New Sony XQD cards with 168MB/s write speed…right in time for the FF SLT.
Yesterday Sony announced the new faster XQD cards (Press release here). The first generation XQD cards had a write speed of 125MB/s and the only camera capable of using them is the Nikon D4. This is the kind of super speedy cards you will be able to use on the next Full Frame SLT camera from Sony. The 24 Megapixel FF sensor is rumored to have a 10-12fps speed and you will need those cards to get the best out of it! And it comes for a price. The current 125MB/s cards are priced at $120 for the 16GB version (here at Amazon) and $230 for the 32GB version (here at Amazon). The newer faster cards will cost ¥60,000 (around $754) for the 64GB card and ¥40,000 ($503) for the 32GB model.
Yep, cute prices 
John
11 months ago |Only 64? Not enough for movie
Fk
11 months ago |Why SxS Cards only come with up to 64gb, too an they are used for professional broadcast and cinema. The odd thing for me is the pricing, they are even a little more expensive then SxS cards while not being fully professional equipment. The small formfactor seems quite odd as well, it might make sense for cameras, but for pretty much anything else it doesn’t.
Frank
11 months ago |Pity they didn’t think ahead with the A77 and have a slot for it with a later firmware update.
Sky_walker
11 months ago |My thoughts exactly.
Right now only fastest sandisk cards work acceptably with A77 (these Extreme Pro 95MB/s UHS-1) – everything else is way too slow and causes camera to fill the buffer extremely quickly. I got one older SanDisk card and it works well only for single-shooting mode o_O (guess that’s one of the reasons for some poor reviews A77 got).
With XQD running 50% faster then SDs using continious shooting with A77 would be pure dream!
Marcus
11 months ago |I saw a review of A77 which tested memory cards. Conclusion was A77 can not write faster then 45MB/s even to 95MB/s UHS-1 cards.
RTI
11 months ago |exactly
Alexey Ozerov
11 months ago |Not sure. 95 Mbs works ~ 10 15% faster. I will make test today – got both of them.
P.S. Didnt found login screen – both in FF and IE there is ADS block there – and no login password block on main page.
Sky_walker
11 months ago |Odd, cause I see significant difference between 45Mb/s sandisk card and 96Mb/s one.
Perhaps they tested it with an old firmware?
E
11 months ago |Can any camera use the maximum theoretical speed of a card?
I’d say the figures may seem a bit low, but in all, as expected.
A850
11 months ago |Can we expect any speed increase in an A77?
RTI
11 months ago |I doubt that, there’s only a slight speed increase between a 45MB/s card and a 95Mb/s card.
A850
11 months ago |My question was stupid anyway, because the format is not compatible! No slot for this card – no speed increase, ha ha!
Eric
11 months ago |Can someone here explain why these XQD cards are better than mSATA or 1.8″ SSD drives? The XQD costs more, and is slower. Don’t see the point, really.
On the plus side, they are better than current SD and CF cards.
Sky_walker
11 months ago |These are an evolution of Compact Flash – more resilient and smaller then SSD drives.
Besides – we know well that companies gaining profits from selling cards will never allow or want anyone making cameras with SSD drive slots.
Eric
11 months ago |RED Digital is selling cameras with 1.8″ SSD cards.
Eric
11 months ago |And the new BlackMagic Cinema camera is also using SSD.
Sky_walker
11 months ago |Any of these happen to be DSLRs or still-cameras in general? Nope, they are high-end movie cameras, different market, different formats.
Carl
11 months ago |Still cameras still stand to benefit from hard discs, so I wouldn’t dismiss the idea too quickly.
flaca
11 months ago |Actually Sky_Walker was probably right in his earlier comment – Sony owns the XQD technology as far as I know. Kind of like their new Memory Stick. So they have more of an interest in pushing that rather than generic SSDs, whatever the pros of the latter. Hey, that’s capitalism!
Carl
11 months ago |More profit for Sony.
If they picked the sensible option and included a 1.8″ drive people would bypass Sony and buy a Seagate or a OCZ SSD or whatever, and Sony’s poor hungry children would starve. You wouldn’t want that on your conscious, now would you?
Steve Jones
11 months ago |Quite simply Compact Flash is inherently limited by the old Parallel ATA interface standard. The latest version ATA 7 aka Ultra ATA/133 is limited to a transfer speed of 133MB/s. Given that HDDs on PCs have been using the SATA interface for several years now, and that now new PATA HDDs are produced, then ATA 7 is the end of the road for what is now a very old technology.
Of course manufacturers could produce SATA cards, but these would be incompatible with the CF slot (in principle, all CF cards will work in any CF slot running at a mutually acceptable speed – subject only to not being able to put a type-2 card into a type-1 slot as the former is thicker to allow for “micro-drives”). Indeed you could argue that it’s quite feasible for a camera manufacturer to provide a slot for SATA devices (which theoretically allows for 600MB/s on the lastest spec), although generally that would mean using solid state HDDs, the form factors of which are generally a bit big for still cameras (it’s used on some video cameras).
So given that there’s a need for a compact format, faster than 133Mb/s on high-res/high frame-rate still cameras, then CF simply won’t do. However, whether that format will be XQD is debatable. The latest SDXC spec (for which no cards yet exist) is specified up to about 300MB/s.
Essentially this will come down to what the market ends up adopting, but in the longer term, it won’t be CF (although I expect at least one such slot on “pro” cameras for some time to come.
RTI
11 months ago |I only hope that future FF’s memory controller will be able to transfer that amount of data. A77 is limited to about 40Mb/s, you only get about 1 second buffer readout with a 95MB/s card compared to 45Mb/s (Sandisk extreme)
Stewe
11 months ago |Yep. What? You expected something different from Sony?
Amit Zinman
11 months ago |Not that anyone care about my current A580 model (that got no firmware upgrades at all), but my tests show no difference whatsoever between my 30MB/s and my 95MB/s cards.
I hope a future purchase of A99 will change that.
Maxwell
11 months ago |Not fast enough I believe.
12 fps * 24 MB = 288 MB pr. second
Maybe they could use an SSD drive?
Or do they use to much power?
Many video cameras use memory drives, but they have larger
batteries I belive.
Alexey Ozerov
11 months ago |For A580 there is no large difference with even 45 Mbs card – BUT A580 with SDHC 10 class work MUCH FASTER then A77. A77 with 45Mbs got same speed of shooting as A580 with SD. With 95 Mbs slightly faster.
Sekiz
11 months ago |Ty guys, good to know these data. Maybe the SDXC cards are faster, I desperately need some write speed.
Sky_walker
11 months ago |I don’t think any camera manufacturer aims for streaming everything right from sensor to datacard. They first buffer photos that ain’t saved on card and then write it down.
shamb
11 months ago |$120 is the starting retail price. I bought an A77 late last month, and was pleasantly surprised on how low priced Sandisk 16GB 95Mb/s cards now were.
Gabriel
11 months ago |I hope the new samsung camera will use that, with their 50MB raw filesize, this card are the perfect companion
realistgva
11 months ago |Get rid of all these cards.
Build cameras with wired/wireless high speed network and use a waterproof, tank like external hard drive that will run for a week on the battery in the enclosure.
That way I can keep the storage outside the camera, have built in raid, …. and never run out of space.
I could even shoot with 2 cameras onto the same storage.
Storing in camera should only be a backup for place where the external storage is not convenient : scuba diving and maybe a few other cases
Stewe
11 months ago |So what hardware and software are you using?
Aalpha100
11 months ago |And carry the tank, the WLAN hardware and 20 batteries to keep it running everywhere you go…Need a pretty fast WLAN also to get 168 MB/s.
Maybe a video camera would be better?
Sky_walker
11 months ago |This wouldn’t work even if you’d have wireless 168 MB/s connection. Why? Because establishing such connection is one thing – keeping constant and reliable transfers is another. That’s why there aren’t even compacts relaying solely on wireless connection.
adam
11 months ago |something that will happen in the future..Just a matter whether In the near Future or Far Far away future
Sky_walker
11 months ago |So far we can’t make even 1 MB/s truly reliable wireless connection, so I guess we’re very very far away from that. Perhaps our children will see it one day….
Poke
11 months ago |It would be kinda cool if Sony would include one of these 16GB cards with their new FF. Do we know what cards will be used in the new FF’s? Have we heard about any performance reports from the 88 or 99 in the field.
Francisco G
11 months ago |Sounds nice. In a couple of years they’ll be dirt cheap too.
Franck
11 months ago |Interesting to see that only the new Nikon using the new Sony sensor supports this card format. Sounds like a marketing deal. You Nikon wants my 36mpix Sony Sensor… Ok me Sony wants you Nikon to build a slot to support my new memory card format. It seems that Sony learnt a lesson and does not want to be the only one supporting a new standard… Because alone it would not become a standard.
Maybe now we know why Nikon is the first providing a camera with the new Sony 36mpix sensor and not Sony itself.
Spoon
11 months ago |The D4 supports it too and doesn’t seem to have a Sony sensor.
The announcement of the new format was supported by Sony, Nikon and Sandisk, altough only Sonly has made them sofar.
KN
11 months ago |How many people will need 12fps? not me!!! To me, $200 or more is way too expensive for a memory card !!
pancanikonpus
11 months ago |right time to burn pocket