Sony’s new SD cards are “toughest and fastest” in the world

 

 

Sony has announced new SD cards that they are claiming to be the toughest and fastest available. Called the SF-G series TOUGH specification (TOUGH appears to just be branding, not an acronym for something), these UHS-II SD cards were built to withstand water, drop and dust. In fact, the new cards can withstand a drop of 5 meters, come with an IPX8 rating for water, and IP6Xrating for dust. They are built from a single piece of molded plastic and Sony claims they are several times stronger than "standard" SD cards. 

Sony says the new cards are 18 times stronger than SD standard (180N compared to 10N rating) which protects against bending and dropping. The aformentioned one-piece molding is, they describe, "the world's first monolithic structure with a completeled sealed molding that leaves no empty space in the card and prevents dust and debris from entering." Sony's branded TOUGH spec series uses high-grade hardness plastic and the single molding to prevent against broken plastic casings, broken data protection lock, and broken connector ribs. 

 

 

The cards are not only supposed to be hard to break, but the fastest Sony has produced. Sony claims these have a "world’s fastest write speed" of up to 299 MB/s and are classified as V90, the highest standard of video speed class (this means they have to be at least a write speed of 90 MB/s, so the rating makes sense). The read speed of these cards is up to 300 MB/s, which is a very high benchmark as well. It's nice that Sony is including both read and write speeds on the labeling of the card rather than just stating the read speeds, a common tactic by many card makers.

The TOUGH spec. series SD cards include a SD Scan Utility, allowing the you to check that the card is in good condition and File Rescue Software to recover accidentally deleted data and photos. The new cards are also X-ray proof, magnet proof, anti-static, temperature proof and feature UV Guard.

 

 

The new TOUGH cards come in three sizes, 32GB for $72.99, 64GB for $131.99 and 128GB for $275.99. For more information, visit http://www.sony.net/sfgt.