Lexar beats all competitors to market with highest capacity SD ever: 1TB

 

 

It's been a spell since Lexar was in the news, basically since they were sold off by Micron to Chinese hardware company Longsys, so it is a welcome sight to read some good news from the storied and somewhat beleaguered brand. Bringing Lexar back into the forefront of the storage conversation is the announcement and subsequent immediate availability of a 1 TB UHS-1 SD card, the largest capacity SD card to be released. Way back in September of 2016, SanDisk announced that they were developing a 1TB SD card, but the finished product never made it to market. So while SanDisk was the first to say it was possible, Lexar has beaten them to the punch with making the concept a reality. 

Lexar says that it is designed for the mid-range DSLR, HD camcorder, or 3D camera given its slightly slower speeds. Categorized as a "Professional 633x SDXC UHS-I" will work great for 1080p full-HD, 3D, and some 4K video, with read speeds of up to 95MB/s. Lexar notes that those speeds are only for read, and write speeds will be "lower." Though it is Class 10, Lexar appears to have sacrificed speed for capacity, a tradeoff they likely had to make in order to reach the 1 TB size. 

Lexar's Feature list:

• Leverages Class 10 UHS-I (U3, V30) technology for a read transfer speed up to 95MB/s (633x)
• Capture high quality images and extended lengths of stunning 1080p full-HD, 3D, and 4K video

Releasing a product like this will definitely help relaunch the brand which has been largely silent for the last year, being the first to actually bring a 1 TB SD card to market. That said, the speeds of the card are a bit short of what high-end video shooters are going to need and those are the same customers who will find a need for such a large capacity. We'll see if Lexar's team is capable of pushing the speeds of the card in later iterations, or if they'll move away from SD as the market grows towards CF Express.