Samsung’s 1TB microSD Card Doesn’t Compromise Performance for Capacity

The small size of microSD cards means manufacturers have limited space to work with, often forcing them to restrict performance if they want to boost capacity. While reaching 1TB on these tiny cards isn’t new, Samsung managed to combine that with reasonably fast transfer speeds — and not an insane asking price.

Samsung announced the availability of the 1TB capacity microSD cards today under both its Pro Plus and Evo Select lines (the Select cards are known as Plus in markets outside of North America, hence the image above). Despite the high capacity, the cards aren’t sacrificing performance. The higher-end Pro Plus card brings sequential read speeds of up to 180 MB/s coupled with sequential write speeds of up to 130MB/s. They are also V30 rated, which means they won’t dip below 30 MB/s write speeds, allowing them to work with some lower bitrate 4K video capture. The Pro Plus card also carries a UHS Speed Class 3 rating (U3) and an A2 App Performance.

The Evo Select line card — which got a whole line refresh earlier this year — is just a little bit slower on peak read and write speeds but maintains the V30, U3, and A2 performance metrics: Samsung says it has sequential read speeds of up to 160 MB/s and sequential write speeds of up to 120 MB/s. The V30 rating means it still won’t dip below 30 MB/s write speeds, though.

The cards also use less power.

“Samsung’s PRO Plus and EVO Select 1TB microSD cards show improved power efficiency with its controller based on 28-nanometer (nm) process technology, compared to the company’s previous lineup with a 55nm one,” Samsung says. “This allows users to make the most out of their device’s battery life with Samsung’s 1TB card.”

Both the Pro Plus and Evo Select cards feature what Samsung calls Error Correction Code (ECC)5’s Low-Density Parity Check (LDPC)6 code 2-kilobyte (KB) engine, which the company says enhances the card’s durability for higher volume write-and-erase cycles, allowing the card to work better and securely store data for longer periods of time. Additionally, the PRO Plus and EVO Select have a 10-year limited warranty.

It’s worth noting that these cards are only UHS-I, likely because there physically isn’t space on the card to pack in 1TB of storage and the second data lane required for UHS-II. There are other high-capacity cards with similar specifications from Lexar and SanDisk, although SanDisk also offers an “Ultra” model that has an abysmal V10 rating (it only promises to write at 10 MB/s), showing that combining high capacity and reasonable performance isn’t always easy.

The 1TB models of the PRO Plus and EVO Select microSD Cards will be available globally starting today. The PRO Plus card will retail for $153.99 while the EVO Select card will cost $131.99.

Update 8/1: Clarified the Samsung’s North American branding.

Image credits: Samsung