After Nintendo pulled back the curtain on the much-anticipated Switch 2, we got a sneak peek at some of its intriguing tech specs. A standout point? The Switch 2 will move beyond the old MicroSD standard, embracing the newfangled MicroSD Express instead. If you’re itching to upgrade, brace yourself—these cards pack a price punch. On cost alone, they make modern SSDs look almost cheap. We’re talking about spending anywhere from 20 to 25 cents per gigabyte of storage, which overshadows the 5 to 6 cents per GB you’d shell out for a basic SSD. This uptick in price stems partly from the incorporation of NVMe and PCIe 3.0 technology, a staple for many M.2 SSDs, now woven into the fabric of MicroSD Express.
For instance, Sandisk’s MicroSD Express cards kick off at $49.99 for merely 128GB, while upgrading to 256GB bumps the cost to $64.99. Performance? You’re looking at a sprightly 880 MB/s for reading, 480 MB/s for writing, and a sustained write speed of 100 MB/s.
On the other hand, Lexar has rolled out even larger options, stretching up to a whopping 1TB. But hang onto your hats—and wallets—because these babies don’t come cheap with this updated standard in tow.
The flagship Lexar Play Pro 1TB MicroSD Express card carries a hefty $199.99 price tag. If that’s a bit steep, their 512 GB offering is priced at $99.99, and you can snag a 256 GB version for $49.99. Lexar claims their cards can hit read and write speeds of up to 900 MB/s and 600 MB/s, respectively.
When you do the math, Sandisk’s 128GB card clocks in at around $0.39 per gigabyte, and their 256GB card isn’t far behind at $0.25 per gigabyte. Interestingly, Lexar seems to offer a bit more bang for your buck, keeping all three sizes at a uniform $0.20 per gigabyte, alongside boasting potentially superior performance.
Fast forward to the importance of storage with the Switch 2, which, by default, comes with 256GB of built-in storage. But here’s the twist—even with a physical game purchase, a download might still be necessary. Those game cartridges? They might just be the ticket granting you access to download the full game onto the console. Think of them as “Game-Key Cards.”
Street Fighter 6, for example, will demand an additional 50GB to install, quickly eating into that available space. So, unless you’re a fan of constantly juggling downloads or redownloading games whenever you swap cartridges, you may find yourself investing in these more expensive MicroSD cards.
With the next-gen MicroSD Express standard being a notable evolution from the familiar UHS-I found in the original Switch, it’s worth diving into what makes it different. At a glance, the two might look similar, prompting some to potentially grab the wrong one. But a look under the hood shows that MicroSD Express is a league apart, coming from the SD Association’s stable of speed classifications: Class 150, 300, 450, and 600. Each class signifies the minimum read/write speed in MB/s, and these cards come with more pins than UHS-I models—either 16 or 17 compared to the standard eight.
The magic happens courtesy of NVMe and PCIe 3.0 tech, enabling theoretical speeds up to 2GB/s, especially if using a PCIe 4.0 interface. Our pals over at AnandTech have the nitty-gritty if you want to dive deeper into the tech.
Yet, as exciting as this sounds, we’re still waiting to see if the Switch 2 can harness these full speeds. So far, no MicroSD Express card has managed those maximum rates, but Lexar’s Play Pro MicroSDXC Express card leads the pack. Ultimately, we’ll need to get hands-on with both the Switch 2 and these MicroSD cards to give definitive feedback.
As Joey Lopez from Lexar stated, this new standard promises unparalleled performance. But until we get everything in-hand, make sure to check out our initial impressions of the Nintendo Switch 2.
