In March of last year, SanDisk introduced a 200GB microSD card, then the world's largest capacity. In that fifteen-month span, SanDisk was acquired by none other than Western Digital, and its overall strategy has expanded, offering not only high-capacity cards but also faster ones. The new queen of the market is the SanDisk Extreme microSDXC UHS-I, with 256GB and a maximum write speed in the order of 90 megabytes per second.
The 4K Storage Challenge
More and more cameras and mobile devices can record 4K video, but such resolution presents a new challenge: storage. Add to that the fact that many models don't have a microSD slot to expand capacity, and users are in a bind. Still, major card manufacturers are responding with increasingly robust and fast products. If we think about it, there are many drones out there, and GoPro-style cameras that urgently need that additional external space in a compact and convenient format like microSD.
The New King of Speed
Thus we encounter the new SanDisk Extreme microSDXC UHS-I card. SanDisk, now fully under the wing of Western Digital (the announcement was in October 2015, but the acquisition was completed last May), claims through its official announcement the title of the "fastest microSD card in the world" for this new product, and the numbers seem to favor it. The new card offers a read speed of 100 megabytes per second, and 90 megabytes per second in writing, just a notch above the equivalent from Samsung. In other words, the SanDisk Extreme microSDXC UHS-I can transfer a full HD movie in 45 seconds and store up to 14 hours of 4K video.
It goes without saying, the card must be installed in devices capable of maximizing its performance, or the numbers will be lower than what we indicate here. The official price for this specific model is $200, and it will arrive in stores in the last quarter of the year, which will probably allow it to take advantage of the Black Friday shopping frenzy.
