There was a time when photographers battled for a little extra space and higher speed on their memory cards. Today, there are many options to choose from, depending on your camera and needs. From SD cards to XQD and CFExpress cards, each offers much faster read speeds for entry-level to professional-level cameras. However, have you ever wondered if these cards offer too much storage? Before you come with your pitchforks, let me tell you about a new update from Western Digital. What particularly caught our attention was the new memory card in the SanDisk line-up.
As per Sony Alpha Rumors, Western Digital Japan recently announced the SanDisk 8TB SDUC UHS-I card, which is designed for photographers and drones, amongst other uses. At the same time, the company has also revealed the concepts of a 16TB portable SSD and a 16TB Desk Drive SSD. While the latter two can be used for multiple purposes, the former one definitely raises some questions.
The Types of SD Memory Cards
To understand why they designed an 8TB memory card, you’ll have to look at the options available to us. The SD Association, which was founded by Panasonic, SanDisk Corporation, and Toshiba (now KIOXIA) Corporation in 2000, offers four types of SD cards—SD (up to 2GB memory), SDHC (Between 2GB to 32GB memory), SDXC (Between 32GB to 2TB), and SDUC (2TB to 128TB memory). The last is certainly a theory. Because at the time of writing this article, I could only find the SDXC 1TB memory card.
Alongside this, we also have various speed bus editions—UHS-I, UHS-II, and UHS-III. You may have heard of this before; the first variation will give you a slower buffer rate. However, the other two can make burst shooting more comfortable, especially if you capture events, weddings, wildlife, or are a news photographer. Speed, then, is of utmost importance.
Do Photographers Really Need a SanDisk 8TB Card?
When I was an intern photojournalist a long time ago, I carried a 32GB SanDisk SD card UHS-I with me, which could hold 1,100 images. Sure, the card was extremely slow, but it fit the budget of a recent college graduate with no income. However, despite being on my feet for the whole day, I barely had instances where my card was completely full. Things changed when I moved to event photography, a stint that didn’t last more than a few days. With two 256GB cards and daily backups, we were good to go.
SanDisk has already offered a 1TB variant, which costs about $180. Both the memory storage and the price are quite hefty. This kind of repository should be enough for anyone photographing a 3-day Indian wedding with the RAW file format. I write this with the understanding that you take daily backups, as they are of utmost importance. Now, if you add 8TB to the mix, that’s a huge head-scratcher.
For a photographer, 8TB of USH-I type of memory storage seems odd. I doubt the read and write speed will be that high. Plus, imagine having to come back and sort the pictures. Sorting 25GB of memory is a task; 1 TB is a nightmare. 8TB will be hellish. Even if one considers that they shoot photos and videos, this kind of memory is a lot. (However, duties are bifurcated at the event or the shoot. Photographers ideally don’t make videos, as they may miss the shot.) And then, when you take a backup, well, that could take hours.
Honestly, we have no idea how SanDisk aims to use it for photography since our biggest sensors are 36mm x 24mm full-frame ones. A card like this makes more sense for security footage than for photographers. After all, who wants to spend days sorting through every single second they have shot?