Sony XQD cards arrive to complement Nikon D4

Sony has officially launched the first XQD flash memory card , a new high-speed format designed to replace CompactFlash cards. The new format is primarily aimed at high-end SLR cameras and uses the PCI Express serial communications link interface from computers to achieve transfer rates as high as 125MB/s initially.

While Lexar has just introduced the first-ever 1,000X CompactFlash card, which can achieve transfer rate as high as 150MB/s, camera technology has not kept pace with the speeds that the very latest CompactFlash-based cards can attain. The new Nikon D4 DSLR that is designed to work with the new XQD format and will see the card able to fully support the D4’s ability to shoot at 10fps continuous shooting at its full 16.2-megapixel resolution.

The XQD format also has the headroom to be extended to support 2TB in capacity, further in its development cycle. Ultimately, its transfer speeds will also peak at 250MB/s for the second-generation and 500MB/s for the third-generation.

The first XQD cards that have been released by Sony are the 16GB QD-H16 card ($130) and the $32GB QD-H32 ($230), both of which will be available from February.

By Electronista Staff

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digital imaging, upgrades/storage, Nikon, XQD