Nextorage announced a new series of CFexpress Type B memory cards using the 4.0 standard, allowing them to reach extremely high transfer rates of nearly 4,000 MB/s with capacities of up to 2TB but with pricing that comes in below its more expensive Pro line.
This isn’t Nextorage’s first foray into CFexpress 4.0 — that came last February with the launch of its B2 Pro series cards. Those promised maximum read and write speeds of 3,900 and 3,600 MB/s which is plenty fast, but this new series ups that even further in some cases.
Before digging too deeply into these new cards, it’s worth sifting through Nextorage’s complicated branding. The company explains that before today’s announcement, it maintained two product lines: the aforementioned, high-end Pro series and what it calls the “standard” SE series. The new NX-B3AE cards are meant to “bridge these categories” between these two lines.
On the surface, it might look like the new B3AE “Advanced” cards are actually more performant than the Pro series since the 1,000GB capacity option (written in gigabytes and not terabytes for some reason) promises 3,900 MB/s read and 3,600 MB/s write speeds while the Pro series cards cap at 3,900 MB/s read speeds and 3,400 MB/s write speeds. Those peak speeds aren’t as important to high-end professionals as sustained speeds, however, and that’s where the Pro series separates itself.
The Nextorage Pro series cards offer sustained write speeds of 3,400 MB/s for the 165GB, 330GB, and 660GB options while the 1.3TB option dips slightly to 3,200 MB/s. That is incredibly performant, especially considering the Compact Flash Association (CFA) only rates as high as VPG 400, which only promises the card will never dip below 400 MB/s write speeds. The new B3AE cards fall well short of the Pro series but are still very impressive with the promise of 1,700 MB/s and the same VPG 400 rating.
The B3AE cards are joined by the B3SE series, which are not VPG-rated but still promise the high peaks of performance found in the B3AE series as well as the promise of 1,700 MB/s sustained write speeds. Nextorage says this series should be considered for photographers more than videographers as a result but unless a camera absolutely requires the VPG firmware flag to unlock certain frame rates (like some Sony cameras do in Type A cards), there doesn’t appear to be a reason these cards couldn’t work well for video applications, too. Nextorage even says that they can handle the throughput of 8Kp60 video.
The cost difference between the two series is substantial, mostly because the photography-focused cards aren’t offered in as high capacities. The VPG-rated B3AE series is available in 500GB, 1TB, and 2TB configurations which cap at $715) while the B3SE series is available in 256GB, 512GB, and 1,024GB which cap at $360. The former is available from B&H while Nexstorage is focusing on Amazon for the latter.
Camera compatability charts for the B3AE and B3SE are available on Nextorage’s website.
Image credits: Nextorage
