Lexar has managed to cram 2TB of storage into a camera-bound memory card. The Lexar Professional Gold and Silver variants of the CFExpress 4.0 Type A cards, used widely in Sony mirrorless cameras, now come in capacities up to 2TB, the company announced this week.
That puts a ton of digital storage into a card that’s 2.8mm / 0.11 inches thick. When I first read that the cards now come up to 2TB, I thought that sounded more like an external hard drive than a memory card.
That extends to the speed. The Gold CFExpress card has up to 1,800 MB/s read speeds and 1650MB/s write speeds, and sustained write speeds up to 1400MB/s. (The silver is a little slower at 1750MB/s read, 1650MB/s write, and 1300MB/s sustained write.)
That’s not going to beat the fastest SSDs, but the Lexar SL200 Portable SSD from our top picks for the best portable hard drives is rated for 550MB/s read and 400MB/s write speeds.
As a photographer still using a 26MP camera, I’m not exactly the type of creator who needs 2TB in a memory card. Lexar is directing the new cards towards videographers shooting 8K, with both cards supporting Sony Alpha and Sony FX cameras with CFexpress slots. At the highest bitrate, the Sony A1’s 8K files will eat up around 4.5GB per minute – the sort of camera that’s going to need memory cards measured in TB rather than GB.
Like earlier cards in the series, the CFexpress Gold and Silver cards are designed to withstand heat and vibration, with IP68 dust and water-resistant ratings and 150N of pressure durability rating. (I cannot imagine the heartache of losing 2TB on a memory card).
The cost of a memory card tends to climb with the storage, but in this case, the new 2TB cards are more affordable than buying two separate 1TB cards from the same series.
The 2TB gold comes in at about $700, and the Silver at $600 in the US. The cards are available to pre-order in the US at B&H and Amazon.
International pricing has not yet been announced, but that’s around £532 / AU$1069 / CA$981 for the Gold and £456 / AU$916 / CA$840 for the Silver.
The card joins Lexar’s lineup of memory cards, which also includes 2TB in the CFexpress 4.0 Type B format.
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