I mean... computers can already use M.2 or embedded PCIe solutions. They were literally only using eMMC because it's cheaper than any PCIe solution. The advent of PCIe SD cards won't change that... they'll continue to use eMMC for super budget flash until they stop making it or the price differential shrinks to zero. Both of those will take a while.
Cfast isn't dead, the cards are much more physically robust which is important for camera manufacturers and directors. Movie cameras would just use 2.5" ssd's if they wanted speed, they created cfast because they wanted a much more rugged product that was also smaller than a 2.5" ssd.
Just because they used two 2.5" drives in the Red One that does not mean that camera manufacturers and directors didn’t want something smaller and more robust. It’s like saying people didn’t want thinner and lighter laptops because they used thick and heavy ones before.
I don't think they're more robust than SD cards. Larger, sure, but no more or less resilient to heat, shock etc. "They" created CFAST in 2009 because CompactFlash was still using the old parallel ATA interface and it was a natural progression to SATA instead; it doesn't really have anything to do with the comparative size of SSDs other than that obviously they weren't going to make the standard larger than the outgoing one.
Even the 430MB/sec writing rate is not up to handling 4Kp60 HDR RAW (a bit over 600MB/sec) or RGB (over 1800 MB/sec). (RAW data rate is lower as the Bayer filter processing is left to later so each pixel has one 10 bit number - not the three RGB 10 bit numbers.) At the moment virtually all 4K camcorders use lossy encoding to keep the data rates and storage requirements down to something acceptable.
Anandtech, please ask Samsung what is happening with Micro UFS cards, they announced them 2yrs ago but they haven't gone on sale. They are faster than ssd in terms of sustained speeds and iops, they also use less power than sd.
On the one hand I'm thinking "it's about damn time" but on the other hand I'm like oooh backwards compatibility is going to be a potential mess. Also if cards do have to support older SD standards as a fallback, that's going to further increase cost and complexity.
If they're using the UHS pins as PCIe with a handshake, then the existing pins for older SD cards are still there, at the end of the card, as they always have been. The new UHS pins are additional to faster cards anyway, so they're dual bus compatible. I have one in my camera (that can use UHS-II), but I use a standard old reader to copy the photos to my PC.
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PeachNCream - Tuesday, June 12, 2018 - link
This is good news for the eventual improvement in budget computers that have been recently relying on eMMC flash for the past few years.Alexvrb - Tuesday, June 12, 2018 - link
I mean... computers can already use M.2 or embedded PCIe solutions. They were literally only using eMMC because it's cheaper than any PCIe solution. The advent of PCIe SD cards won't change that... they'll continue to use eMMC for super budget flash until they stop making it or the price differential shrinks to zero. Both of those will take a while.SigmundEXactos - Tuesday, June 12, 2018 - link
And....XQD and CFast are now dead.spaceship9876 - Tuesday, June 12, 2018 - link
Cfast isn't dead, the cards are much more physically robust which is important for camera manufacturers and directors. Movie cameras would just use 2.5" ssd's if they wanted speed, they created cfast because they wanted a much more rugged product that was also smaller than a 2.5" ssd.benzosaurus - Wednesday, June 13, 2018 - link
The Red One originally used a RAID0 of two 2.5" *hard drives*. So, um, yeah. Physical volume is not a thing they care about.xype - Wednesday, June 13, 2018 - link
Just because they used two 2.5" drives in the Red One that does not mean that camera manufacturers and directors didn’t want something smaller and more robust. It’s like saying people didn’t want thinner and lighter laptops because they used thick and heavy ones before.Lord of the Bored - Friday, June 15, 2018 - link
Laptops? Computers used to be the size of ROOMS, people don't want laptops.Spunjji - Wednesday, June 13, 2018 - link
I don't think they're more robust than SD cards. Larger, sure, but no more or less resilient to heat, shock etc. "They" created CFAST in 2009 because CompactFlash was still using the old parallel ATA interface and it was a natural progression to SATA instead; it doesn't really have anything to do with the comparative size of SSDs other than that obviously they weren't going to make the standard larger than the outgoing one.Duncan Macdonald - Tuesday, June 12, 2018 - link
Even the 430MB/sec writing rate is not up to handling 4Kp60 HDR RAW (a bit over 600MB/sec) or RGB (over 1800 MB/sec). (RAW data rate is lower as the Bayer filter processing is left to later so each pixel has one 10 bit number - not the three RGB 10 bit numbers.)At the moment virtually all 4K camcorders use lossy encoding to keep the data rates and storage requirements down to something acceptable.
spaceship9876 - Tuesday, June 12, 2018 - link
Anandtech, please ask Samsung what is happening with Micro UFS cards, they announced them 2yrs ago but they haven't gone on sale. They are faster than ssd in terms of sustained speeds and iops, they also use less power than sd.Alexvrb - Tuesday, June 12, 2018 - link
On the one hand I'm thinking "it's about damn time" but on the other hand I'm like oooh backwards compatibility is going to be a potential mess. Also if cards do have to support older SD standards as a fallback, that's going to further increase cost and complexity.piroroadkill - Wednesday, June 13, 2018 - link
If they're using the UHS pins as PCIe with a handshake, then the existing pins for older SD cards are still there, at the end of the card, as they always have been. The new UHS pins are additional to faster cards anyway, so they're dual bus compatible. I have one in my camera (that can use UHS-II), but I use a standard old reader to copy the photos to my PC.AdrianB1 - Wednesday, June 13, 2018 - link
Is SD still relevant these days? Anybody really cares about a super-duper SD if most people don't own any device that will ever use it?PeachNCream - Wednesday, June 13, 2018 - link
Yes, SD is still relevant.