Western Digital to introduce 4 TB SD cards next year!

[thewayne]

Storage cards are insane, and I am very appreciative at how the prices have come down. My new camera I have two 256 gig cards, I have my camera write the same image to both cards simultaneously for backup in case one card fails, and since I'm recording in JPEG-only, most of the time it's showing that I have room for over 10,000 images.

I don't think I'll be buying a 4 TB card any time soon.

Not to mention, how many batteries would you need to fill a card with that many images?!

There's a curious thing mentioned in the article that is roundly ridiculed in the article, and one thing that is very troubling. The curious thing is the transfer speed. Could be better. Looks like these cards may not be ideal for high-speed shooters, but we'll know more closer to when they come out and start getting tested. The other problem is that Western Digital bought SanDisk, and people have been very unhappy with their memory cards of late, experiencing phantom failures where the card just dies for no apparent reason.

Hence my deciding that since my camera has two memory card slots, why not give myself some redundancy.

And no, my cards are not SanDisk, they're PNY.

Still, an interesting development in memory cards. Could be very beneficial to people who produce video.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/04/sd-cards-finally-expected-to-hit-4tb-in-2025/

Comments

[armiphlage]

*sigh* I remember when I got my first 1 GB SD card, and was thinking I'd never fill it.

Or my first 100 MB spinning-rust hard drive, thinking I'd never fill it.

Or my first cassette tape formatted for my TI-99/4A, thinking I'd never fill it.

[rain_gryphon]

I was gonna say...

[thewayne]

Yup.

[thewayne]

I'm right there with you, my friend!  I have a 256 gig USB drive on my key chain that's double-ended: USB-A and USB-C!  VERY useful device.  My first computer, a TRS-80 Model 100, had 24k Ram.  I knew it wasn't very much.  I think my first PC-compatible, a 386SX/16 IIRC, had a 30 meg HD.  Yeah, things fill up fast.

[disneydream06]

Your camera holds two cards? WOW.......
Hugs, Jon

[thewayne]

It's pretty common.  You can tell one card to hold Raw images, the other Jpegs, or video, or write the same images to both like I do, or write to one card until it fills then spill to the next.  It's pretty cool stuff!  Digital cameras are basically hi-tech computers these days - you won't believe what my new camera is capable of!

[disneydream06]

Sounds like mine has been left in the dust. :o

[silveradept]

Pushing the boundaries of what's possible is rather interesting, and I'm impressed that there are now tiny cards that have the same storage capacity of my platter drives. Solid state technology continues to advance well.

That said, that it's Western Digital/Sandisk who is pushing the frontiers suggests that they're trying to get out ahead so they can capture some amount of being the only people in the market before more reliable manufacturers also figure out how to do this and do it better.

[thewayne]

Yeah, that's the big problem: it's WD/SD.  I'm used to my WD external drives only lasting three years or so, that's just how long they last for me at altitude.  And they're the most readily available locally when you need a replacement due to living in a small town, it is what it is.  Still, I have a variety of memory cards to choose from, and I don't have to be limited to SD.