Key Takeaways
- WD’s SanDisk brand is set to release the world’s first 8TB SDUC card.
- A 4TB microSDUC card and a 16TB external SSD are also in the works.
- Given the cost of current storage options, we expect prices to be higher.
It’s a sign of just how much storage demand has grown. Western Digital’s SanDisk brand will soon launch an 8TB SDUC UHS-I card, the first of its kind. The product is one of several announced by WD at the 2024 Future Memory and Storage Conference in Santa Clara, California this week. 8TB is bigger than most PCs’ internal drives, so it could be a one-off option for photographers, videographers and users in the burgeoning portable gaming PC sector.
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SanDisk is also preparing a 4TB microSDUC card that will be suitable for devices such as smartphones. Both cards are capable of speeds of up to 100MBps, which may be enough to run some apps, but is still much slower than the latest SSDs.
WD hasn’t set a release date or price yet, but you’re going to pay a pretty penny: Right now, even a slow 1TB SanDisk Extreme Pro SD card costs around $180, so if you have the space and connectivity, it might be cheaper to buy an SSD.
SanDisk/Pocket-lint
The mother of all external SSDs
If an external SSD is an option for you and you want as much storage as possible, WD is also working on a 16TB version of the SanDisk Desk Drive. This is double the Desk Drive’s current maximum capacity and will likely appeal most to video editors working on 4K or 8K projects. The reason is cost: at $700, the 8TB Desk Drive is already too expensive for anyone who just wants to back up their personal media and documents. As with the company’s SD cards, no exact cost or release date has been announced yet. The portable 16TB option is in the proof-of-concept stage.
WD’s new offering is extreme, but it reflects growing demand for apps, music, and video. Many laptops now ship with 1TB by default, and even smartphones like the iPhone 15 Pro offer a 1TB option, so you can store a decent amount of professional video. 128GB is usually the bare minimum for any phone.
