An earlier post of mine discussed the introduction of USB 3.0 as a means of transferring large amounts of data very quickly but made only a brief mention of where the large amounts might be stored. The capacity for large solid-state storage just increased dramatically with the SD Association’s recent CES show release of a new SD card format: the SDXC standard. The XC part means “eXtended Capacity” and in the case of this type of device we’re talking about a maximum of 2 terabytes of memory storage and maximum read/write speeds of around 300 megabits per second, (the first releases will move data at around 104Mb/sec). The devices will use NAND Flash memory and are due to be released sometime in the first quarter of 2009. Panasonic’s first SDXC release will have a 64 GB capacity in the form of a SDXC Memory Card.
An early-adopter audience for this card would have to be photographers who will soon have the capacity to store 4000 RAW images or 17,000 high-res images, all on a single, standard-sized SD card. Other devices that already support the SD standard include mobile phones, camcorders and PCs, so expect to see a change in the services offered through this hardware in the very near future.
(image sourced from here)
T3 