The SD association is changing the characteristics of the SD standard, and the new features could be of particular interest to PC users.
Industry standards such as USB or HDMI are governed by organizations responsible for keeping them up to date with changing needs. The winner of the storage card war in the 2000s was the SD Association, which offered its SD or microSD cards.
The SD Association just unveiled a new version of the storage card specifications on May 17, 2022.
More boot security features
The great novelty of version 9 of the SD card specifications is the standardization of boot management. With SD 9, cards can manage fast (Fast Boot) and secure (Secure Boot) booting, which should notably allow Windows to recognize them without disabling the PC’s security functions. It should therefore be easier to launch the installation of a system from an SD card rather than a USB key or DVD. To support these functions, SD version 9 includes new encryption functions.
The SD Association highlights the use of these functions for Chromebooks or connected devices that can use SD cards to host their system. She mentions drones, surveillance cameras, game consoles and even VR headsets.
Become an alternative to SSDs
With these new boot functions, and the arrival of specifications such as SD Express, the organization wants to place SD cards as an alternative to internal SSDs in machines. According to the group, this should facilitate the right to repair in computing by making it easier to change an SD card. Remember that SSDs are not always soldered to the motherboard, and that it is also easy to replace an NVMe SSD, if the manufacturer makes the effort to leave it accessible.
SD version 9 specifications are compatible with SD and microSD formats, and can be adopted by manufacturers on an optional basis.
The next step for the SD Association is now the adoption of SDUC cards. They must make it possible to exceed 2 TB of storage to reach a maximum of 128 TB, always in the same SD format.
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