Samsung Announced 256GB SD Express & 1TB UHS-I microSD Cards

Samsung Announced 256GB SD Express & 1TB UHS-I microSD Cards

Samsung has announced updates on its microSD card offerings – the 256GB SD Express microSD card is now under sampling process, while the 1TB UHS-I microSD card is now in mass production.

The 256GB SD Express microSD card is a different beast than what you know of SD cards today: even on the modern UHS-II standard, cards rated for this speed class usually do not exceed 300MB/s. SD Express is a completely new (though backward compatible) standard that can reach a theoretical maximum speed of nearly 1GB/s via its PCIe 4.0-based protocol. While the standard has existed for several years now, it’s only recently that the standard has gained slightly more presence in the vast sea of SD card standards.

As a result, Samsung’s SD Express card is rated for 800MB/s, faster than SATA SSDs that usually max out somewhere in the 500MB/s figure. With high speed comes high temperatures, and the chipmaker has said its Dynamic Thermal Guard (DTG) technology will keep the temperatures in check. However, the biggest hurdle for widespread adoption is the hardware support – and currently, devices that support SD Express speeds are few and far between.

Meanwhile, Samsung’s 1TB UHS-I microSD card sticks to a more common standard today, though its immense data density is thanks to the company’s 8th generation 1Tb V-NAND stacked with 8 layers. As with all microSD cards that come before it, the card is designed to withstand extreme environments as specified in the standard, including water protection, extreme temperature, drop-proof design, wear-out protection, as well as X-ray and magnetic protection.

Samsung says the 256GB SD Express card will be available sometime later this year, whereas the 1TB UHS-I microSD card is slated to launch in Q3 2024.

Pokdepinion: Quite an achievement to push SD cards into such high speeds.