Buckle up: a new CFexpress Type A speed king is crowned

CFexpress[1] Type A has a new speed champion: Nextorage. Boasting 950MB/s maximum read and 950MB/s max write speeds, the new NX-A1PRO series are now the fastest Type A cards you can buy for Sony[2] cameras like the a1, a7 IV[3] and a7S III[4]. Until now, the quickest offerings were either Lexar Gold Series or Exascend Essential Series cards, both of which could deliver maximum 900MB/s read and 800MB/s write speeds.

This makes the new Nextorage cards comfortably faster in the write speed stakes, especially as NX-A1PRO cards are also rated for a minimum continuous write speed of 850 MB/s; 150MB/s faster than any other Type A card on the market. It also means the new cards easily qualify for VPG400 certification (400 MB/s minimum guaranteed sustained write speed).

(Image credit: Nextorage)

Available capacities include 40GB, 80GB, 160GB, 320GB and 640GB. But if you need more space, Nextorage has also launched its NX-A1SE series of Type A cards.

These feature the same 950MB/s read/write speeds, but in larger capacities of either 960GB or 1920GB. The downside is minimum sustained write speed is slower, meaning NX-A1SE cards only gain VPG200 certification.

As yet only Japanese pricing has been revealed. NX-A1PRO cards will range between 11,900 yen (£84) for the 40GB card, up to 79,800 yen (£561) for the range-topping 640GB capacity.

960GB and 1920GB NX-A1SE cards will cost 64,990 yen and 99,800 yen (£457 and £701), respectively.

Boasting read speeds of up to 3,650MB/s, CFexpress 4.0 Type B cards like these are twice as fast as before. Could Type A cards be about to receive the same 2x speed boost? (Image credit: Other World Computing)

This latest news is all well and good, but we’ve got a hunch that much faster Type A cards could be just around the corner. Next-generation CFexpress 4.0 Type B cards are already on the market, which are twice as fast as the preceding generation.

As the current crop of Type A cards have a maximum theoretical performance of 1000MB/s, these new Nextorage cards are about as fast as the existing Type A technology can ever get.

If Type A cards are also due to graduate to the CFexpress 4.0 standard, then this would raise the Type A theoretical speed limit to 2000MB/s, meaning we’d likely see Type A cards capable of 1700-1800MB/s right off the bat.

References

1. ^ CFexpress (www.digitalcameraworld.com)
2. ^ Sony (www.digitalcameraworld.com)
3. ^ a7 IV (www.digitalcameraworld.com)
4. ^ a7S III (www.digitalcameraworld.com)
5. ^ The best memory cards for your camera (www.digitalcameraworld.com)
6. ^ Best CFexpress cards (www.digitalcameraworld.com)
7. ^ Best memory card readers (www.digitalcameraworld.com)