SDXC is the new SD card standard that will replace SDHC (limited to 32GB). While the new SDXC standard is limited to 2000GB (2 tera bytes), no one said you can’t manufacture a low-capacity SDXC card. So why on earth would we need a 32GB SDXC when there are already 32GB SDHC memory cards on the market?

We don’t need it! But good for Pretec for their breaking news. Currently, this Pretec 32GB SDXC can not be used simply because no device supports this standard. New devices that will support SDXC will also support SDHC, so even in the future there will be no real reason to buy this card, unless of course, it is truly faster than any other SD card in the market, as claimed by Pretec.

The SDXC standard specifies read/write speed upto 50MB per second initially and up to 104MB per second in the future.

Now let’s see who’s going to be the first to announce the real deal – 64GB SDXC. Will it be Toshiba, Panasonic, SanDisk or maybe even Pretec.

A fake image of a SanDisk 32GB microSD card, found on the internet

The second half of 2009 is June. So does this mean we’re going to see this baby on the market in three months from now? Probably not. Expect this 32GB micro-SDHC memory card to be available not before the last quarter of 2009 (September – December).

As for the near future, there’s a big buzz around the new SDXC standard (the one that will replace the limited SDHC standard). These cards will be available in capacities of 64GB and up. If we take into consideration that usually micro-SDHC cards get on the market around the same time SD cards with four times the capacity get on the market, the really big news is, we might see 128GB SDXC (the bigger version) during the beginning of 2010.

On the other hand, SDXC is likely to have difficulties penetrating the market so the whole thing might be delayed for some time. We’ll have to wait and see.

So let’s see what we have today:

SD Card – Secure Digital (Maximum capacity 2GB)

SDHC Card – SD High Capacity (Maximum capacity 32GB)

SDXC Card – SD eXtreme Capacity (Maximum capacity 2000GB).

To be honest,  SDXC stands for SD eXtended capacity, not for eXtreme, but you get the drift.

I don’t know who is responsible for this catastrophe. Now we have to upgrade everything again! It was only two years ago when they forced us to upgrade and now they are going to do it again. That means that all of our devices are going to be obsolete by 2010. That is, if you want a super-high capacity memory card.

As of February 2009, we have 32GB SDHC cards, as well as 16GB microSDHC cards. My guess is that by the end of this year we will see 32GB microSDHC cards. This is the last evolvement of SDHC cards as we know it, or is it…?

Two years ago when the industry moved from SD to SDHC, people still wanted their old devices to get higher capacity cards. The market was flooded with 4GB SD cards. These were not SDHC cards, and while causing compatibility problems, some devices could use them. So the big question is:

Will we see a 64GB SDHC or a 64GB microSDHC card?

-It is not impossible.

These cards will not match the specifications of the SDHC standard. They might cause compatibility issues, but my guess is that some manufacturers did not block this option. They might have even enabled it.

SDXC – The new standard

There is nothing to be excited about the new SDXC standard. Since SDHC is limited to 32GB, it was only a natural evolvement that was required as the next step. It was a stupid move to limit the SDHC specification, but that’s life. Manufacturers want you to upgrade to (buy) new devices, and there’s nothing like a new SDXC standard to help you make the right decision.

The only good news is that SDXC is limited to 2000GB or 2TB. History shows us that manufacturers release new cards to the market every half a year or so. This means we might see 64GB SDXC memory cards in 2009, 128GB SDXC memory cards in the beginning of 2010, 256GB SDXC memory cards by the end of 2010, 512GB SDXC memory cards in the middle of 2011, 1TB SDXC memory cards by 2011 or 2012. The desired 2TB SDXC memory cards will be on the market by the end of the year 2012. Almost four years from now.

Well, get ready to upgrade your cameras, PDAs and other cool gadgets in 1 year from now, and in 4 to 5 years from now. Needless to say, this is only a  rough estimation of what is going to happen.

So to sum it up, I’m hoping to see some 64GB non-standard-SDHC memory cards before we’re forced to upgrade everything again. If we see them, it will be by the beginning of 2010. Don’t get your hopes too high though. The new SDXC standard will swallow them all if you like it or not.