SanDisk to sell whopping 200GB microSDXC card for $US400

THE day you can fit the entire contents of your laptop on a smartphone is approaching.

Sandisk is selling a tiny microSDXC card with a massive 200GB capacity

THE day you can fit the entire contents of your laptop on a smartphone is approaching.

US flash storage solutions firm SanDisk has released a new high density microSD card with an impressive 200 Gigabytes of storage. Yet the new 200GB microSDXC card is the size of a fingernail.

For many people, 200GB is enough storage for the entire contents of their notebook. And with microSD storage limits expanding quickly, we’re likely to see even higher density cards come to market. Just a year ago SanDisk released a 128GB card. Now that limit is broken.

The Internet of Things and need to store vast amounts of sensor and camera data will drive growth even further.

SanDisk said it had used the same technology that last year made the 128GB microSDXC card possible, but it has developed a new design and production process that delivers more bits per die.

SanDisk says 7 out of 10 images are captured by smartphones and tablets and quotes an IDC prediction that by 2019, this will jump to 9 out of 10 images.

Not all smartphone vendors include microSD card slots on their handsets, and Samsung has dropped including one on its latest flagship, the S6. Manufacturers might now be tempted to reconsider.

SanDisk says the new card is capable of transfer speeds of up to 90 megabytes per second, the equivalent of transferring 1200 photos per minute. While impressive, this well below transfer speeds offered by solid state drives which typically can be 300-400 MB per second.

The new card comes with useful software. SanDisk has a “memory zone” app which monitors a phone’s internal storage and issues an alert when a user-defined threshold is reached. It then will transfer older photos and videos to the microSD card automatically to maintain that minimum.

At this stage the new card is expensive — $US400 when it goes on sale world wide this quarter.

SanDisk also revealed a microSD card designed for high-intensity recording for the home security recorders and car dash cams, and in extreme weather conditions.

MicroSD cards only survive a set number of reads and writes — typically 100,000 write cycles — but SanDisk says its “high endurance video monitoring” microSD cards can write and rewrite up to 10,000 hours of video for a 64GB card and 5,000 hours for a 32GB card.

The 10,000 hours benchmark is more than 400 days or more than a year’s continuous loop recording in HD. The card is also shock proof and waterproof, and is designed to work in cold conditions or in a hot car in a dash cam.

It will cost $US149.99 for 64GB of storage or $US84.99 for 32GB. At this stage it is destined for sale online through SanDisk in the US, and in Europe and South Korea through retailers.