Western Digital has been showing off its upcoming SD card with a whopping 8TB of storage capacity. And if that weren’t enough, the company’s SanDisk subsidiary is also prepping a tiny microSD card that can hold 4TB.
The days when a bulky external hard drive was necessary to carry around a huge collection of files are almost over.
8TB SD card on the way from SanDisk
Apple never built SD or microSD slots into iPhone or iPad, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t support these memory cards. Mac Studio and MacBook Pro have a SDXC card slot. And nearly the full range of Apple computers, including iPhone and iPad, can use the cards with adapters.
SD cards in stores now top out at 2 terabytes, but Western Digital committed itself this spring to introducing a 4TB card through its SanDisk subsidiary. That’s not coming out until 2025, though.
And not content to stop there, a SanDisk 8TB SD card was recently on display at the Future Of Memory And Storage Conference in California. However, Western Digital said nothing about when it might reach customers, or what it will cost when it does.
Those who need boatloads of storage capacity in an even smaller format can look forward to a SanDisk 4TB microSD card. There’s no projected launch time or price for this product, though. It could even be 2026.
Both cards will support UHS-I, which means data transfers at up to 104 Mbps or 13 MBps. That’s quick enough for 8K video recording.
Western Digital says these cards will be right for “tomorrow’s smartphones, gaming devices, drones, cameras and laptops.”
Ed Hardy has been writing full-time about tech for 25 years, and using it for much longer than that. His intro to Apple was a Macintosh Classic II (which he still has), but now he uses a 13-inch iPad Pro as his primary computer. He’s written for NotebookReview, TabletPCReview, and Brighthand, as well as other sites.
