MicroSD vs MicroSDHC Differences

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MicroSD vs MicroSDHC
What is a microSD card? A microSD card is an external storage device, used primarily in phones and digital cameras. Nowadays, there are less and less microSD cards in use because their capacity has become too little for what we would normally use one of them.

For example, suppose you have a brand new 2016 phone which has an internal memory of 8 GB and you have a slot of a microSD card. Let us say you want to buy a card that can hold 4 GB of music, 3 GB of photos and another 5 GB just in case. You would need a microSDHC to fit your needs.

In the industry all memory cards are called microSD for simplistic reasons because people don’t bother remembering the technical name of the card. Instead they know what they are looking for when they are ask their local IT shop for a microSD even if technically it is called an microSDHC.

So, what is the difference between the two? The real difference between the two is in terms of memory. Micro SD, or micro secure digital, can have a capacity up to 2 GB which is not a lot in our current day and age. Micro SDHC, or micro secure digital high capacity, can have between 4 GB and 32 GB. So this is a card that would fit your everyday needs.

Owing to widespread marketing, these have become very accessible in terms of money. What only one year ago would have cost 100 dollars, now it costs somewhere between 15 and 50 dollars depending on the class of the card and the manufacturer.

You might have heard of even more potent cards, with capacity of 128 GB, or 256 GB and the lists goes on until 2 TB. Those sizes go out of the range of microSDHC and into the range of microSDXC, namely micro secure digital extreme capacity card. This technology can make cards of up to 2 TB, and as you can tell, it is a fairly new technology that was developed only about 2-3 years ago. Given its young age and the products that it makes, namely cards of high capacity, it is more expensive than the microSDHC.

The main differences between these cards is that if you want to buy a bigger card for your old digital camera and you want to get a microSDHC, you must verify that the camera is compatible with the format of this card. One of the advantages of microSD card over its younger brother is that it is compatible with most devices. Another important difference is the speed of writing and reading – microSD is capable of reaching speeds of 25 MB/S while the microSDHC is capable of reaching from 50 MB/s to 150 MB/s.

Differences between microSD and microSDHC are dependent on the capacity and on the storage format of the card. Knowing which card to choose depends on the device. You need to know if the device is compatible with the SDHC format and that doesn’t depend on the physical size of the card but the technology used.

MicroSD vs MicroSDHC – what are your thoughts? Leave your opinions in the comments section below.