Silicon Power's new microSD achieves read speed of 820 MB/s, faster than an SSD

A microSD card with read speeds of up to 820 MB/s is impressive because it is faster than a standard SATA SSD (which tops out at around 560 MB/s) and more than eight times faster than the UHS-I microSD cards that people slap into tablets, cameras, and gaming devices like the Nintendo Switch. Silicon Power's new 256GB SET320 microSD card can reach read speeds of up to 820 MB/s. However, there's a catch.

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Silicon Power's new SET320 microSD card is faster than a SATA SSD, image credit: Silicon Power.

The SET320 is the company's first microSD 'SD Express' memory card, which utilizes a new interface (PCIe Gen 3x1 and NVMe via SD 7.0) to achieve its impressive speed. Still, it is fantastic to see a microSD card deliver SSD-like speeds in such a tiny form factor.

Silicon Power notes that its new high-speed microSD cards are an "industrial-grade solution designed to meet the growing demands of AI-driven applications." Based on their footprint alone, you could fit any number of these in a data center.

It's super efficient, with a low power consumption of just 1.5mW. And yes, it's backward compatible with devices that support microSDXC UHS-I cards, so it will work with a range of existing portable devices - however, you will miss out on the improved speed.

Here are the specs.

• Capacity: 256GB, 512GB
• Interface: SD 7.0 / UHS-III
• Flash Technology: 3D TLC
• Storage Temperature: -40°C to 85°C
• Seq. Performance Read (max.): 800 MB/s
• Seq. Performance Write (max.): 700 MB/s
• Power Requirement: DC 3.3V
• Power Consumption(max.): 400 mA
• Dimension（mm:）15.0 x 11.0 x 1.0
• MTBF (est): > 3,000,000 hrs
• Operating Temp. (Standard): -25°C to 85°C