What is MicroSD Express? All you need to know

I just got My Nintendo Switch 2, and its inner storage already fills all the ancient players and preserved! If you are in the same boat, you may also have noticed that you can not only disturb the SD card from your original key and continue shaking. Instead, you will need a new MicroSD Express card.

This was the fast standard It was presented in late 2023And it enables writing speeds in hundreds of MB, but so far they have only been used in high -end digital cameras and specialized use cases. As a result, the cards are few and far apart, and they carry a great allowance for the most common price of MicroSD cards. Before I deal with the price and availability, let’s overcome the difference between the fast and standard MicroSD cards and what this means for the key 2.

Express Lane

Photo: Brad Burke

As you may have guessed the name, MicroSD Express cards are faster, but to understand exactly what it means, we need to break what we mean by speed and how they are It is measured and displayed on microSD cards.

Regular cards other than expressions use three measures with some interference in performance. Our An in -depth technical guide If you want to learn more about cards other than expression, but I will make the short version here. There are three domains: Speed ​​categoryIt is referred to with c, UHS speed categoryIt was also distinguished by U for the very high speed category, and Video speed categoryWith V.

Regardless of how it is presented, the number indicates that the card is able to read and write at least quickly. For the circuit and V, it is a direct comparison, so the circle with “10” has a sustainable 10MB writing speed. There are two types of U, 1 and 3, corresponding to 10MB/s and 30MB/s, respectively. Cards are always compatible with the slower devices, so you may see multiple symbols and numbers on each card.

Index for Cross The cards, may not be surprised, are precedent or an in -flower, and sometimes with a number next to them. Again, this represents the speed of the continuous writing of the card, with officially supported ranges of 150MB/s to 600MB/s. Remember that these minimum speeds, so you may see that manufacturers quote higher numbers, but whether you will be able to support these speeds will depend on reading the device and writing to the card.