What Is MicroSD Express? Everything You Need To Know

I just got my Nintendo Switch 2, and my internal storage is already filling up with all my old games and saves! If you're in the same boat, you may have also noticed you can't just jam in the SD card from your original Switch and keep rocking. Instead, you'll need a new MicroSD Express card.

This Express standard was introduced in late 2023, and it enables write speeds in the hundreds of megabytes, but until now it was used only for high-end digital cameras and niche use cases. As a result, the cards are few and far between, and they carry a significant price premium over the more common MicroSD cards. Before I get too caught up in the price and availability though, let’s just go over what the difference is between Express and standard MicroSD cards and what it means for your Switch 2.

Express Lane

As you might have guessed from the name, MicroSD Express cards are faster, but to understand exactly what that means, we need to break down what we mean by speed and how it’s measured and displayed on MicroSD cards.

Normal, non-express cards use three metrics with some overlap in performance. We've got an in-depth technical guide if you want to know more about the non-express cards, but I'll give the short version here. There are three ranges: Speed Class, denoted with a C, UHS Speed Class, as marked by a U for Ultra High Speed Class, and Video Speed Class, with a V.

Regardless of how it’s displayed, the number indicates that the card is able to read and write at least that fast. For the Circle and the V, it’s a direct comparison, so a circle with a “10” in it has a 10MB/s sustained write speed. There are two U variants, 1 and 3, which correspond to 10MB/s and 30MB/s respectively. Cards are almost always compatible with slower devices, so you may see multiple symbols and numbers on each card.

The indicator for Express cards is, perhaps unsurprisingly, a stylized EX or E, sometimes with a number next to it. Once again, this represents the card’s sustained write speed, with officially supported ranges from 150MB/s up to 600MB/s. Remember that these are minimum speeds, so you may see manufacturers quote even higher numbers, but whether you'll be able to support those speeds will depend on the device reading and writing to the card.

That means your MicroSD Express card will also work as a V30 device when installed in a device that supports that standard, for example. Make sure not to confuse the actual new standard of Express with the performance adjective Extreme that many manufacturers use.

Speed isn't the only difference. The overall card shape is the same, but the pins on the back have a different configuration. Most standard MicroSD cards use the UHS-I or UHS-II standard, with one or two rows of pins. The new Express card's pins have two rows in a more compact shape, but are still compatible with slower readers via the top row.

If you aren’t shooting high-resolution video, the main reason you’d want a MicroSD Express card is for the Nintendo Switch 2. A detailed page on the Nintendo website lists compatibility and requirements for the new device. While you can load images and videos from a regular MicroSD card onto the Switch 2, you’ll need a proper Express card to use it like normal for save files and game data.

One detail missing is the actual sustained write speed needed. There’s a Nintendo-licensed Samsung MicroSD Express card listed with a release date of June, but it doesn’t have detailed speeds listed either. We’ve reached out to Nintendo for more information and will update here when we hear back.

Hands On

If you just search for standard MicroSD cards on Amazon, the most common result will be cards with a 30MB per second write speed. A 128GB version of one of these cards starts around $10 and goes up to almost $20, and you can often find discounts if you buy multiple.

A MicroSD Express card, on other hand, will run you upwards of $50 for the same 128GB capacity, a significant price jump for the extra speed boost. I was able to get my hands on two MicroSD Express cards at launch, one from SanDisk and one from PNY. While there are 128GB versions available, you only have one slot on the Switch 2, and games are quickly getting larger, so I'd recommend at least the 256GB models. The models I have tried so far are the SanDisk 256GB MicroSD Express for $72 and the PNY 256GB MicroSD Express for $56.

This is normally where I'd show you some measurements from software like CrystalDiskMark with read and write speeds. Unfortunately the MicroSD Express standard is so new that I was only able to find one USB card reader on the market that supports it. While I work on acquiring one, I did a quick and dirty stopwatch test moving some games back and forth on the Switch 2.

The Switch 2 was able to move Rocket Leauge, a 20.3 GB game, from the system's internal storage to the SanDisk in four minutes and 12 seconds, while the PNY took six minutes and 46 seconds to accomplish the same task. There wasn't as much of a gap to move the game from the card back to the system, with the SanDisk taking three minutes and 35 seconds, and the PNY taking three minutes and 22 seconds.

For comparison, my original Switch moved that console's version of Rocket League, a 3.4GB game, to the regular MicroSD card in two minutes and 32 seconds, and back to the console in two minutes and 16 seconds. Games for the Switch 2 are so much larger, it makes sense Nintendo would push for a faster storage option to save you a lot of time, even if it costs you some bucks.

Unless you own a Switch 2 or hi-res video camera, you can probably stick to standard MicroSD cards for now, but it is worth it for moving games quickly onto your system, especially if you have a larger catalog.

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