Toshiba has launched what it claims to be the world's fastest SD cards, the Exceria and Exceria Pro, with the Exceria Pro capable of delivering up to 240MB/s write and 260MB/s read, performance one would expect from an SSD. The Exceria range also offers 260MB/s read performance, but a write speed of 120MB/s.
Both ranges are compliant with the new UHS-II standard, which improves upon UHS-I by delivering a theoretical maximum of 312MB/s, three times the performance of UHS-I. Even the Exceria's 120MB/s write speed is faster what UHS-I is capable of. UHS-II compliant cards make use of an additional row of pins, where both rows are required for maximum performance. With a single lane UHS-II device, the theoretical maximum speed is 156MB/s. The cards are also backwards compatible with UHS-I and non-UHS hosts.
These ranges are targeted at photographers who need a fast card for high-speed continuous shooting with RAW files and for 4K video. Both ranges also significantly improve over Toshiba's previous UHS-I Exceria line-up, which deliver up to 95MB/s read and 90MB/s write.
The Exceria Pro range will be available in capacities of 16GB and 32GB initially in Japan in October 2013. The Exceria range will feature capacities of 32GB and 64GB, but will launch a month later than the Pro range in Japan. No pricing information has been announced at this time, let alone availability outside of Japan.
Further information is available in the press release.
