Unlikely. First there's the form factor (it's not an SD Express card if it's too thick), second there's the packaging. The shell would have to be either open or partially metal.
Metal was my first thought as well. Like the article said, moving the controller to a more advanced process would help, and probably using newer/more advanced NAND memory as well. But even still - I can already see things like the Samsung PRO cards having to use some kind of aluminum casing instead of plastic going forward in order to keep temps in check for sustained use.
I know I know that was a joke, perhaps the sdcard holder will have some thick plate on top and once the card is inserted it'll lower down on the card for better heat dissipation 🤷🏼♂️
If your just joking about a heat spreader just imagine a tiny little fan on top of your SD Card! Super high pitch like a mosquito in your ear buzzing around. :P
The thermals are a serious issue, it’s one thing for surface temps of plastic to be near 100C, but if that was metal the surface temps would still hit way too high and metal will actually burn the user.
Ultimately these new NVMe sd cards will need better tuning to reduce thermals and improve efficiency.
True. But it would be interesting to see these as "cartridges" used for next-gen gaming. Particularly, one where the user can play their game on a Pocketable-console, then eject it, and use it on a Home-console. Maybe it can house "slow assets" like 4K-Textures, whilst the Game Engine is stored in the faster, internal drive.
It's an interesting thought experiment, thinking about a gaming on a Sony PS5 and PSP (or a Sony Phone with removable gamepad, a la JungleCat).
Those temperatures and power draws are way too high for what is probably the main use scenario: removable storage in high-resolution handheld cameras. They're also too high for potential use as removable storage, again mainly for video, in future Smartphones, once Android counterparts to Apple's upcoming iPhone Pro Max become available. That can reportedly use ProRes as file format to save videos, and ProRes eats storage space for breakfast.
Temps are certainly too high, but power draw not necessarily. That peak draw of 4.58W is ~1.1A at 4.2V, so you could power one off a single 18650 cell for a couple of hours assuming peak is constant, which it won't be.
I think it's more intended for state-of-the-art digital camera that output high bitrate, high resolution video. one of the limiting factor are storage speed. having this on what seems like a laptop on your shoulders would help portability a lot.
Whether these cards are usable as is really depends on your workload. I would have liked to see something like the anadrech light benchmarked and include the MBPS/watt to know how realistic that 4 watt workload is. Also curious what the idle/standby power of the card itself is.
How much heat could you remove from that kind of thing if you made the exterior out of metal and pressed it between two cold plates with a strong spring? I'd like to give an SDExpress card the same treatment as the "CPU" on an IBM 3090.
So… CFExpress cards are stupid fast, but get hot just doing sustained read (copying a full 256GB card’s contents to a computer all at once). And this is putting the same thing in an even smaller form factor. Of course the end result is inevitable.
For photography this is still valuable, the cards are fast enough even in UHS-I mode for sustained burst in most cameras, and then having PCIe speeds for clearing the contents quickly to a PC is quite handy. But for video… these things will get hot, and compact camera thermals are already a nightmare. The Canon EOS R5 can technically shoot 8K video, but do it for very long and the damn thing overheats. The more you add awful thermal properties inside a compact environment like that, the worse off you are…
I've asked this question myself. The volume of an SD card is about 10x that of a microSD card. You would expect it to be able to fit 4x, maybe 8x as much NAND. The largest capacity for both is still stuck at 1 TB.
The first thing to do would be to go to 2 TB since it would be compatible with SDXC readers. After that, what is the market for SDUC? Some smartphones are dropping the microSD slot as the internal storage is now "good enough". Videographers may want an 8 TB full-size SD card, probably with SD Express speeds to deal with 4K/8K/360-degree video capture. Maybe the card needs to be made out of aluminum for cooling.
If I had to guess, there is a limitation at the controller and/or reader.
I doubt there is a problem with file format type, as exFAT has existed for a while now, with very high compatibility, and even if the format type was limited to FAT32, the maximum size would be 2TB
I think that pretty much all designs for SD cards attempt to support micro SD as well. So in the end the bigger size is more about consumer use case than increased capacity.
All of the devices that support a full sized SD card should be compatible with a microSD adapter card, and pretty much all microSD cards I've seen come with an adapter (I have at least 14 of them now).
There's no technical reason for SD cards to not be available in higher capacities, it comes down to the nature of the market. Maybe 10-100 times more devices are compatible with microSD because of smartphones. I wouldn't be surprised if a 2 TB microSD card gets announced before a 2 TB full-sized SD.
Yes, there's no reason to develop additional functionality for full-size SD as market is much smaller than for microSD.
Hopefully, SD Express readers may appear on notebooks and become a decent performance option to increase storage. That may provide a push to increase full-size card capacity, if price would be competitive with m.2 and USB options.
I think one major test is left out here, performance per watt.
I mean for a portable device, power is crucial here, if at that speed the card can save the exact same file much faster than a non-SD 7.1 card and eventually consumes less power then it's a win for the portable device. They can use it and get faster while consuming less power because it needs less time to save the data.
But if if the Performance/Watt was low then it's a problem, And maybe they will use a custom firmware to actually limit the performance to save power and stay within the required temperature. And the smaller the device the more crucial is to stay within low power/temp. Like mobile devices.
Using microSD Express might as well save Android from getting rid of the expandable storage due to lack of good performance on current microSDs (very low IO performance).
"Using microSD Express might as well save Android from getting rid of the expandable storage due to lack of good performance on current microSDs (very low IO performance)."
That would be nice, but I think the major manufacturers just want to get rid of it so they can sell you a phone with 1 TB UFS for $200 more.
UHS-II is widely adopted in cameras. My camera from a few years ago has it, and I use a UHS-II card in it. I have a card reader that also supports UHS-II. To be honest, I think it's enough. 96 degree surface temps are insane.
"To our dismay, we found the surface temperature to be as high as 96C - something entirely unsafe for handling with bare hands. It does look like safety standards allow for such surface temperatures, provided the device is under 50mm x 50mm in size."
Hah. I imagine those safety standards will get written if/when somebody sues.
@Ganesh You have two 404 errors/missing two benchmark images. Disk-to-Disk Read Disk-to-Disk Write Under the text, "Bandwidth for each data set is computed as the average of all three passes." When selecting "Expand all".
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too bad all those benchmarks were performed with an PCIe <--> USB bridge in between :/ I had hoped for a simple PCIe-M2 -> SDExpress socket, as all that really needs is something to pass the PCIe-signals to the card's pins (and maybe some drivers step/up/down converters)
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shabby - Thursday, September 9, 2021 - link
Lol at the thermals, these things will come with heatsinks one day.bananaforscale - Thursday, September 9, 2021 - link
Unlikely. First there's the form factor (it's not an SD Express card if it's too thick), second there's the packaging. The shell would have to be either open or partially metal.nandnandnand - Thursday, September 9, 2021 - link
Metal SD/microSD cards? It's more likely than you think!NextGen_Gamer - Thursday, September 9, 2021 - link
Metal was my first thought as well. Like the article said, moving the controller to a more advanced process would help, and probably using newer/more advanced NAND memory as well. But even still - I can already see things like the Samsung PRO cards having to use some kind of aluminum casing instead of plastic going forward in order to keep temps in check for sustained use.catavalon21 - Friday, September 10, 2021 - link
Corsair slapped a big ole heat sink on their high speed heaterhttps://www.corsair.com/us/en/Categories/Products/...
shabby - Thursday, September 9, 2021 - link
I know I know that was a joke, perhaps the sdcard holder will have some thick plate on top and once the card is inserted it'll lower down on the card for better heat dissipation 🤷🏼♂️Geef - Sunday, October 10, 2021 - link
If your just joking about a heat spreader just imagine a tiny little fan on top of your SD Card! Super high pitch like a mosquito in your ear buzzing around. :Pschuckles - Friday, September 10, 2021 - link
The thermals are a serious issue, it’s one thing for surface temps of plastic to be near 100C, but if that was metal the surface temps would still hit way too high and metal will actually burn the user.Ultimately these new NVMe sd cards will need better tuning to reduce thermals and improve efficiency.
myaccessflorida - Saturday, September 11, 2021 - link
I think it's more intended for state-of-the-art digital camera that output high bitrate, high resolution video.https://surveyuncle.com/myaccessflorida/
Kangal - Sunday, September 12, 2021 - link
True.But it would be interesting to see these as "cartridges" used for next-gen gaming. Particularly, one where the user can play their game on a Pocketable-console, then eject it, and use it on a Home-console. Maybe it can house "slow assets" like 4K-Textures, whilst the Game Engine is stored in the faster, internal drive.
It's an interesting thought experiment, thinking about a gaming on a Sony PS5 and PSP (or a Sony Phone with removable gamepad, a la JungleCat).
eastcoast_pete - Thursday, September 9, 2021 - link
Those temperatures and power draws are way too high for what is probably the main use scenario: removable storage in high-resolution handheld cameras. They're also too high for potential use as removable storage, again mainly for video, in future Smartphones, once Android counterparts to Apple's upcoming iPhone Pro Max become available. That can reportedly use ProRes as file format to save videos, and ProRes eats storage space for breakfast.bananaforscale - Thursday, September 9, 2021 - link
Temps are certainly too high, but power draw not necessarily. That peak draw of 4.58W is ~1.1A at 4.2V, so you could power one off a single 18650 cell for a couple of hours assuming peak is constant, which it won't be.Fulljack - Thursday, September 9, 2021 - link
I think it's more intended for state-of-the-art digital camera that output high bitrate, high resolution video. one of the limiting factor are storage speed. having this on what seems like a laptop on your shoulders would help portability a lot.at_clucks - Friday, September 10, 2021 - link
At that point many users simply invest in cameras that output to an external SSD, at least with something like a CFast to SSD adapter.schuckles - Friday, September 10, 2021 - link
Whether these cards are usable as is really depends on your workload. I would have liked to see something like the anadrech light benchmarked and include the MBPS/watt to know how realistic that 4 watt workload is. Also curious what the idle/standby power of the card itself is.PaulHoule - Thursday, September 9, 2021 - link
How much heat could you remove from that kind of thing if you made the exterior out of metal and pressed it between two cold plates with a strong spring? I'd like to give an SDExpress card the same treatment as the "CPU" on an IBM 3090.shelbystripes - Thursday, September 9, 2021 - link
So… CFExpress cards are stupid fast, but get hot just doing sustained read (copying a full 256GB card’s contents to a computer all at once). And this is putting the same thing in an even smaller form factor. Of course the end result is inevitable.For photography this is still valuable, the cards are fast enough even in UHS-I mode for sustained burst in most cameras, and then having PCIe speeds for clearing the contents quickly to a PC is quite handy. But for video… these things will get hot, and compact camera thermals are already a nightmare. The Canon EOS R5 can technically shoot 8K video, but do it for very long and the damn thing overheats. The more you add awful thermal properties inside a compact environment like that, the worse off you are…
spaceship9876 - Thursday, September 9, 2021 - link
you forgot to mention ufs cards.Einy0 - Thursday, September 9, 2021 - link
Wow, 96C that will leave a mark!Kamen Rider Blade - Thursday, September 9, 2021 - link
When are regular sized SD cards going to go up in size?1TB Micro SD Cards already exists.
I calculate that if you make optimal use of the physical space of a SD card, you can get 4.5 TiB of storage using existing 512 GiB Nand Flash cells.
Wouldn't you want an entire regular sized SD card with 4.5 TiB of storage?
nandnandnand - Thursday, September 9, 2021 - link
I've asked this question myself. The volume of an SD card is about 10x that of a microSD card. You would expect it to be able to fit 4x, maybe 8x as much NAND. The largest capacity for both is still stuck at 1 TB.The first thing to do would be to go to 2 TB since it would be compatible with SDXC readers. After that, what is the market for SDUC? Some smartphones are dropping the microSD slot as the internal storage is now "good enough". Videographers may want an 8 TB full-size SD card, probably with SD Express speeds to deal with 4K/8K/360-degree video capture. Maybe the card needs to be made out of aluminum for cooling.
meacupla - Thursday, September 9, 2021 - link
If I had to guess, there is a limitation at the controller and/or reader.I doubt there is a problem with file format type, as exFAT has existed for a while now, with very high compatibility, and even if the format type was limited to FAT32, the maximum size would be 2TB
schuckles - Friday, September 10, 2021 - link
I think that pretty much all designs for SD cards attempt to support micro SD as well. So in the end the bigger size is more about consumer use case than increased capacity.nandnandnand - Friday, September 10, 2021 - link
All of the devices that support a full sized SD card should be compatible with a microSD adapter card, and pretty much all microSD cards I've seen come with an adapter (I have at least 14 of them now).There's no technical reason for SD cards to not be available in higher capacities, it comes down to the nature of the market. Maybe 10-100 times more devices are compatible with microSD because of smartphones. I wouldn't be surprised if a 2 TB microSD card gets announced before a 2 TB full-sized SD.
Nevod - Saturday, September 11, 2021 - link
Yes, there's no reason to develop additional functionality for full-size SD as market is much smaller than for microSD.Hopefully, SD Express readers may appear on notebooks and become a decent performance option to increase storage. That may provide a push to increase full-size card capacity, if price would be competitive with m.2 and USB options.
nandnandnand - Saturday, September 11, 2021 - link
I am hopeful. I've seen SD card readers on even OEM desktops I've looked at lately, and controllers like this are available:https://www.anandtech.com/show/16603/silicon-motio...
Xajel - Thursday, September 9, 2021 - link
I think one major test is left out here, performance per watt.I mean for a portable device, power is crucial here, if at that speed the card can save the exact same file much faster than a non-SD 7.1 card and eventually consumes less power then it's a win for the portable device. They can use it and get faster while consuming less power because it needs less time to save the data.
But if if the Performance/Watt was low then it's a problem, And maybe they will use a custom firmware to actually limit the performance to save power and stay within the required temperature. And the smaller the device the more crucial is to stay within low power/temp. Like mobile devices.
Using microSD Express might as well save Android from getting rid of the expandable storage due to lack of good performance on current microSDs (very low IO performance).
nandnandnand - Thursday, September 9, 2021 - link
"Using microSD Express might as well save Android from getting rid of the expandable storage due to lack of good performance on current microSDs (very low IO performance)."That would be nice, but I think the major manufacturers just want to get rid of it so they can sell you a phone with 1 TB UFS for $200 more.
meacupla - Thursday, September 9, 2021 - link
I am surprised the controller is still using 28nmdoesn't that take up a lot of space?
beginner99 - Friday, September 10, 2021 - link
"We are bullish..." Dude this isn't some hipster crypto forum...catavalon21 - Friday, September 10, 2021 - link
Bullish = Optimistichttps://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bullish
Scipio Africanus - Sunday, September 12, 2021 - link
Bullish comes from the world of finance and stocks.Watch or listen to any business news and you'll hear bullish and bearish used all the time.
AbRASiON - Sunday, September 12, 2021 - link
EXCELLENT NEWS!Another high speed microSD format which the manufacturers will ignore and never use.
(No spite intended at you Ganesh, big fan)
So tired of these things being developed, never used by anyone.
yetanotherhuman - Monday, September 13, 2021 - link
UHS-II is widely adopted in cameras. My camera from a few years ago has it, and I use a UHS-II card in it. I have a card reader that also supports UHS-II.To be honest, I think it's enough. 96 degree surface temps are insane.
AbRASiON - Tuesday, September 14, 2021 - link
Cameras, maybe, every other device on earth? Still has a slot from 2008.dqniel - Tuesday, September 14, 2021 - link
"To our dismay, we found the surface temperature to be as high as 96C - something entirely unsafe for handling with bare hands. It does look like safety standards allow for such surface temperatures, provided the device is under 50mm x 50mm in size."Hah. I imagine those safety standards will get written if/when somebody sues.
nandnandnand - Tuesday, September 14, 2021 - link
Hot coffee, hot SD.ballsystemlord - Friday, September 17, 2021 - link
@Ganesh You have two 404 errors/missing two benchmark images.Disk-to-Disk Read
Disk-to-Disk Write
Under the text, "Bandwidth for each data set is computed as the average of all three passes."
When selecting "Expand all".
jessicarobin - Saturday, September 18, 2021 - link
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too bad all those benchmarks were performed with an PCIe <--> USB bridge in between :/I had hoped for a simple PCIe-M2 -> SDExpress socket, as all that really needs is something to pass the PCIe-signals to the card's pins (and maybe some drivers step/up/down converters)
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