia.org]

I think you are talking about OTP [wikipedia.org] memory

Extremetech = Extremely uninformed

[Anonymous Coward]

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 [wikipedia.org] show that this is

Re:

[Shrubbman]

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 [wikipedia.org] 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.

This. Class 10 cards are rated for a MINIMUM of 10MB/s sustained write speeds, not a maximum like the summary seems to suggest and most cards from the major manufacturers nowadays still have the old Class 10 even though they actually support drastically faster sustained write speeds.

Point?

[fnj]

What is the point of hideously overpriced dog-slow large-capacity SD cards with extremely limited wear leveling and piss poor reliability? What are the chances you could fill this bow-wow up even once and read it all back successfully and error-free?

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[torkus]

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.

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[torkus]

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 d

Re:

[Sloppy]

What is the point of hideously overpriced dog-slow large-capacity SD cards with extremely limited wear leveling and piss poor reliability?

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.

"Largest microSD card currently on the market"

[Illogical Spock]

      It will be a failure, since it will not fit any microSD port...

Re:

[Darkling-MHCN]

I can't see anything in this article suggesting it won't work in a standard microSD port. You should've quoted or linked the information to back up this claim. Why would the picture of the card have "MicroSD" on it if it doesn't work in a microSD port.... If it doesn't work in a MicroSD port wouldn't that make it not a MicroSD card ?

Re:

[Illogical Spock]

I'm struggling to decide if you failed to spot my joke or if you're joking too. :-) If the case is the former, a tip: "Largest".

Re:

[David_Hart]

It will be a failure, since it will not fit any microSD port...

Personally, I got a laugh from this. I'm planning a road trip from the east coast to the west coast and there are a number of "largest X" roadside attractions along the way.

I can just see it now, a microSD card the size of a 4-story building with a micro-SD slot for tourists to upload their travel photos to... Have the photos display on a giant screen on the side as a slide show and have options to upload to social media... It's gonna be huuuuge I tell you!! Huuuge.... (grin)

Hey, I should patent this

I could ...

[PPH]

... store everything I've ever written or photographed on one of these. Every personal record, bank statement, tax form. Then sneeze once and its lost in the shag rug forever.

Re:

[boudie2]

... tie a small string around it (dental floss?) and attach the other end to a brick. That way you won't lose it.

Re:

[Zontar The Mindless]

Keep it in the adapter that's packaged with all SanDisk SD cards.

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[Kjella]

... store everything I've ever written or photographed on one of these. Every personal record, bank statement, tax form. Then sneeze once and its lost in the shag rug forever.

Just ask the NSA for their copy... for bonus point they'll also have all your phone calls transcribed, your photos will be marked with facial recognition and location recognition and cross indexed with the cell phone tower, GPS and open WiFi name records of where you've been and every http URL you've ever visited. And I'm only half joking, it's creepy that technology now actually makes it feasible to store practically everything about practically everyone.

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[SCVonSteroids]

There's this new tech supposed to be ready for commercial use around 2018~
I believe they call it "The Backup".

Might be QLC

[mentil]

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.

400GB?

[Zontar The Mindless]

So what's that in porn-phone-hours?

I ask only from idle curiosity, of course.

Re:

[wed128]

Yeah, but this one's a micro SD card. they're smaller then a regular sd card (like the one you linked)

Re:

[Doke]

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... [amazon.com]