Back in August 2017, Western Digital took the highest-capacity record for a microSD with its 400GB SanDisk Ultra microSDXC. Now, UK company Integral Memory is stealing the title with the first 512GB microSD to make it to market.

With transfer speeds of up to 80 megabytes/second, Integral Memory's card isn't quite as fast as the SanDisk Ultra's 100 MB/s. The SDXC card has a UHS-I U1 specification, which means it should have a minimum sequential write speed of 10MB/second. It also meets V10 standards for video transfer rates, so it's designed for capturing full HD video.

"Consumers have been clear in their call for increased storage, as mobile devices have become essential to many in everyday life," said Integral Memory's marketing manager, James Danton. "The need to provide extended memory for smartphones, tablets and a growing range of other mobile devices such as action cams and drones has been answered. As a company, we are very proud to be the first to achieve the 512GB capacity milestone in microSDXC, worldwide."

Integral says in its press release that while cloud-based storage has raised questions over the future of memory cards, consumers are embracing the format more than ever, partly thanks to the demand for more storage on mobiles due to photo/video-based apps like Instagram.

The card is set to launch in February. There's no word yet on price or availability outside of the UK, but the 400GB SanDisk is around $250 on Amazon, so expect Integral Memory's card to be more.

For those who prefer storage of the embedded kind, Samsung last month announced it had started mass production of the world's first 512GB embedded universal flash storage (eUFS). It boasts sequential read and write speeds of up to 860 MB/s and 255 MB/s, respectively--- over eight times faster than a typical microSD card.