A card the size of a postage stamp, used in everything from digital cameras and camcorders to phones. Many families still have photos and clips sitting on old SD cards in a drawer.
- released year
- 1999
- inventor
- SanDisk & partners
- Storage capacity
- Up to 2 TB
- Dimensions
- 32 × 24 × 2.1 mm
- Output file format
- JPG / MP4
- Sizes
- SD · miniSD · microSD
Fig. 1 — SD, SDHC and SDXC cards
§ 01 — Timeline
A short life of the SD card
1999
2003
2005
2006
2009
1999 · 1 / 5
SD is launched
SanDisk, Panasonic and Toshiba built SD on MMC, adding a write-protect switch and copy protection. The SD Association followed in 2000.
§ 02 — Learn more about secure digital card
Secure Digital Card
What is Secure Digital Card?
SD cards were introduced in 1999 as a joint effort by SanDisk, Panasonic (Matsushita), and Toshiba. The format was designed as an improvement over the earlier MultiMediaCard (MMC) format, offering better security, reliability, and storage capacity.
§ 03 — The card family
Memory cards through the years
Memory cards from every era, drawn to scale. Capture can read and transfer every one of them.
CompactFlash
43×36 mm
Pro cameras
SmartMedia
45×37 mm
Early cameras
MMC
32×24 mm
Phones · MP3
SD
32×24 mm
This page
xD-Picture
25×20 mm
Olympus · Fuji
miniSD
21.5×20 mm
Phones
microSD
15×11 mm
Phones
Roughly to scale (length × width, in mm)
Photos via Wikimedia Commons: CompactFlash — Mister rf (CC BY-SA 4.0) · SmartMedia — Raimond Spekking (CC BY-SA 4.0) · MMC — Multicherry (CC BY-SA 4.0) · SD — Jacek Halicki (CC BY-SA 4.0) · xD-Picture — Qurren (CC BY-SA 3.0) · miniSD — Bvankuik (Public domain) · microSD — Afrank99 (CC BY-SA 3.0)
§ 04 — Advantages of SD Cards
The Power of SD Cards: Compact, Fast, and Reliable
Why Secure Digital Card is so Popular?
- Compact Size: Small and lightweight, making them easy to carry.
- High Storage Capacity: Available in sizes ranging from 2GB to 2TB.
- Fast Read/Write Speeds: Ideal for 4K video recording, burst photography, and gaming.
- Wide Compatibility: Used in cameras, drones, smartphones, laptops, and more.
- Durability: Resistant to shock, water, temperature, and even X-rays in some cases.
§ 05 — Why digitise old digital media?
Lost Files? Not Anymore!
As technology advances, older SD cards may become unreadable due to wear and compatibility issues. If you have valuable photos or videos stored on old SD cards, digitising them ensures they remain safe, accessible, and easy to share.
Capture offers professional SD card digitisation services, helping you preserve your memories for the future.
The Importance of Digitising Secure Digital Card
HK$200/ card
Priced per card. We read the photos and videos on it and transfer them to JPG and MP4.
Card unreadable or damaged? We inspect it first and do our best to recover the files.
Capture · Our team
Any Questions?
Feel free to contact
our Memory Specialists
Not sure what format you have or how best to handle it? WhatsApp us and one of the team will take a look.
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