- SD Association says multi-terabyte SDUC cards already shipping across some sectors
- Sandisk showed 4TB SDUC cards nearly two years ago, but there’s still no sign
- SD Express brings SSD-class speeds while capacity targets reach 128TB
The SD Association says multi-terabyte SDUC cards are already shipping, with the format starting at 2TB and scaling up to a theoretical 128TB.
The industry standards group points to growing demand from AI, high-resolution video, drones, and edge computing as the reason capacities keep climbing – which sounds great, although the retail market still tells a different story.
Almost two years ago, Sandisk showed a 4TB SDUC card at NAB 2024, calling it the first of its kind and hinting at a release the following year.
Multi-terabyte SDUC cards are shipping
Storing large 8K video files and massive photo libraries on a single removable card is something I’m definitely interested in.
Yet cards at that size are still hard to find in everyday shops, and even 2TB SD cards remain relatively rare.
The SD Association insists that multi-terabyte SDUC cards are shipping already, although it doesn’t spell out where those products are actually appearing. That could mean industrial, embedded, or specialist deployments rather than consumer shelves.
The group’s main message is that capacity and performance are rising together. SD Express, which combines PCIe and NVMe interfaces, can reach roughly 1GB/s with PCIe 3 x1 and up to about 4GB/s using PCIe Gen4 x2.
Those speeds move SD cards closer to SSD-class performance, especially for tasks like running applications directly from removable storage or handling large AI datasets.
Gaming is also part of the push. The Nintendo Switch 2 uses microSD Express cards for storage, which lets games load and run directly from removable media without the slowdowns associated with older standards.
The association also highlights creators working with 4K to 16K video, along with VR, AR, and edge AI devices that produce huge volumes of data. Those uses make multi-terabyte cards sound less like excess and more like a practical need.
Still, the gap between standards announcements and what buyers can actually purchase is hard to ignore.
For now, the idea of a 4TB or 8TB SD card seems still closer to a roadmap than a routine purchase, even if the SD Association says it’s ready.
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waynewilliams@onmail.com (Wayne Williams)
