Last week, Nintendo unveiled the much-anticipated Nintendo Switch 2, revealing that the console exclusively supports expansion via MicroSD Express cards. While this decision might frustrate owners of existing MicroSD collections, it's a strategic move that leverages the superior speed of MicroSD Express technology.
MicroSD Express cards offer significantly faster read/write speeds, comparable to the UFS (Universal Flash Storage) used in the Switch 2's internal storage. This advancement is crucial as it theoretically enables games stored on these cards to load just as quickly as those on the internal storage, albeit at the expense of compatibility with older, slower MicroSD cards.
MicroSD vs. MicroSD Express
The evolution of MicroSD card speeds has been marked by six different ratings. Starting with a modest 12.5MB/s in the initial SD cards, speeds have progressively increased. The journey began with SD High Speed at 25MB/s and culminated with SD UHS III (Ultra High Speed) at 312MB/s. However, the introduction of the SD Express standard five years ago marked a significant leap forward.
The pivotal change with SD Express is its use of a PCIe 3.1 interface, a stark contrast to the slower UHS-I interface of traditional SD cards. This PCIe interface, also utilized by NVMe SSDs, unlocks much higher performance potential. Full-sized SD Express cards can achieve transfer speeds up to 3,940MB/s, vastly surpassing older SD cards.
While MicroSD Express cards don't reach the peak speeds of their full-sized counterparts, they still offer impressive performance, reaching up to 985MB/s—three times faster than the fastest non-Express MicroSD cards.
Why Does the Switch 2 Require MicroSD Express?
Nintendo's choice to mandate MicroSD Express cards for the Switch 2 likely stems from the need for speed. A game installed on a MicroSD Express card will load much faster than on a traditional UHS-I MicroSD card, thanks to the PCIe 3.1 interface. This requirement could foreshadow similar standards in future handheld gaming PCs.
The internal storage of the Nintendo Switch 2 has been upgraded to UFS from eMMC, aligning with the need for faster external storage. Early demonstrations suggest significant load time improvements, with fast travel in games like Breath of the Wild reduced by 35% according to Polygon, and a 3x initial load improvement noted by Digital Foundry. These enhancements could be attributed to both the faster internal storage and the improved CPU and GPU, which can process data more efficiently. The necessity for external storage to match these speeds ensures that future games requiring faster disk access won't be hindered by slower SD cards.
Moreover, this move paves the way for even faster storage solutions in the future. The current fastest standard for SD cards, SD 8.0 Specification, allows full-size SD Express cards to reach speeds up to 3,942MB/s. Although MicroSD Express cards can't yet match these speeds, future advancements could see them doing so, provided the Switch 2 supports such capabilities.
MicroSD Express Capacity Options
Currently, MicroSD Express cards are not widely available, but this is expected to change with the launch of the Nintendo Switch 2. Lexar offers a single MicroSD Express card in 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB capacities, with the 1TB variant priced at $199.
Lexar Play Pro MicroSD Express
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SanDisk, on the other hand, has a single MicroSD Express card available, topping out at 256GB, which matches the internal storage of the Switch 2. As the Switch 2 hits the market, we might not see many MicroSD Express cards exceeding 512GB in capacity initially. However, as demand grows, companies like Samsung are likely to introduce higher-capacity options.
SanDisk MicroSD Express 256GB
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