Exclusive: The first 2TB MicroSD card is now on sale and no, it’s not expensive at all – a Taiwanese company is making my dream of building a petabyte-in-a-shoebox project come true
Almost a year after the first 1.5 TB microSD card went on sale, a little-known company called AGI Kioxia has sent Kioxia into post by putting the first-ever 2TB microSD card on sale, a contender for our best microSD card buying guide. At just $229 plus delivery (that’s about £180, AU$344) from popular US retailer Newegg, the Supreme Pro TF138 commands a premium due to its current status as the only commercially available 2TB microSD card. The card is also listed on Amazon.com but has yet to receive an award.
AGI claims the card can reach read/write speeds of up to 170/160MBps, although it will require its own compatible card reader – the CR138 – to achieve these figures. Other features on the spec sheet include an automatic error correction function, UHS-1 U3 high-speed protocol, V30/A2 compatibility and all kinds of proofing (dust, water, shock, magnetic and X-ray). In other words, the card is more than fast enough for 4K video recording.
Kioxia announced its first 2TB microSD card – the Exceria Plus – in September 2022 and said it had started mass production in December 2023. Now you can get a 2TB microSD for less, there’s plenty out there on eBay, Amazon and AliExpress, but they are. all 100% fakes.
But not this one. Why am I so sure? To start, we got a press release (this never happens with counterfeits) and AGI does that LOTS of other products. Finally, it’s worth also watching this video of the card’s launch ceremony, last month somewhere in Asiaa video that contains much more information about the product, including the handy built-in temperature sensor.
125 grams of Petabyte goodness
Micron broke the 1TB barrier 18 months ago with its 1.5TB MTSD1T5ANC8MS-1WT, a card that It still carries a fairly high price tag, almost a year after launch. One mitigating factor is that this is an industrial microSD card, which means it has to follow a set of much more stringent features, such as the ability to remotely update the firmware, 24/7 video recording and a whopping 2 million hours of average time-to-failure assessment .
Since then, SanDisk has launched another 1.5TB microSD card, the SDSQUAC-1T50-GN6MA, which costs just $149.99. At the time of writing, true 1TB microSD cards can be used Amazon for about $55 So there is some margin for cuts.
Strangely enough, some of the biggest names in storage cards (Samsung, Lexar, Kingston) have yet to release products with a capacity larger than 1TB.
A microSD card remains the smallest regular removable storage medium; Measuring 15 x 11 x 1 mm and weighing 0.25 g, the 500 AGI Supreme Pro TF138 fits easily into a small box that is barely larger than a standard 3.5-inch hard drive and weighs less than the iPhone 15 .
Small enough to fit in the palm of your hand; 500 of these cards will provide a total capacity of one Petabyte at a cost of approximately $100,000; Yes, that was a purely academic exercise, but shows the potential of the world’s most compact storage media.
I have contacted AGI for a test sample and will report back as soon as I receive a test product.