Sony 160GB TOUGH CFexpress Type A Flash Memory Card - VPG400 High Speed G Series with Video Performance Guarantee (Read 800MB/s and Write 700MB/s) – CEA-G160T

Product Information

CFexpress Type A is a memory card format that is smaller than full-size SD, and bigger than microSD. By leveraging PCIe, Gen 3 interconnect with NVMe 1.3 host controller interface, CFexpress Type A provides levels of performance three times greater than the fastest UHS-II cards available in the market. Delkin start out at 75GB and go all the way up to a whopping 2TB. Read/write speeds increase as the capacities do, although, of course, so does the price. Lexar Professional CFexpress cards But all that performance comes at a literal cost: CFexpress Type B cards can get pretty expensive. To save you the wallet-ache of making a bad decision, we’ve created a rigorous multi-stage test to put CFexpress cards through the wringer and help you make the best buying decisions.

With SD cards, we want to look at several attributes: Photo from the SD Association SDHC Versus SDXC First announced in 2010 by SanDisk, Sony, and Nikon, XQD is a flash memory card using the PCI Express interface. XQD Version 2.0, announced in 2012, moved to the PCI Express 3.0 interface.Why it made the cut: SanDisk’s CFexpress Extreme PRO card provides a lifetime warranty and excellent performance at lower prices than its competitors. The large storage makes it a great choice for high-end video work that produces large files. And it goes beyond just storage size to support lofty projects with heavy data needs. Angelbird promises minimum sustained read and write speeds of 1,785 MB/s and 1,300 MB/s, respectively. It also says it’s capable of 17,850 MB/s and 1,550 MB/s of maximum read and write speeds.

As such, a greater number of manufacturers have released type B cards. Among them, Delkin's 512GB model from their Power line of cards is a very strong performer. Why it made the cut: This SanDisk 64GB CFexpress Type B card is the most affordable option that is still high-quality and trustworthy. As for the kinds of photographers who will adopt CFexpress in the next couple of years, pros and enthusiasts with money to spend are likely to increasingly choose CFexpress, while SD will still be there for those with a lower-end camera, or those who don’t need top-tier write performance. Who makes CFexpress cards and how much do they cost? The underlying technical advancements are two-fold. CFexpress 4.0 upgrades to the faster PCI Express (PCIe) Gen4 standard (hence the jump from 2.0 to 4.0 in the naming scheme) along with the NVM Express (NVMe) 1.4c logical interface, whereas CFexpress 2.0 currently uses PCIe Gen3 and NVMe 1.3c.For example, the Sony Tough UHS-II series of SD cards is rated for 299MB/s write speeds, but only provides (minimum) 90MB/s sustained write speeds. Meanwhile, the Sony Tough CFexpress series, based on the Type A standard, offers burst write speeds of 700MB/s, and sustained writes at 400MB/s. Panasonic rolled out updates for their XQD cameras in 2019. Nikon have updated firmware for mirrorless Z6/7 and DSLRs D5 / D500 / D850 / D4S / D4 which all have XQD slots.

We’re highly likely to see this announced at some point, because arch CFexpress-rival the SD Association has already announced PCIe 4.0 integration for a future version of SD Express cards; however, don’t expect to see these cards on sale for a couple of years at least. Beyond speed, Sony designed its cards to be, as the name says, tough. They can withstand falls up to 15 feet and have been rigidity tested to 70 newtons of force. Sony says they are three times stronger than the CFexpress standard for bending. They can also withstand extreme temperatures, X-rays, electrostatic, and intense UV light. Even if you are an expedition photographer, these cards will hold up to some serious abuse. What’s the takeaway here? Prices vary between countries quite significantly at higher capacities, and ProGrade’s Cobalt series CFexpress cards appear to offer the best continuous write performance available in 2020. What’s next for CFexpress?The Sony Alpha A7S III (above) is the first camera to support CFexpress Type A, and this the most interesting format of the moment. Yes, it may offer the lowest performance of the lot, but these cards can fit into a combi slot that will also take SD cards.