Seriously Gannon? SanDisks highly regarded Extreme Pro series are a solid mid-price option, and will be the first choice for many. Perhaps they had too much nostalgia for the old large and bulky CF cards, which is a format that I don't recall Sony ever supporting. For one, many people can get by with very small cards like 32GB or 64GB, which costs way less than an SSD, especially if you get a used one. 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. They need to give those cameras M.2 slots rather than CFexpress, or make a connector passive adapter that are more robust for the wear of repeated insertions. I agree that A7C is too small to house m.2. ProGrade says its new CFexpress Type A Cobalt cards deliver VPG 400 performance (sustained write speeds of at least 400MB/s) and offers maximum write speeds of 700MB/s, which should be more than enough to record up to 8K ProRes 422 HQ video for supported cameras. It's very simple: nobody likes Type-B. Because only those are affordable? Because SD is only interesting because it's cheap and the newer standards aren't. For the price of that 160GB CFexpress card, you can get a 2TB M.2 NVMe SSD with a read speed of 7GB/s and a write speed of 5.3GB/s. Then expect increased capacity, more speed, and price drop. Prices vary between countries quite significantly at higher capacities, and ProGrades Cobalt series CFexpress cards appear to offer the best continuous write performance available in 2020. Heat instead, likely? There are three CFexpress variants: Type A, Type B and Type C. The two newer ones, A and C, were introduced when the CompactFlash Association revised the standard to 2.0 in 2019. Type A can do 800. "because when your camera costs 6500 the 590 you spend on the cards shouldnt matter. Unfortunately, Sony itself is the only manufacturer using that slot and actually selling memory cards, so it's charging through the nose. I still use their 256g V60 card on A7S3; it's less than one fifth of the price. m.2 is just another form factor that is designed for internal use and not to be replaced often, it has rather delicate connector and needs to be secured with screw. Better yet, you can get the new ProGrade card in a two-pack for $590, increasing your savings to $210. While ProGrade cant exactly address the former of those problems, its doing what it can to address the latter with its latest lineup. You will end up filling the internal SSD, and then what do you do? Fourth, it would make it harder to sell the camera, and you'd have to do a complete overwrite to prevent someone else recovering your shots. And, like SD cards, you should also look at their sustained write speeds, rather than just those printed on the card and its packaging. Why are not cameras using m.2 SSDs? However, as the maximum speed of 1 lane of PCIe 3.0 is 1GB/s, it doesn't look like that's the limiting factor. That's an absurd claim. This is usually a celebration sequence that goes on longer than a normal play. The Sony cameras wont let you start recording a video until the buffer is cleared, and with SD that can take 8 or 9 seconds to clear instead of 1 or 2 seconds with the cfa. You can. If you don't yet have a Sony A7S III or Sony A1 camera, why not try before you buy? Imaging Resource 1998 - 2023. So while a CFexpress Type C card isnt quite as fat a pipe as HDMI, it comes much closer than the cards we have today, and would let you store incredibly high data-rate footage in-camera. The Prograde CFexpress card averaged around 654 MB/s write speeds and 730 MB/s read speeds when tested through the Sony reader. Before you process the images and make backup copies. This card also takes advantage of an NVMe PCIe 3.0 host controller interface. It only takes 10-20sec to fill (or copy) such card at its max speed. If you need more speed than V90 you record 8K+ and probably have a decent camera rig. Probably Type A cards sell because they work well with high performance and reliability in mirrorless cameras. Heres how it works. Just try comparing the intel cpus by model name these days. THat they also managed to keep two cheap slots for non demanding tasks is just the icing on the cake. According to ProGrade, the Cobalts minimum write speed is guaranteed not to drop below 400 MB/s, which they claim allows for the uninterrupted recording of a wide variety of codecs, including 4K RAW, 4K and 6K ProRes 4444, 4K, 6K, and 8K ProRes 422 HQ, and more. Also 8TB drives are behind the corner. New cameras like the Sony A7S III and Canon EOS R5 have put CFexpress in the spotlight, but its not a brand-new format. Still, it's easily fast enough to capture high-speed photo bursts without any stuttering, along with 8K or 4K 120p video. Thank you ProGrade! CFE cards are SSDs in memory card format, with PCIe lanes, just like in computer. Many excellent photographers who know what they are doing are using the SD cards and are not seeing their work compromised in doing so. It has the necessary speed, Flash memory is dense enough that it doesn't require a larger format, the cards are physically smaller so you can have dual slots in a small body, and the slots can be made compatible with SD cards. So why didnt Sony use it in their consumer cameras. You can have all the cameras you want out there with the slots that use CFE-A and SD, but if the vast majority are opting for SD then the ability to use CFE-A means nothing. Magnar - Tell me which companies make part of the Compact Flash Association. Third, if you have multiple cameras, you can use one card for all of them, which makes it even cheaper than an SSD. And if it's not for the "everyday Joe's" then if Sony puts this option in their expected A7 IV, then why? And you get 1TB for around $200. Again, I respect that and am not trying to change your mind. Anyway Id like to see your reliability data on SD compared to other formats, especially if you consider the tough-type fully molded parts available from a few manufacturers they are virtually indestructible mechanically. But I wonder what the real world difference will be? They both use NVMe and PCIe. If you own either of those cameras, though, you know that CFexpress Type A is much preferred as it supports all of those cameras' video formats and works better for high-speed bursts. With its Tough branding, Sony's card boasts some impressive durability. You only need 512GB - 1TB cards when shooting RAW if you're holding the shutter button non stop, but I've seen that happening only to amateurs. Why!? ProGrade Digital61Amazon.co.jp62964Amazon @Kona MikeWell then it would also look bad for Type B, since SD-Express is backwards compatible with SD and that has been around for even longer. It would just give manufacturers an excuse to milk more money out of us. Lucifer its ironic you wrote Sony likes to have their own proprietary formats on an article about another companys memory card release. It's fragile format, and sadly 2 card slot is became a norm, why use 2 if 1 never fail? No, thanks. Well the ProGrade team already showed back in the lexar days how good they are and got good experience with their Cobalt series cards. They have 2 slots with two sets of connectors and a special door. @panther fan, yes I agree. Future US, Inc. Full 7th Floor, 130 West 42nd Street, Yes fast m.2 SSD heat up under heavy load. At present, no cameras use the CFexpress Type C standard. Never tried it, but the 8K IPB "Light" option might write to a fast V30 considering the bit rate is close to 1080 All-I (230Mbp/s). Perhaps it's because I've not been in the market for CF Express cards in the past. It depends on the feature set. ProGrade's new offering doesn't give specific protection details, but ProGrade states that the card is shock, vibration and X-ray proof. It is not until recently that Sony CF Express Type A is available most of the time in store. The card has a metal enclosure for temperature control and includes built-in temperature throttling to ensure safe performance. With these modern CFE cards t kinda loses practical point because they are just as fast and can be swapped in professional jobs which require a lot of storage and zero downtime. Besides the price is pretty high, Type B cards got a bit cheaper in the past and hopefully this trend will continue getting close to the current nvme ssd range. Andrew is a freelance journalist and has been writing and editing for some of the UK's top tech and lifestyle publications including TrustedReviews, Stuff, T3, TechRadar, Lifehacker and others. MikeRan - those XQD slots in the initial Z have been made 100% compatible with CFexpress. But just as SD more or less steamrolled Compact Flash for years, it seems that CFexpress has already won this fight and its use in cameras like the Sony A7S III is proof enough. A key benefit of 30fps is getting THE key image from a moment. This is normally done over HDMI, as a 2.1-version connector has 48Gbps bandwidth (6GB/s). Seems like it could be handy and fast for when you need speed, and offload from the SSD to a computer or SD card later when speed isn't important. As a reminder, CFexpress Type A uses the same high-speed CFexpress technology as the type B cards, so the Cobalt card can deliver burst read/write speeds of 800MB/s/700MB/s and sustained write speeds of 400MB/s. However, the image buffer, the storage wafer in your memory card, and the storage controller all need to be up to the job too, and the CFexpress format handles the last two of these. ProGrade announces new, more affordable CFexpress Type A card CFexpress Type A cards are speedy, high-performance storage solutions for high-end cameras, like the Sony A7S III and the. Agree. No need to format the card right after you copy the files to your computer (unlike most people do). Please keep your contributions constructive and civil. Even more intensive video capture modes are the obvious use, but do we really need 4GB/s? @Tony Northrup "if you're shooting raw on a Sony a1 you really need 512GB - 1TB Type A". Besides, they're also offering as Sony nand storage health check to give you a premature warning if the card might be considered less reliable (ie better do dual slot recording after that*) and another warning when its close to end of life, meaning when you can expect card failure to happen at any time. But the question will be if it remains with this narrow band of usage, will it be feasible from a business sense to keep producing them? That kinda makes me wonder: why don't more cameras have internal SSDs? It is funny, because you make the assumption that built-in SSD means no card slotI am pretty sure that a camera with some internal storage would feature at least one memory card slot SSDs can be removed and swapped; look at things like Atmos Ninjas. ), sells CFexpress Type A Tough memory cards in 80GB and 160GB capacities for $200 and $400, respectively. I am sure more people will post the same "proprietary card" nonsense. So I do not buy the argument that the cameras cannot use them. It would be more or less permanent fixture. As a pricing reference, Sony currently offers its 160GB CFexpress Type A card for $398, while ProGrade Digital charges $365. However, at around 165 for the 128GB card (integral cards are much easier to find in the UK and Europe than the US), theyre pretty attractive. The high draws come when writing at full speed, with depending on the model, they can pull 5 to 8 watts, with the controller alone pulling 1 to 3 watts.Lower to mid range stuff will use significantly less power, with many of the drives in the 2.5 to 3GB/s range, pulling around 3 watts while writing at full speed and 20mW or less when idle, and under 2mW when in a sleep mode. A site for working professionals in the TV & Film industry, Creamsource Releases double and triple yoke for VORTEX 8, ASTERA PlutoFresnel and LeoFresnel plus Projection Lens. This doesn't appear to be a money thing - CF Express is an open standard, and every camera not sold wipes out margins for how many cards? @MikeRan, The R5 writes 8K to a V60 card too, its just the RAW and ALL-I that require the CF Express card. i think I sued to spend $30 for sd card on sale, not $330. The marketing department rarely thinks past the current and next model, so they come up with naming schemas that won't last. Sony's adopting CF type A is probably a precursor of what is to come, their use on the A7S3 and A1 seems more like testing the waters, at least you're not pigeonholed into using them. It's called User Error. I think that's a fair summation: that right now CFE-A is for a very narrow niche. That's a bit harsh. Or rather offered it as an option in dual SD/CF-A card slots, nothing wrong with sticking to your old SD cards. Those longer bursts is where CFE-A cards will help me. Whats the takeaway here? The Sony and new ProGrade cards each offer maximum read speeds of 800MB/s and top out at 700MB/s write speeds. 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. I just am glad my Canon R5 uses the Type B cards, which are way faster. Matthew Allard is a multi-award-winning, ACS accredited freelance Director of Photography with over 30 years' of experience working in more than 50 countries around the world. Matthew is available to hire as a DP in Japan or for work anywhere else in the world. These appear to be the fastest CFexpress Type B cards money can buy at the moment. The CFE-A cards are needed during extended peak action. available to pre-order on ProGrades website, https://progradedigital.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/ProGrade_DS_CFexpress_Final_E.pdf, ProGrade's new 320GB, 640GB CFast 2.0 cards are its fastest yet, but still fall short to CFexpress, Pergears new 1TB, 2TB CFexpress Type B cards offer 1400MB/s write speeds at reasonable prices, Nikon announces $730 660GB CFexpress Type B memory card, Micron ships its 232-layer 3D NAND flash with more storage, better performance and a smaller package size, Leica Summicron-SL 35mm F2 ASPH sample gallery, The best cameras for family and friends photos in 2022, Best affordable cameras for sports and action in 2022. Business-wise, it's a smart move - people can't complain much because each slot still supports the fastest SD cards, but Sony benefits from selling the (MUCH) more expensive Cfexpress cards that only they currently make. The Delkin 2TB B card was (is?) They are made to three times the strength of the CFexpress standard according to Sony, and tested to withstand 70 newtons of bending force and 5-meter drops. All three formats. It's too big. Its reinforced physical design can withstand falls from up to 15', and its rigidity has been tested against 70 N of force. Then there's the fact that this type of card tops out at 160GB. Using SSD over USB is bad idea because you have additional protocol overhead and may not be so realiable as attaching your memory directly over PCIe lane as is the case for CFE cards. XQG (which is essentially Type B) was announced in 2010, finished in 2011 and Nikon adopted it in 2012, It was then transferred in 2016 to CFexpress, Then in 2019, the standard was moved to CFexpress 2.0 which included two new card formats (Type A and Type C). As for CF-A vs CF-B it's one lane in a 1568mm^3 form factor vs two lanes in a 4360mm^3 form factor. Video shooter doesn't need CF-A unless internal RAW which is can't be found on any Sony camera under $50k; even V60 would work for 8K on A1. 160GB CFexpress 2.0 Type A memory card and it costs $330. A Sony Tough card costs $219 / 299 (128GB), $399 / 483 (256GB) or $649 / 999 (512GB). Tony you meet with Sony staff all the time. Thats performance and reliability combined with the compactness bolds well for the continued use of Type A. Im an A1 user and I do use cfa for one reason; I shoot stills and video clips on the same jobs and often have to quickly grab a video clip after snapping stills. Also for users having multple cameras it is benefitial to have card compatibility so you can switch between cameras. To me, the z6 and d750 file size and speed are almost the same so a cheaper 32 sd card works great for still photographers. $ 79.99 USD or 4 interest-free payments of $20.00 with Quantity Add to Cart Free USA Shipping Free International Shipping Orders $375+ Hassle Free Returns Specs Overview Reviews FAQ Model CFEXPRESS TYPE A & SD Dual-Slot (PG09) Transfer Speed Up to 10Gb/s (1.25GB/s) Interface Support USB 3.2, Gen. 2 interface Cards Supported Having dual card slots handling dual card types is really useful in that context. It's Sony that chose Type-B for them. And you can use memory cards as a temporary backup storage too. There's someone on another foruma very skilled BIF shooter with an A1 that uses SD cards, not because he can't afford CFE-b but because he just doesn't want to spend that much money on a media card based on the principle. i could buy lots and lots of canon batteries without it being a problem and the wife probably won't notice but i chose 2 third parties with a twin charger for 43. We explain the new kid on the memory card block. Type A and C cards were announced in February 2019. I'm less motivated to do so with yours however. The concept of bottlenecks explains why we need CFexpress cards. It also guarantees a minimum sustained write speed of 400 MB/s, so the card should never drop below this threshold. You may have heard: theres a new kind of memory card in town, and its called CFexpress. Ultra-high performance Cobalt cards are $359 / 389 (325GB) and $899 / 799 (650GB). If I use media card, I can also use that in multiple cameras if I want. Well its not that much cheaper vs Sony's offerings and V90 SD cards takes care of most things and as far as functionality is concerned, there's no lacking with the SD cards. Hopefully this means there will be Type A cards available regularly. Most of the big names in SD cards are already on-board with this newer format, with Sony, Delkin, SanDisk, Lexar, ProGrade and Integral all producing CFexpress Type B cards. It's just a matter what the market chooses or "votes" for with their money. But theyre important if you want to take advantage of the latest camera features, including 8K video capture, in-camera uncompressed video recording and ultra-rapid burst modes. ProGrade Digital CFexpress 2.0 Type A Memory Card (160GB) $ 364.99 USD It's literally 20 times more expensive. so this card is basically for video not really needed for still photography, Well, its useful for advanced video and advanced sports photography. Or conversely dirt cheap drives that are "only" 500GB. And its just not true. If you push 30 fps 50Mpxl RAW then CF Express Type is useful :-). It is not about CF Express A. Does Sony just have a blind spot for storage? It's not really a good argument to say the high price of a camera body somehow justifies larger than usual pricing on the media cards. I really want to shoot action without worrying about hitting the buffer, then having to shoot more selectively when I do hit it. When a new camera comes along and offers fast-than-ever burst modes or higher-resolution video at greater frame rates, the processor or sensors raw capabilities usually get the credit. While the CFexpress Type A format is smaller than the more ubiquitous SD card and up to three times faster the format has struggled to take hold, for two reasons in particular. Sony charges $200 for the 80GB card a whopping $400 for the 160GB version, but you can now pre-order the ProGrade 160GB version for a more reasonable $330. Sometimes the files can get damaged during transfer (for various reasons) and you might need to re-copy them later. So I checked their site and they seem sincere, with the name an attempt to convey their intent, so I'll give them a point back. Now the SD association has already annunced PCIe 4-based SD 8.0 cards and CFexpress haven't, but I think that's because SD7 has been a dud, so was SD6 (UHS-III) and SD 5.0 died on the drawing board - cameras have either stuck with V60/V90 cards from SD 4.0 standard or moved on to CFexpress. Have to send camera back for repair? Type A will catch up with Type B, Type B is just almost a decade old at this point. @Thoughts R Us Definitely agree the price is not cheap, but better than the Sony price, especially when buying 2. In the early days of computers and digital cameras, proprietary was the norm everywhere. Sony likes to have their own proprietary storage memory. Comments for which I thanked them. This quick performance benefits recording a variety of video resolutions, bit-rates, and compressions, as well as high-resolution continuous raw photo shooting. Sonys Tough CFexpress series is the top choice for travel use. Nextorage is Sony subsidiary. Though it would not benefit a camera use case, since the SSD can have writes cached to the SSDs RAM while it is transitioning to a higher power state. Other companies go the other direction. consider it more a convenience issue than a cost one. ProGrade has announced a new CFexpress Type A Memory card. Thinking of when a 4MB drive was several hundred dollars.Technology moves fast! "Even if there existed a card that never failed AND a slot that never failed (you need both), then there would still be a reason to have 2 cards and 2 slots.You know why? posted Tuesday, September 21, 2021 at 10:30 AM EDT. So maybe Canon will switch to Type A as well in the future, to redce their overheating problems. I wouldn't exactly call these "reasonably priced." Sony introduced smaller CFexpress Type A memory cards with the launch of the A7S III mirrorless camera, offering a high speed (700MB/s read/800MB/s write) option for recording bursts or 4K/8K video. I still use a 32 b card, and to be honest, can live with a 16GB except for event photography. But things are about to get a little more complicated. They need Type-B as a workaround. 50mp spray and pray photography awesomeness. They have been doing this since the days of Betamax, Sony does it because they don't just sell cameras, arguably cornering the storage medium has the potential to net way more profits. Most do not need CFE-A. Visit our corporate site. CFExpress is the future. Lexar, yes, solid heritage. An m.2 drive needs no frequent replacement. For long term use which cameras are likely to be, its not a good idea to have inbuilt memory, storage fail and have read/write limits so redundancy in terms of replacement would be a better idea. First, Sony is the only camera manufacturer that currently has cameras with the slot and support to use the media. What were really waiting for is something much simpler: lower prices. More 3rd party options may drive other camera manufacturers to opt for CFE-A with SD combo. The only difference is that CFExpress is only PCIe 3.0, and 1/2/4 lanes for A/B/C, while there's (up to) 4 lanes of PCIe 3.0 and 4.0 (which is 2x faster than 3.0) for M.2. Order within 3 hrs 40 mins Select delivery location In Stock Qty: 1 Add to Cart Buy Now Payment Secure transaction Ships from Amazon Sold by Electronics Basket Returns Eligible for Return, Refund or Replacement within 30 days of receipt Support Free Amazon tech support included Payment The ProGrade CFexpress Type A Cobalt Memory card is available for $329.99 USD. With internal SSD I am limited of courseso that the storage I pay for is less flexible in usage. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Sony, a longtime supporter of its own memory cards (who remembers Memory Stick? We will have to wait and see if there is performance gain in A7iv by using CF Express. Which make it very likely they come from the same production line. So I don't need more than 128GB, nor do I need that write speed since I am not doing video. Ok, I do a few short video clips for fun. Many more "everyday Joe's" will use that model over the A1 or A7SIII. However, the cards are expensive (and don't work across all CFexpress devices, by the way). Theres no getting away from the fact that many photographers will find CFexpress cards prohibitively expensive. The answer is that we need to build a SSD into these cameras instead of paying outrageous amounts for flash memory. By subscribing, you are agreeing to Engadget'sTerms andPrivacy Policy. People do make mistakes. And also cheaper to implement than standalone cards. I'm usually with you, such a name makes me sceptical but they're fine. Sony's card is also resistant to extreme temperatures, X-rays, electrostatic and UV lighting. ProGrade undercuts Sony with its new CFexpress Type A camera memory cards, Pre-Order ProGrade CFexpress Type A Cobalt 160GB at B&H - $330. Some SSDs such as ones from WD, have a mode for lower read latency that they label as a gaming mode which disable the idle power state, thus causing the SSD to pull 1 watt at idle if that mode is enabled. ProGrade appears to be the model where they first offered a premium product and then wanted to expand their potential market downward. Hey look at that, our first agreement;)I did mention that SD are fine for professional use scenarios, and fully agree with you. You would only "need" more than 160GB per slot if you were going to shoot more than 2,500 images in *uncompressed* raw without being able to pause long enough to hot swap a CF-E card. As mentioned they dont seem to have the same overheating problems as Type B cards has in Mirrorless when you push the performance with high fps or high resolution high frame rate video. Insanely overpriced, consider this, it uses the same signaling standard of NVMe. Heres everything you need to know. @Djehuty it's not "1 SD and 1 CF" in one slot, it's "1 SD or 1 CF".So no, you cannot save real estate that way. You will just end up with the slow speed with the added headache of incompatible media and expensive cards. You can currently buy Type A and Type B cards. Otherwise the actual memory chip will the same, no matter if it's in USB-C, m.2, or CFExpress form factor, that's not the issue here.