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Adapter allows users to connect an M.2 NVMe SSD to a microSD Express card slot
(www.cnx-software.com)
But why?
this post was submitted on 10 Jun 2025
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Hardware
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Probably easier to switch out for debugging or to flash a SSD from a PC.
Surely a M.2 to USB adapter would be better for that use case?
Yeah, but that adapter ist just a PCB, I'd assume a M.2 to USB Adapter is mofe complicated.
You still need a microSD to USB adapter if you want to use it with a PC that doesn't have a microSD slot (which I'm sure is like 99% of PCs).
How many laptops don't have an SD Card slot?
In my experience, most modern laptops don't include one.
Appart from what the article mentioned, cards corrupt way too much on raspberry pis and similar devices compared to usb or ssd storage for example. This gives an easy option to replace them on some embedded device that you might not have full control over.
how has microSD not died yet
No real alternatives in that form factor.
The form factor is kind of pointless though, I can think of maybe two devices I own where a full sized sd card wouldn't fit and be more convenient
Smartphones can't fit a regular sized SD slot, so microSD is the default (if a smartphone devices even supports memory cards).
I mean I think mine could, but even if it couldn't I would have no problem with it being the thickness of like a Palm m505 which easily fits a full sized card on a pocket sized device
I am just saying how things are. I am not particularly obsessed about thickness and I have a phone which supports microSD (which is not that common these days).
There are UFS cards. They aren't as fast as SD Express cards, but 1200 MB/s is still plenty fast for a phone.
Why would anybody adopt a newer standard with no backwards compatibility and slower speeds?
What could even warrant "high speeds" from a damned phone? I can't think of a single thing that would tax an SD card that I'd be doing on a phone.
video recording/editing (some phones can record 4k at high frame rates) , gaming, general responsiveness. I know that we as tech (and especially linux) people don't really understand that but a lot of people are using their phones for a whole load of things now and especially with things now. Also the argument why you would choose UFS would be higher speeds. The real argument for MicroSD Express is backwards compatibility.
Also also I'm looking forwards to being able to run SBC from a MicroSD Express card so it's at least somewhat faster.
They are still a lot faster than normal SD cards. I've never seen any phone that works with SD Express cards, but there were a few that worked with UFS cards.
If you are a phone manufacturer you can either choose MicroSD cards which are the most common and the cheapest, MicroSD Express Cards which are more expensive but faster and backwards compatible or UFS which nobody has ever heard of.
Is there any advantage to doing this aside from just maybe getting extra storage if you have an M.2 lying around? I thought their whole thing was that they are directly on the bus, which makes them hella fast. 🤨