Toshiba Sets Speed Record With New Specification MicroSD Cards

Toshiba America Electronic Components, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate, has started shipping preview samples of the world’s fastest MicroSD memory cards.

The company has a strong history in flash memory as NAND chips were actually invented by the firm  in 1989 and the new cards are the first on the market to comply with the UHS-II bus interface, capable of reading data at blazing fast speeds of up to 260MBps. At the moment, they are only available in 32GB and 64GB capacities.

More pins, faster speeds

UHS-II is the fourth iteration of the MicroSD specification, which was launched by the SD Association in November 2013. It introduces a new card layout with a second row of pins, but remains fully compatible with older devices.

The 32GB version of the new card offers maximum read speed of 260MB/s and a maximum write speed of 240MB/s. Meanwhile the 64GB version is capable of 145MB/s read speed and 130MB/s write speed – the minimum for UHS-II.

Both are considerably faster than Toshiba’s current 32GB MicroSD UHS-I cards, which offers just 95MB/s read and 30MB/s write speeds.

The new memory cards allow capturing high quality 4K video, which makes them perfect for professional video equipment. Faster transfer speed is also important to photographers – the less time it takes for a camera to store an image, the sooner it will be able to take the next shot.

Toshiba’s entire memory card line features cryptographic security and high-level copyright protection functions.

There’s currently no information on when the new cards will appear on sale in the UK.

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