SanDisk Sets New Record with 400GB MicroSD Card

Megalith

Megalith

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Two years after introducing its record-breaking 200GB microSD card, Western Digital has doubled the capacity within the same tiny form factor: the new 400GB SanDisk Ultra microSDXC card lets users store plenty of content and carries the A1 Application Performance rating, which means guaranteed 10MB/s writes, random read IOPS of 1,500, and write IOPS of 500. 1TB microSD when?

Western Digital achieved this capacity breakthrough by leveraging its proprietary memory technology and design and production processes that allow for more bits per die. Ideal for Android smartphone and tablet users, the world’s highest-capacity card can hold up to 40 hours of Full HD video and features superfast transfer speeds of up to 100MB/s to deliver premium performance. At this transfer speed, consumers can expect to move up to 1,200 photos per minute1.
 
The write speeds are really holding this back. At 10MB/sec it would take over 12 hours to fill it. I know you aren't supposed to fill it all up in one sitting, but at these sizes you start thinking about moving larger files around, and that's really going to drag the experience down.
 
I hope prices on 128 and 64 gb collapse to nothing so cheap cellphone will ship with those as internal storage... That can be done Right?
 
Uvaman2 said:
I hope prices on 128 and 64 gb collapse to nothing so cheap cellphone will ship with those as internal storage... That can be done Right?
Click to expand...
Not sure why the presence of a larger size would suddenly drop prices on smaller size, there's really no precedent for that with flash storage. I've seen the same wishful thinking (no offense) about spinning disks and SSD's - that a new bigger size will push prices of smaller drives down - but it doesn't happen because there's no reason for it to.
 
DPI said:
Not sure why the presence of a larger size would suddenly drop prices on smaller size, there's really no precedent for that with flash storage. I've seen the same wishful thinking (no offense) about spinning disks and SSD's - that a new bigger size will push prices of smaller drives down - but it doesn't happen because there's no reason for it to.
Click to expand...

A 4GB Micro SD card is $3
 
This is fantastic for all the lossless music:D
One card in my audio player and I can carry all my CDs everywhere
 
DPI said:
Not sure why the presence of a larger size would suddenly drop prices on smaller size, there's really no precedent for that with flash storage. I've seen the same wishful thinking (no offense) about spinning disks and SSD's - that a new bigger size will push prices of smaller drives down - but it doesn't happen because there's no reason for it to.
Click to expand...

If a 200GB SD card is $200 and they come out with a 400GB for $200, I guess you sell both for $200 then, right? Or do you lower the price of the 200GB card?
 
Uvaman2 said:
I hope prices on 128 and 64 gb collapse to nothing so cheap cellphone will ship with those as internal storage... That can be done Right?
Click to expand...

Mobile devices ship with a more robust version of flash memory. eMMC (iirc), more reliable endurance and speed. You wouldn't want to run your phone OS off of an mSD.

Usually what this may signal is that they've refined (or developed new) a method to get the density up. That technique could trickle down to the other flash memory types.
 
arnemetis said:
The write speeds are really holding this back. At 10MB/sec it would take over 12 hours to fill it. I know you aren't supposed to fill it all up in one sitting, but at these sizes you start thinking about moving larger files around, and that's really going to drag the experience down.
Click to expand...

It is a Sandisk Ultra. You can bet that the speeds are WAY higher than 10MB/s. The read speeds are listed as 100MB/s, and I am guessing that the real write speed is closer to 80-90MB/s for larger files.

The 10MB/s figure may be for small files. If it really is only 10MB/s write then that sucks. If that is the case then they have gone way, way, way backwards from what they had even 4 years ago.

The 256GB Extreme is 100MB/s read 90MB/s write.
 
Good, but my phone doesn't take it, neither my laptop. So what's the point? Adapters? Just give me the 400GB of cloud storage instead.
 
10MB/s lol.

I advised someone last week to get a Sandisk 200GB version with 45MB/s or higher write speed because file copies that take hours can fail partway through due to PC stupidness.
It can be a pita to sort out.
And because its a stupid amount of time to not be able to use it.
 
hmz said:
Good, but my phone doesn't take it, neither my laptop. So what's the point? Adapters? Just give me the 400GB of cloud storage instead.
Click to expand...

Also being sandisk, they are garbage for dashcams too.
 
arnemetis said:
The write speeds are really holding this back. At 10MB/sec it would take over 12 hours to fill it. I know you aren't supposed to fill it all up in one sitting, but at these sizes you start thinking about moving larger files around, and that's really going to drag the experience down.
Click to expand...

I have a 200 GB microSD in my phone and the initial loading data on it does suck. About 100 GB worth of music and videos. After that, minor additions once or twice a month of about 1 GB.

Ya, if you're going to be adding/removing large files all the time, I'd go with something else. If you can.
 
This seems more of a proof of concept, or for extra dense archival.
 
krotch said:
I have a 200 GB microSD in my phone and the initial loading data on it does suck. About 100 GB worth of music and videos. After that, minor additions once or twice a month of about 1 GB.

Ya, if you're going to be adding/removing large files all the time, I'd go with something else. If you can.
Click to expand...

I have the 64GB one and indeed it sucks. Unless you're only loading 5GB files, don't even bother with small files, like jpg or raw. That thing is gonna crawl.
 
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Goodlookinguy said:
The pricing on Amazon is a bit strange...
200GB - $98 ( https://www.amazon.com/dp/B073JY5T7T/ )
400GB - $250 ( https://www.amazon.com/dp/B074RNRM2B/ )

I'd rather buy two 200GB drives if I needed that much space of Micro SD storage. I'm guessing the $50 is a convenience factor maybe?
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It's always like that, I'm honestly surprised it's only a $50 premium. It's the convenience of having one chip. It's unlikely most people would bother with swapping micro sd cards out of their phones, but I have one friend who has a 200gb and wants the 400 - he likes to keep all his music with him in flac format.
 
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arnemetis said:
It's unlikely most people would bother with swapping micro sd cards out of their phones, but I have one friend who has a 200gb and wants the 400 - he likes to keep all his music with him in flac format.
Click to expand...

FLAC is so big, he should look into the other lossless formats roaming around, like Monkey Audio.

I'm also curious as to how many devices support the MicroSDXC standard 100%. The standard supports up to 2TB, but I've heard of MicroSDXC supported devices capping at 128GB or 256GB. Maybe it's a software issue though? Also wondering how long it'll be before we see a 2TB card the size of a fingernail.
 
Man, can you imagine your camera eating this SD card up? With 400gigs of pics on it?
 
Goodlookinguy said:
FLAC is so big, he should look into the other lossless formats roaming around, like Monkey Audio.

I'm also curious as to how many devices support the MicroSDXC standard 100%. The standard supports up to 2TB, but I've heard of MicroSDXC supported devices capping at 128GB or 256GB. Maybe it's a software issue though? Also wondering how long it'll be before we see a 2TB card the size of a fingernail.
Click to expand...

A lot of times, manufacturers will only officially support up to a certain size because that was the largest size available at the time. Theoretically it would support more, but the product didn't exist for them to validate it.
 
Tsumi said:
A lot of times, manufacturers will only officially support up to a certain size because that was the largest size available at the time. Theoretically it would support more, but the product didn't exist for them to validate it.
Click to expand...

Oh, so it's more-or-less an arbitrary value. Didn't realize that. I legitimately thought they weren't supporting the standard fully. Although, with some I think it could be a software issue. I know Windows XP's implementation of NTFS didn't support above 2TB originally or something and was fixed in SP2 I think.
 
cyclone3d said:
It is a Sandisk Ultra. You can bet that the speeds are WAY higher than 10MB/s. The read speeds are listed as 100MB/s, and I am guessing that the real write speed is closer to 80-90MB/s for larger files.

The 10MB/s figure may be for small files. If it really is only 10MB/s write then that sucks. If that is the case then they have gone way, way, way backwards from what they had even 4 years ago.

The 256GB Extreme is 100MB/s read 90MB/s write.
Click to expand...

If I had to guess it's just an arbitrary rating because no faster rating exists.

https://www.sdcard.org/consumers/choices/application/

There is only an A1, and an A2 rating on their chart. Both have a minimum 10MBps sustained write speed rating. So basically it only means the card needs to meet that requirement to get a label stuck on it. Kind of like the Class ratings before, they were so quickly outgrown they are basically useless for telling you the performance of the card.

https://www.sdcard.org/developers/overview/speed_class/
 
bman212121 said:
If I had to guess it's just an arbitrary rating because no faster rating exists.

https://www.sdcard.org/consumers/choices/application/

There is only an A1, and an A2 rating on their chart. Both have a minimum 10MBps sustained write speed rating. So basically it only means the card needs to meet that requirement to get a label stuck on it. Kind of like the Class ratings before, they were so quickly outgrown they are basically useless for telling you the performance of the card.

https://www.sdcard.org/developers/overview/speed_class/
Click to expand...

Use the Video speed class instead.
https://www.sdcard.org/consumers/choices/speed_class/index.html
V6, V10, V30, V60 and V90, each number represents the MB/s write.

Minimum of V30 imo.
If it doesnt have a V rating go with a minimum UHS rating of U3.
Why they couldnt just continue the UHS rating instead of making a new Video one...
Perhaps so they could represent the numbers correctly. Plonkers for not doing that in the first place.
 
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