Lexar just announced “the world’s largest A2 microSD card”. No, it’s still a 512GB card, but what sets it apart from the previous cards with this capacity is the A2 rating. It stands for Application Performance Class 2.

This card is optimized for moving apps and games out of the phone’s internal storage and onto the card. In such cases the Input/Output Operations per Second (IOPS) matter much more than sequential reads and writes.

The A2 rating guarantees 4000 IOPS for reads and 2000 IOPS for writes, up from 1500/500 for an A1 card.

But this new card from Lexar is good for video too. It can easily handle 4K video recording thanks to the V30 rating. It indicates that the card can handle 30MB/s sustained writes, which is equivalent to UHS-I U3. Note that the card peaks at 100MB/s, but can’t keep it up for long.

Samsung’s Evo+ 512GB card has the UHS-I U3 rating, but not the A2 rating. Both Integral’s and PNY’s 512GB microSD cards are only V10 and lack an A-rating.

Lexar’s new 512GB A2 microSD card will sell for $300. It should be available right now, but we didn’t find it in any stores.

PS. Yes, the rating system on SD cards has gotten out of control and can be very tough to decipher.

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