The SD Express Trap: Why These “Faster” Cards Might Slow Down Your Camera

As if the world of memory cards wasn’t confusing enough already, there are some new formats starting to appear, including SD Express and microSD Express.

As you can probably guess from their names, they’re evolutions of SD and microSD. And it sounds like they’re faster.

Which they are, and by a lot. But it’s not as simple as just plopping an “Express” version in your existing camera and getting blazing-fast new speeds. In fact, that might be counterproductive.

What is SD Express (and microSD Express)?

SD Express was launched by the SD Association in June 2018.¹ The SD Association is the organization that develops and governs the specs for the SD and microSD memory card formats. 

The idea of SD Express and microSD Express is to keep the existing compact form factors but bring massive speed increases to keep pace with the demands of 8K and 3D video. (There’s a parallel effort focused on massive increases in storage space, known as SDUC/microSDUC, which is related but not directly the same thing.)

And the motivation for them developing SD Express is to compete with the CompactFlash Association’s CFexpress format. For now, at least, CFexpress is far ahead in terms of adoption by camera manufacturers.

SD Express cards get their massive boost in speed by harnessing the speed of PCIe and NVMe interfaces. And the gains are impressive. SD 8.0 (released in 2020) defined the PCIe Gen4 x1 lane support that allows for ~2GB/s speeds.

SD 9.1 (October 2023) was significant for introducing the Speed Classes (E150, E300, E450, and E600) for those speeds, as well as the thermal/power management to make them viable.

There is one notable new adopter of SD Express, but it’s not a camera. The new Nintendo Switch 2 is only compatible with microSD Express cards.

That has pushed the big players like SanDisk, Lexar, and Samsung to release them. Make sure it has the EX symbol on the card and explicitly says microSD EXPRESS.

What’s new in the SD 9.1 specification?

In October 2023, the SD Association released the SD 9.1 specification for SD Express.

This latest update integrates multi-stream access and refines power and thermal management. The multi-stream aspect, in particular, allows up to eight separate streams. The practical implication for photographers and videographers is that it can handle large files simultaneously while ensuring data integrity.  

• Multi-stream Access: This feature ensures that the minimum defined performance of the PCIe/NVMe interface in SD Express cards is maintained, thereby enabling the simultaneous handling of up to eight different streams of data.
• Power and Thermal Management: The SD 9.1 specification addresses power consumption, designed to make data-intensive, high-bitrate recording more efficient and resulting in fewer overheating problems. 

SD Express Speed Class categories

A related innovation with the release of SD 9.1 was the release of new SD Express Speed Class categories. The SD Association has a long history of developing speed class rating systems that are intended to make it easier for the consumer to choose the right card for their device. 

Unfortunately, though, they keep coming up with new systems, which has a tendency to cloud any clarity the ratings should provide. 

And they’ve done it again. Rather than sticking with the existing Video Speed Class rating system currently used on SD and microSD cards (the V30, V60, V90 ratings), they’ve come up with something exclusively for SD Express and microSD Express. It comes with its own symbol with a stylized combination of an “E” and an “x” (for Express, get it?) followed by a data transfer rate (the “E” looks to me more like a British Pound symbol, but whatever).

SD Express Speed Class	Minimum Read/Write Performance
SD Express Speed Class 150	150 MB/s
SD Express Speed Class 300	300 MB/s
SD Express Speed Class 450	450 MB/s
SD Express Speed Class 600	600 MB/s

Importantly, these don’t refer to maximum peak transfer rates but rather to minimum sustained write speeds (aka minimum sequential performance levels). That’s specifically designed to be a useful measure for the constant stream of data that comes when recording video. 

And you’ll also notice that the current rating system maxes out well below the theoretical maximum speeds of the spec. In real-world use, it’s going to take quite some time before the actual cards catch up to the theoretical limits of the spec, if they ever do (hint: they rarely do before something shiny and new comes out to replace it).

These speed rating categories aren’t quite as simple as they first appear, though. That’s where the magic of multi-stream access comes into play. It means that bandwidth is allocated across the streams. For example, a card rated at SD Express Speed Class 600 can support 8 streams at 75MB/s or a single stream at 530 MB/s along with 7 other streams at 10 MB/s, and so on. 

SD Express & microSD Express compatibility 

So this is where the catch is. Fast cards = good. But only if your device specifically supports them. And that’s the stumbling point for now. 

The SD Express and microSD Express cards use the same form factors as existing SD and microSD cards. So they’re the same size and shape and fit in the same memory card slots. 

They’re also designed to be backward compatible, but only to an extent. This means that an SD Express card will work in an existing camera that uses SD cards. 

But — and this is a huge but — the catch is that you won’t get SD Express speeds unless the camera or device fully supports SD Express. More technically, both the card and host device have to be using the PCIe bus and both have to conform to the SD Express Speed Class access rules as they are defined in the specification. Otherwise, putting an SD Express card in a camera or host device that only supports regular old SD will result in regular old SD card speeds. 

The SD Express trap

But it gets worse, because there’s actually a trap that catches many buyers out.

SD Express cards physically repurpose the second row of pins that UHS-II cards normally use. This means if you put an expensive SD Express card into a high-end camera designed for UHS-II, it cannot fall back to UHS-II speeds. It drops all the way down to UHS-I speeds (max 104 MB/s). So you’re basically paying a premium price to get slower performance.”

My advice: Hold off for now

You can already find SD Express cards for sale.

But while it might seem like you’re getting a new, faster, better SD card, there’s no point paying the premium prices to buy one for the current generation of cameras. And there’s a very good chance you’ll actually end up with slower performance than just getting a UHS-II card.

Notes & References:

1. SD Express was launched by the SD Association in June 2018 with the SD 7.0 specification, followed by microSD Express in February 2019. [↩︎]