SanDisk Introduce the Ultra Dual USB Drive and a Super Fast SD for 4K Shooting

Last week Sandisk introduced several new products, a few of them will be quite interesting for photographers. The first product is called Ultra Dual USB Drive – this is a tiny thumb drive with dual connectors – one on each side (see the video). The first is a micro-USB connector and on the other side is a USB 2.0 connector.

The Sandisk Ultra Dual USB Drive

 

Ultra Dual USB Drive

What can you do with them you ask? well, according the Sandisk, if you are shooting a lot with your smartphone or tablet and have lots of large photos or videos on the device and you don’t want (or simply can’t) transfer them wirelessly (ever transferred 3GB over 3G?) you can now simply connect the device to your phone, download the images and videos and than connect it to your computer and you are good to go.

The  Ultra Dual USB Drive cost about $60 for the 32GB (here on Amazon).

The second product could interest more professional photographers and that is the new SanDisk Extreme PRO SDHC/SDXC UHS-II. This is currently the fastest SD card on the market and it supports the new UHS Speed Class 3 (U3) specifications as well as the Ultra High Speed II standard (the first will give you a minimum transfer speed of 30MB/s while the second will give you a theoretical maximum transfer speed of up to 312MB/s).

The SanDisk Extreme PRO SDHC/SDXC UHS-II with 280MB/s read speed

Sandisk-Extreme PRO UHS-II

In practice the new card is read by Sandisk at a whooping 280MB/s read and 250MB/s write (the current fastest Sandisk SD card goes up to 95MB/s read and 90MB/s write – so this is a huge boost).

Who needs such a fast card? well, currently – not a lot of people – but this can change later this year as cameras such as the Panasonic GH4 will reach the market with support for all the fast memory card standards and the ability to shoot 4K videos – requiring very fast cards.

A video of the SanDisk Extreme PRO SDHC/SDXC UHS-II 

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZI3XoedCYMw[/youtube]

The new SanDisk Extreme PRO SDHC/SDXC UHS-II will go on sale later this year starting at $120 (for a 16GB version) with up to 64GB versions available. Sandisk also announced a compatible fast USB 3.0 card reader supporting the new cards called – SanDisk Extreme PRO SDHC/SDXC UHS-II Card Reader/Writer which will sells for $50.

The new fast SanDisk Extreme PRO SDHC/SDXC UHS-II Card Reader/Writer 

SanDisk Extreme PRO SDHC-SDXC UHS-II Card Reader-Writer

Iddo Genuth
Iddo Genuth is the founder and chief editor of LensVid.com. He has been a technology reporter working for international publications since the late 1990's and covering photography since 2009. Iddo is also a co-founder of a production company specializing in commercial food and product visual content.

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