SanDisk and Sony Announce SxS Flash Cards

The newest cards will harness the ExpressCard port on laptops to move data faster, and in a smaller package.

SanDisk and Sony announced on Monday that they will develop a new media card standard together, known as SxS.  It will be designed for use in digital camcorders, such as Sony’s upcoming XDCAM EX series, and is expected to provide superior data transfer rates and smaller size than the previous generation of mass-storage cards.

SxS cards will take advantage of the ExpressCard slot on laptops to offer wide support for the new format right out of the gate. ExpressCard was introduced in 2004 to replace the aging PC Card form factor, sometimes known as the PCMCIA form factor. The slot now appears on most new laptops, including popular video-editing platforms such as Apple’s MacBook Pro.

Switching to the ExpressCard standard will allow SxS cards to interface with computers directly through the PCI Express bus, which should allow data transfer rates of up to 800 megabits per second in ideal conditions. The newest cards will also be half the size of the PC Cards they replace (width: 34mm, height: 5mm, length: 75mm).

The companies’ announcement did not mention what kind of storage capacity SxS cards would boast, but photos indicate they will be available in sizes of at least 16 gigabytes. The first SxS cards will be available later this year.

SanDisk and Sony have a history of working together to develop flash storage formats, dating back to the introduction of the Memory Stick Pro in 2003.