Advertisement

The era of 1TB microSD cards has begun

WD and Micron can give you the smartphone space you've dreamed of.

While processors can no longer keep up with Moore's law, memory manufacturers keep cramming more storage into ever-smaller spaces. Micron and Western Digital have both unveiled 1TB microSD memory cards that will let you significantly ramp up your smartphone storage, for a price. The products are arriving not long after Lexar started selling the first-ever 1TB SDXC memory cards.

1TB microSD cards

Western Digital's SanDisk brand has an edge over its rival, as its model packs a much faster 160 MB/s read speeds compared to 100 Mb/s for Micron. However, Micron's card, which features its latest 96-layer 3D quad-cell QLC NAND tech, can write a bit quicker with speeds of 95 MB/s compared to 90 MB/s for its rival. That's fast, but far below the 985 MB/s maximum speeds promised by next-gen microSD Express cards.

You'll pay to have storage bragging rights. The 1TB SanDisk Extreme UHS-I microSD card will arrive in April for $450, more than double the price of the $200 512GB model. Micron has yet to name a price for its own 1TB card, but it'll go on sale in the second quarter of 2019.