This article originally appeared on our sister site ZDNet.
Standards body the SD Association has announced a faster data-transfer interface, dubbed SD Express, and SD Ultra Capacity, which offers a 128TB maximum capacity.
SD Express incorporates PCI Express or PCIe and Non-Volatile Memory express or NVMe, the standard software interface for PCIe SSDs.
The addition of PCIe should enable a maximum data transfer rates of 985 megabytes per second, and together with NVMe will allow SD cards to be used as removable SSDs.
SD Ultra Capacity (SDUC) cards would be a huge jump from today's maximum SD card capacity of 2TB.
SD Express and SDUC are part of the new SD 7.0 specification unveiled at Mobile World Congress Shanghai this week.
SEE: Portable storage policy (Tech Pro Research)
SD Express will be initially offered on SDUC, SDXC and SDHC memory cards. The speedier interface will enable future SD cards to support gaming and other apps on cards, 8K video capture and playback, VR, video streaming, and large images.
The SD Association has published a whitepaper detailing the specification detailing backward compatibility and requirements for maximum performance.
The new cards with SD Express will have the same shape as today's SD cards and will include the SD UHS-I interface to support legacy SD interfaces.
However, achieving maximum performance requires that a card and host support SD Express, so in reality many of today's devices will support data transfer speeds of far less than 985MB/s.
If the host has UHS-II or USH-III pins with an SD Express card, it will enable up to 104MB/s data transfers, according to the whitepaper.
SD Association has outlined the card types and expected maximum performance for the new spec.
Also see
- Cloud v. data center decision (ZDNet special report) | Download the report as a PDF (TechRepublic)
- World's first 512GB microSD: Monster .5TB storage comes to smartphones (ZDNet)
- Do helium-filled hard drives have a lower failure rate? (ZDNet)
- Western Digital's experimental NVMe-linked SD card could be world's fastest (TechRepublic)
- This massive, speedy 400GB microSD card will cost you $300 (CNET)
About Liam Tung
Liam Tung is an Australian business technology journalist living a few too many Swedish miles north of Stockholm for his liking. He gained a bachelors degree in economics and arts (cultural studies) at Sydney's Macquarie University, but hacked (witho...
Full Bio
Liam Tung is an Australian business technology journalist living a few too many Swedish miles north of Stockholm for his liking. He gained a bachelors degree in economics and arts (cultural studies) at Sydney's Macquarie University, but hacked (without Norse or malicious code for that matter) his way into a career as an enterprise tech, security and telecommunications journalist with ZDNet Australia. These days Liam is a full time freelance technology journalist who writes for several Australian publications, including the Sydney Morning Herald online. He's interested primarily in how information technology impacts the way business and people communicate, trade, and consume.
