A new SD format has been announced! The new format will be called SDXC (an abbreviation of Secure Digital eXtended Capacity) which will allow up to 2TB of storage on one card. The New SDXC Card will execute read and write speeds to 104MB/s this year, with the possibility to achieve up to 300MB/s in the future.

The SD association are introducing the new format cards in order to make HD content a lot easier to handle and make large volumes of professional-quality HD video and high resolution pictures easier to capture smoothly.

Also read and write speeds are set to increase on the currently available SD formats (SDHC and Embedded SD) SDXC Cards will turn mobile phones into HD multi-media centres allowing years of photo collections and weeks of HD video to be stored.

The new extended capacity cards will use Microsoft’s exFAT file system as opposed to the currently used FAT16 and FAT32 file systems.

Shigeto Kanda, general manager at Canon said “SDXC is a large-capacity card that can store more than 4,000 RAW images, which is the uncompressed mode professionals use, and 17,000 of the fine-mode most consumers use. That capacity, combined with the exFAT file system, increases movie recording time and reduces starting time to improve photo-capturing opportunities,”

With the introduction of this new format it may not be long before we see 64GB iPhones and flash based MP3 players being released. The 64GB SDXC card is set for release in the first quarter of this year, surpassing the current largest SDHC card which is at 32GB.