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SanDisk’s high-performance MicroSD cards are built for your 4K video library

By Daven Mathies July 1, 2016

sandisk 256gb microsd worlds fastes microsdxc

On Thursday, SanDisk unveiled two new high-capacity MicroSDXC cards. The 256GB Extreme card is the fastest in its class, offering read speeds up to 100MB/sec and write speeds up to 90MB/sec. A new Premium Edition Ultra series card was also announced with the same capacity and a slightly lower read speed of 95MB/sec. (No word on the Ultra card’s write speed.)

In a press release on the company’s website, and as reported by DPReview, the 256GB Extreme MicroSDXC card is designed for high-end photography and 4K video in action cameras and drones. It can hold up to 14 hours of 4K footage, which is enough to swap the battery 30 times on a DJI Phantom 4. This market is obviously important to SanDisk, and a DJI representative is quoted in the press release, saying the new memory card will provide “high-performance storage and peace of mind” for Phantom owners.

The 256GB Ultra MicroSDXC card is geared toward more casual uses, and is perfect for expanding storage on smartphones and tablets with a MicroSD slot. It can store over 24 hours of full HD video and more than enough photos to put your family and friends to sleep with the slideshow of your trip to Europe. Users can also backup their devices to the card using the free SanDisk Memory Zone app for Android.

SanDisk now joins Samsung in making 256GB MicroSD cards, although even larger capacities are possible and likely in the pipeline for the future. The Ultra card will be available in August for a price of $150, while the Extreme card will be released in the fourth quarter of this year at a price of $200. To put that in perspective, just over a year ago, SanDisk announced a 200GB MicroSD card (the largest at the time) that featured read speeds of 90MB/sec. That sold for $240.

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Daven is a contributing writer to the photography section. He has been with Digital Trends since 2016 and has been writing…

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Microdia plans to take MicroSD storage capacity to the absolute extreme with its new Xtra Elite card, which crams 512GB into a normal-sized MicroSDXC card -- but when exactly will the tiny giant actually be released?

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This 200GB microSD card can transfer up to 1,200 photos per minute

SanDisk 200GB MicroSD card

This spring, SanDisk revealed the world's first 200GB microSD card which, at the same time, just so happens to be the highest-capacity microSD card on the market. Today, Liliputing reported that the Ultra microSDXC UHS-I card is available now from a number of retailers at the MSRP of $240.

While it might seem excessive to shell out over 200 clams on an SD card only to be filled with every episode of The Wire and all three Back to the Future movies, it's actually a considerably more modest price than the $400 price tag SanDisk previously suggested.

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This is the world’s first 200GB MicroSD card, courtesy of SanDisk

Running out of space on your smartphone? That's a problem SanDisk wants to eliminate entirely, so the flash memory master has worked its magic to bring the storage capacity you'd expect from a desktop to your mobile device. The company announced a new 200GB MicroSDXC card at Mobile World Congress 2015 -- enough room to cram in all those "backed up" episodes of Game of Thrones and House of Cards you're keeping handy, not to mention your entire Katy Perry song book and photo gallery.

It's simultaneously the largest and smallest example of flash memory that you'll see -- it's the highest capacity of memory that you'll find crammed into a package about the size of a finger nail. The SanDisk UHS-I card, Premium Edition, utilizes the same proprietary technology that allowed the company to turn out a 128GB MicroSD last year, they've just managed to increase the size by 56 percent. Good luck filling that up with selfies any time soon.