Sandisk Reveals World's Highest Capacity Micro SD Card, at 128 GB

[Steven Bogos]

Sandisk Reveals World's Highest Capacity Micro SD Card, at 128 GB

When the first Micro SD was released in 2004, it had just 128 MB of storage.

Sandisk has just announced that it has broken then 128 GB milestone for its Micro SD cards, announcing a new line of microSDXC cards that will be available in the U.S. exclusively through Best Buy and Amazon. What's most amazing about this achievement (despite the fact that you now can hold over 7,000 songs on something the size of a fingernail) is that when the Micro SD was first released in 2004, it held a paltry 128 MB. This means that the Micro SD's storage has increased one thousand times in the space of a decade. The future. It's now.

The new card was made possible through Sandisk's new proprietary technique that allows for 16 memory die to be vertically stacked, each shaved to be thinner than a strand of hair. The 128 GB card will be able to store 16 hours of Full HD video, 7,500 songs, 3,200 photos and more than 125 apps.

"The technology used to design the 128GB Ultra microSDXC card is well in line with what mobile users expect, and demonstrates Sandisk's commitment to mobility," said Christopher Chute, research director, Worldwide Digital Imaging, IDC. "Being able to fit this much capacity into a Micro SD card smaller than a fingernail is a game changer, and expands the possibilities of what people can do with their mobile devices. The 128GB Ultra microSDXC card frees users from constant concerns around storage limitations."

The family of Sandisk Ultra microSD memory cards will also be available worldwide in capacities ranging from 8GB to 128GB with MSRPs of $29.99 to $199.99.

It's crazy to think we've come this far in regards to storage. At the moment, i'm running off a 240 GB SSD, to think that two of these tiny things running in RAID could easily match my storage.

Actually, I wonder if that would actually work? A Micro SD RAID array. Hmmm...

Source: Sandisk [http://www.sandisk.com/about-sandisk/press-room/press-releases/2014/sandisk-introduces-worlds-highest-capacity-microsdxc-memory-card-at-128gb/]

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[Tanis]

This is nuts, but it's very cool.

I could install two of theses into my PSP.
XD

 

[munx13]

This is nuts, but it's very cool.

I could install two of theses into my PSP.
XD

I don't think PSP's support that much (I think it's up to 32GB, like many other devices)

 

[Tanis]

@munx13:
Which is why I currently have 64GB in my PSP?

 

[Saulkar]

And here I was thinking that I was prepped for life with a 32GB micro-sd card in my phone.

At the moment, i'm running off a 240 GB SSD,

Hey-ey-ey-ey! So am I though it was a glitch and a half plus a week to migrate my OS onto it from a paltry 64GB SSD.

 

[alj]

It's crazy to think we've come this far in regards to storage. At the moment, i'm running off a 240 GB SSD, to think that two of these tiny things running in RAID could easily match my storage.

Actually, I wonder if that would actually work? A Micro SD RAID array. Hmmm...

Storage space yes

Software raid possibly but transfer speed would be abysmal.

 

[viranimus]

That is indeed impressive. I cant wait till june when that 199.99 price tag drops to 50$ as the new 256gb cards roll out.

Na... In all seriousness it is a nifty lil feat but I do have to wonder at its practicality. I mean from what I have seen, most devices that would utilize an SD micro card typically start spazzin out at the 32gb range. Many devices even made within the last 6 months, still wont tolerate a 64gb card yet. While making breakthrus is certainly a good thing, there has to remain a degree of marketability for something like this to be commercially viable and thus warrant the breakthru. If not it is simply development for developments sake

Honestly, what I would rather see about a thousand times over than an even higher capacity SD card, is phone and tablet makers (and google for that matter) expand capacity through multi SD drive slots instead of being relegated to just one. Some data you want to remain static, while other data you would intend to constantly be rewriting. I would love my tablet to have 4 SD slots. I would keep one for primary programs, One for consistent files like ebooks and other entertainment that I would like to have access to but wont change. Then a third would be for rotating files like work, projects, temp entertainment, etc. and the last one would likely be shared, where I could copy pasta a file I mention to a friend, over on the drive and let them borrow it. All this on the fly which would in turn make it much easier to manage tablet data and keep the need for resynching to either online sources like dropbox or physical sources like home pc all kept to a minimum And by comparison four 32gb micro SD cards would run you about 100$ as opposed to this which effectively doubles the pricetag on the justification of the cost for research and development despite not really having that much of a demand for it.

Just my 2cp.

 

[Nuvo]

It's crazy to think we've come this far in regards to storage. At the moment, i'm running off a 240 GB SSD, to think that two of these tiny things running in RAID could easily match my storage.

Well, not really.
SSD's have much faster read \ write speeds, and they don't burn out as quickly.
SD cards usually have between a few thousand and a few hundred thousand writes (some SanDisk cards are rated for 100,000 writes) while most SSD's are rated for a few million writes.
There are SD cards around which have write speeds of over 200MBps (Toshiba has made them with 240MBps write speeds), but they're not cheap enough to make it a viable alternative, and the capacities are usually between 8 and 64GiB, so you'd been at least 4 of them.
You'd also likely need something like THIS [http://www.geekstuff4u.com/microsd-ssd-creator-kit.html#.Uw3N3_l_vJZ], which is around half the price of a 240GiB SSD (for a 240GiB Corsair Force 3 it's just shy of £100 in the UK).

Basically, you can buy an SSD for £100 or cobble together your own SSD for £283... Or buy 3 SSD's and have 720GiB of SSD storage, which is probably what I'd do :/

P.S.
I know you weren't being serious.

 

[JayRPG]

That is indeed impressive. I cant wait till june when that 199.99 price tag drops to 50$ as the new 256gb cards roll out.

Na... In all seriousness it is a nifty lil feat but I do have to wonder at its practicality. I mean from what I have seen, most devices that would utilize an SD micro card typically start spazzin out at the 32gb range. Many devices even made within the last 6 months, still wont tolerate a 64gb card yet. While making breakthrus is certainly a good thing, there has to remain a degree of marketability for something like this to be commercially viable and thus warrant the breakthru. If not it is simply development for developments sake

Honestly, what I would rather see about a thousand times over than an even higher capacity SD card, is phone and tablet makers (and google for that matter) expand capacity through multi SD drive slots instead of being relegated to just one. Some data you want to remain static, while other data you would intend to constantly be rewriting. I would love my tablet to have 4 SD slots. I would keep one for primary programs, One for consistent files like ebooks and other entertainment that I would like to have access to but wont change. Then a third would be for rotating files like work, projects, temp entertainment, etc. and the last one would likely be shared, where I could copy pasta a file I mention to a friend, over on the drive and let them borrow it. All this on the fly which would in turn make it much easier to manage tablet data and keep the need for resynching to either online sources like dropbox or physical sources like home pc all kept to a minimum And by comparison four 32gb micro SD cards would run you about 100$ as opposed to this which effectively doubles the pricetag on the justification of the cost for research and development despite not really having that much of a demand for it.

Just my 2cp.

While a lot of devices don't officially support 64gb Micro SDs, more often than not all you have to do is format the memory card on the device.

I've worked in telecommunications for almost 5 years now and I was even able to get a 64gb memory card working in a customer's Galaxy S2, insert the card -> Settings -> storage -> format SD card;
Personally I have a 64gb Micro sd in my Note 3, Note 10.1 and 3DS.

Same thing goes for most tablets and phones on the market.

The only reason this 128gb or any other size micro sd wouldn't work in a device is if that device specifically states it doesn't support SDXC.

There certainly is a market for it, I get asked about the max size micro sd cards available all the time, and when I told customers the max was 64gb 50% of the time there was a follow-up question akin to "Will there ever be any larger sizes?"

 

[lancar]

It's impressive tech, but clearly not designed for me. I still only have the 8Gb my phone came with, and haven't even filled up half of that.
I got terabytes of songs and videos on my computer, but when transferring things to my phone I only take the stuff I'm actually interested in watching/listening to _again_

...and for that, my 8Gb are plenty.

 

[Avaholic03]

This means that the Micro SD's storage has increased one thousand times in the space of a decade.

Sorry to nit-pick, but isn't it actually 1024 times since we're talking about binary numbers so it's actually 2^10?

 

[PrimePowerOn]

This means that the Micro SD's storage has increased one thousand times in the space of a decade.

Sorry to nit-pick, but isn't it actually 1024 times since we're talking about binary numbers so it's actually 2^10?

Thanks for saying it so I didn't have to!

Also, I think I might spend the money on the RAID just for the highlarity. Maybe pumped thru an external eSATA connection if your motherboard and case support it. Just so I could say, look at that! That's my MicroArray!

 

[iseko]

It's impressive tech, but clearly not designed for me. I still only have the 8Gb my phone came with, and haven't even filled up half of that.
I got terabytes of songs and videos on my computer, but when transferring things to my phone I only take the stuff I'm actually interested in watching/listening to _again_

...and for that, my 8Gb are plenty.

Yea, same. I got 16 gb and the most ive used so far is 12gb. I got a 32gb SD for my tablet for free. It's in there but I've never had to use it. Maybe I might next time I go on vacation. To story some shows or movies on it for the flight/drive or something. Other then that, nop.

 

[Karavision]

Makes me excited to be going Android again. Really miss expandable memory (Tried apple for the first time, this gen).

 

[PoolCleaningRobot]

I love the mobile world congress. This is the reason I'll never buy a device without an sd card slot again. SDXC cover capacities higher than 32GB all the way to 2 terabytes. We may never see cards that high, but I knew it was only a matter of time before they came out the 128gb and higher cards. It makes those all those devices that come out with 32GB of storage look paltry

While a lot of devices don't officially support 64gb Micro SDs, more often than not all you have to do is format the memory card on the device.

I've worked in telecommunications for almost 5 years now and I was even able to get a 64gb memory card working in a customer's Galaxy S2, insert the card -> Settings -> storage -> format SD card;
Personally I have a 64gb Micro sd in my Note 3, Note 10.1 and 3DS.

Same thing goes for most tablets and phones on the market.

The only reason this 128gb or any other size micro sd wouldn't work in a device is if that device specifically states it doesn't support SDXC.

There certainly is a market for it, I get asked about the max size micro sd cards available all the time, and when I told customers the max was 64gb 50% of the time there was a follow-up question akin to "Will there ever be any larger sizes?"

Even if the device doesn't "officially" support SDXC cards, most new ones do anyway. I read the only difference between SDHC and SDXC card readers is one pin that SDXC uses for faster transfer speeds. That's what manufacturers mean when they don't support sizes higher than 32GB, it's cause the card readers built into the devices are SDHC. They'll work, but they need to be fat32 for the phone to read it and they'll have slower speeds than a "legit" SDXC device.

There's totally a market for these. I got a 64gb in my HTC sensation which came out before the 64gb cards were on the market and I've used about 50gb on it. As much as I love my HTC One, I'm kicking myself for not getting a device with an sd card slot. Of course, I think I'll wait until cost less than $200 before I buy one

 

[Strazdas]

you know where else you can get 10 times the numbers?
prices. like this 1 TB USB STICK [http://www.pcworld.com/article/2024220/kingstons-1tb-thumb-drive-packs-massive-storage-capacity-in-tiny-package.html].

a lot of impressive but costly things are out lately it seems.

This means that the Micro SD's storage has increased one thousand times in the space of a decade.

Sorry to nit-pick, but isn't it actually 1024 times since we're talking about binary numbers so it's actually 2^10?

if they are counting size the same way HDD manufacturers do, its 1000. you know, those 500GB drives with actually only having 470 GB because the factory number is actually GiB instead.

 

[Strazdas]

sorry, doublepost