SanDisk 8TB SD Card and 4TB microSD Card Introduced – Are Such High Capacity Cards Even Needed?

Storage Media

by Johnnie BehiriAugust 16^th, 2024

SanDisk, an American-based company known for flash memory products introduced a new high-capacity, mid-performance 8TB SD card next to a 4TB microSD card. The Californian Company operates under Western Digital’s roof and is the first to unveil such a capacity in incredibly small cards.

In recent years, media storage capacity has been comparable to having money in the bank. It always runs out fast, or it’s never enough… We talk mainly about filming equipment on our site, and with the advance of recording codecs next to video and picture resolution, it seems as if the need for a higher storage capacity is a never-ending story.

While Western Digital’s official press release is lacking some fundamental information details like pricing and availability, it seems as if both cards will fall under the UHS-I classification, meaning up to 104MB/s, V30 speed (theoretical maximum transfer speeds). While 4K recording might be possible depending on the codec and data rate you choose, the question of whether recording that amount of data on a single card is a smart thing to do is up to the user (also, who knows, maybe as a precaution, free data recovery software will be offered with each card).

In any case, this announcement certainly shows where we are heading in terms of storage capacities. However, some leading experts from our industry will tell you that in the future, physical in-camera storage will simply vanish as everything will be sent directly and automatically to the “cloud”. But, looking at the bigger picture, it may be other industries that will benefit the most from such available capacities of physical cards.

Personally, for most of my filmmaking projects, I’m using 1TB (CFexpress/SD) cards. I find those to have the right balance between price, capacity, and storage.

What do you think about SanDisk’s products? Do you trust their memory cards? And, not least importantly, would you be interested in buying such high-capacity cards for filming your daily productions? Please share your thoughts with us in the comment section below.