1. Largest overall
2. Largest budget
3. Largest high-speed
4. Largest for video
5. Largest cheap high-speed
6. FAQs
7. How we test
8. Today's deals
When it comes to expanding the storage capacity of your devices, choosing the largest microSD card available is a practical decision. Whether it's for one of the best ereader, best handheld gaming console, best action camera, or any other device, having ample storage space is essential for a seamless user experience. The right microSD card can accommodate a larger number of books, games, videos, and other data, ensuring that you never run out of space for your important files.
However, it's important to navigate the market with caution. The internet is rife with claims of high-capacity microSD cards that, unfortunately, fail to deliver on their promises. This is why understanding the distinction between high-capacity and high-quality is crucial. The best microSD card not only offers ample storage but also maintains the integrity of your data.
Beyond capacity, the performance of a microSD card, particularly its read/write speeds, is another critical factor. These speeds can vary and are often influenced by the device you are using. For instance, when looking for a microSD card for the best camera, speed becomes a significant consideration.
Our guide focuses on helping you identify the largest microSD card options that combine both large capacity and reliable performance. We prioritize selections from reputable manufacturers and include insights from our benchmark tests wherever possible. This approach helps ensure that you find a microSD card that not only meets your storage needs but also supports your devices effectively, be it the best laptop for photo editing or exploring the best Photoshop alternatives.
The largest microSD cards of 2024 in full:
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Below you'll find full write-ups for each of the largest microSD cards in our list. We've tested each one extensively, so you can be sure that our recommendations can be trusted.
The largest microSD card overall
How would you like a microSD card that's big enough for 350 DVDs, 1 million floppy disks, 70 Blu-rays, 15,000 Zip disks or a colossal five years of continuous video recording?
The semiconductor giant Micron has reached that capacity by using its 176-layer 3D NAND technology (similar to that used in SSDs) to create the world's highest-capacity microSD card, the MTSD1T5ANC8MS-1WT, also known as the i400.
At the time of writing, the i400 is only offered by a limited number of wholesalers, such as Mouser, Arrow and Avnet. Currently the best deal is offered by Newark who at the time of writing offer a single i400 for $485.33. Discounts are available for bulk orders but this still means the card costs more than its weight in diamonds.
Since Micron's announcement in 2022 they have yet to confirm the actual read/write speed of the i400, which may be an issue if you plan to use it for high performance tasks. Once formatted, the microSD card also has a capacity closer to 1.4 TB.
The stated claim of being able to handle five years of video recording is also qualified in the manufacturer's press material to state that it can only store four months worth of HD video - the five years is the amount of video it can process. This ties in with Micron's claim of a 2 million hour MTTF (Mean Time to Failure).
This is a bold claim and Micron are a well-known microSD card manufacturer. Still at the time of writing there aren't many in-depth reviews of the i400 with detailed benchmarks so make sure to do your own research before buying.
The largest microSD card on a budget
This microSD card is part of Silicon Power's 'Superior' range. Rated at UHS (Ultra High Speed) Class 1 (U3) and UHS Video Speed Class 30 (V30), the Superior microSDXC UHS- card claims to hit read and write speeds up to 100MBps and 80MBps respectively, with minimum random read of 1,500 IOPS and random write of 500 IOPS which explains its A1 classification. Our benchmark tests bore out these numbers.
There's a catch however in that products which aren't compatible with the UHS-1 standard will be left behind, with hugely reduced read/write speeds. Indeed, the Amazon listing for this microSD card specifically says that it is "NOT for handheld gaming devices". The product description goes on to explain that using this card with products like the Steam Deck may result in "degraded performance". This probably makes it unsuitable for HD gaming and/or streaming high quality video.
This said, if you only want to use the microSD card for products where speed isn't the essence e.g. to take the occasional photograph on a digital camera then you could do far worse than the Superior range, particularly given that it's one of the lowest priced reputable microSD cards on the market today.
During our tests we noticed that after formatting to exFAT the available space was 913GB. There's no bundled data recovery software as is the case with other microSD cards.
The largest high-speed microSD card
SanDisk are one of the most respected storage manufacturers out there and were also one of the first to create a 1TB microSD card. The 'Extreme' series is renowned for its blazing read/write speeds. If you're willing to purchase SanDisk's own "Pro" card reader, you can boost these further with their very own "QuickFlow" technology for read/write speeds of up to 190 MB/s and 130 MB/s respectively.
During our benchmarks we used the bundled SD adapter (currently not available on Amazon) to put the Extreme through its paces but couldn't come close to the advertised read speeds.
The card also comes with a lifetime warranty and, Sandisk says, is waterproof, shockproof and X-ray proof. If you use it with an Android device, you can even use the free SanDisk Memory Zone app to manage and back up files to the card.
The card is 4K UHD and Full HD-ready, which may explain the number of positive reviews we saw on Amazon from users who'd installed it in their dash cams. There's also a RescuePRO Deluxe 1-year data recovery software download offer.
It's down to you to decide if this justifies a price tag almost twice that of similar capacity microSD cards.
The largest microSD card for video
This microSD card is specially designed for action cameras and the GoPro range. The manufacturers even claim it's waterproof, dustproof, x-ray proof and cold-resistant.
The stated read/write speeds are more than enough to handle HD or 4K video in theory, so we were keen to put the card through our benchmarks. Our tests showed that the read/write speeds exceeded that of many of the other microSD cards we've reviewed in this guide such as the SanDisk Extreme, Lexar Play and the Silicon Power Superior. In fact, it's one of the fastest 1TB microSD cards we've reviewed to date. Read our in-depth review for full details.
This might justify its higher price tag of $59.99 relative to "budget" microSD card models, particularly given that the Elite A1 comes with a lifetime warranty. Our only minor concern was that the card comes with no bundled software, though we did note in our original review that those buying via Amazon could also purchase a 3-year data recovery plan for an extra $7.99. This no longer seems to be available.
Read our full Teamgroup Elite A1 review.
The largest cheap microSD card for speed
Lexar has been around for over 25 years and since its acquisition by Chinese company Longsys in 2017, its moved into manufacturing storage devices like microSD cards.
When researching the device, we were surprised to find that although it advertised read speeds of up to 150 MB/s, there didn't seem to be any listings for how fast users could write to the Lexar Play.
Upon running our benchmarks we found the average write speed to be about 80 MB/s, which is respectable for a microSD card in this price range. We had different results when trying to transfer a 10GB file to the card however, where the write speed slowed to a crawl of around 23 MB/s, even when using Lexar's own card adaptor, although on checking the fine print we found that we might have experienced better results if we'd used Lexar's own "multi-card" reader.
This caveat hasn't prevented the Amazon listing from saying the card is compatible with "Nintendo Switch, Steam Deck, ASUS ROG Ally, other portable gaming devices, smartphones and tablets" but with
On the plus side, Lexar does offer a nifty free data recovery tool for Windows and Mac, though this doesn't come with the microSD card itself. The tool supports about fifty image, document, video and audio file types, offering accidental deletion, accidental formatting, file system header corruption and last partition recovery.
The largest microSD card: FAQs
What's the biggest microSD card on the market today?
Micron's 1.5TB microSD card is currently the largest one available for purchase. Kioxia unveiled a 2TB Exceria Plus prototype back in September 2022.
Are larger cards slower?
The fact that a microSD card has a higher capacity won't in itself affect the speed with which it reads/writes individual bits of data. Manufacturers of more expensive microSD cards may choose not to support more advanced features in order to keep costs down - for instance the Micron i400 isn't compatible with the new ultra-fast SD Express format.
Should I wait for prices to come down?
Since our original reviews of these microSD cards prices have been slashed considerably. If you don't need a high-capacity microSD urgently and are on a budget, consider buying a smaller capacity one or waiting until prices come down.
Who are the best manufacturers to buy microSD cards?
TechRadar recommends you stick to microSD cards from reputable manufacturers such as: Samsung, Kingston, SP/Silicon Power, Teamgroup, Sandisk, WD, PNY, Lexar, Inland, Gigastone, Patriot, Transcend, Amazon Basics and MicroCenter. We wouldn’t trust any others.
What's next for microSD cards?
Aside from the exciting news about Kioxia's upcoming 2TB SD card, it's likely we'll see huge improvements in both microSD card capacity and speed in the near future. The most recent 'U3' (UHS Class 3) has an average write speed of 30 MB/s, capable even of writing 4K video in real time.
V60 and V90 video class SD cards currently offer the fastest speeds available making them suitable for 8K resolution videos in drones, high speed cameras and similar devices. It's likely we'll see even faster microSD cards for more reasonable prices in the future.
In terms of capacity, the SD Association has stated that thanks to the new SD Express and SDUC (SD Ultra Capacity) standards, the potential maximum memory capacity has increased.
Previously the old SDXC standard limited SD cards to a maximum of 2TB but thanks to SDUC, this can potentially be increased up to 128TB. This will require new drivers and formatting to work correctly in all devices however, so it may be a while before we see these on the market.
How we test
After having formatted the cards to exFAT, we tested microSD cards the same way we test other storage components (external HDD, portable SSD etc). We use the latest versions of CrystalDiskMark, Atto, AS SSD and AJA benchmarks, noting the best scores achieved in each. They are all free and can be downloaded by anyone.
After these so-called synthetic tests, we then transferred a bunch of files and folders, totaling around 10GB, to get a real-life transfer speed using the latest version of Fastcopy.
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