Lexar has taken the wraps off what it claims are the world’s first stainless-steel encased SD cards. Joining the firm’s Armor Series, which already contains products like rugged portable SSDs, the new memory cards boast “bend-resistance,” and are IP68 certified. Two new Armor Series SD cards have been revealed: the Armor Gold SD UHS-II, and Armor Silver Pro SD UHS-II cards.
The best SD cards are naturally quite durable, having no essential moving parts, and are able to survive quite careless handling in general. However, we can’t be the only ones to have seen cards where the case has started to crack open along the seams. If an SD card is mission-critical to you, then a good brand with a reinforced case and official IP rating might be worthwhile.
Lexar uses 316 stainless steel in the construction of the Armor Gold SD UHS-II and Armor Silver Pro SD UHS-II cards. We aren’t sure if they are unibody or constructed from two parts, however, Lexar boasts that these products are bend-resistant and they should be much stronger than common plastic-encased models. Lexar suggests the new Armor SD cards are “ideal for outdoor filming.”
The new cards should also better withstand water and dust ingress compared to most rivals. These storage products feature IP68 waterproofing and dustproofing certification. Hopefully, that will mean it is much less likely that some unwanted substance will enter the SD card shell to possibly corrode the PCB and components within - a data loss risk.
As for performance, we have only seen the numbers printed on the products – with read speeds of up to 280 MB/s on offer, for both Armor Gold and Silver Pro models. Lexar says the new cards feature next-gen PCIe 4.0 performance and are capable of “enabling seamless 8K RAW video shooting.”
If raw performance is the most important aspect of an SD card for you, though, you may be interested in the new Lexar Professional Gold Pro SDXC Express Card, also showcased at IFA (pictured above, right). This model delivers up to 1,700 MB/s data transfer speeds.
The new Lexar Armor Gold SD UHS-II and Armor Silver Pro SD UHS-II cards will be marketed in capacities of 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB. We don’t have retail availability and pricing information at this time.
