Cyber Monday isn’t always about the big-ticket items. You know what I mean: that $499 65-inch 4K TV, that King size mattress for $870 (opens in new tab), or that $54.99 Airfryer. Sometimes it’s about the little things. I mean very few things like a 1 TB SD card that fits on the tip of one finger.
Currently, I’m way too excited about a Cyber Monday deal on one of these cards: just $99 for storage that once filled four heavy 256GB spinning hard drives that, when stacked, were the size of half a loaf of bread.
The specific Cyber Monday deal (really a Cyber Weekend deal, amirite?) I’m talking about $99 SanDisk Ultra 1 TB microSD card (opens in new tab) (originally $136.99). This isn’t SansDisk’s fastest solid-stage storage option. In another great Cyber Monday deal, I could pay $117 for the “Extreme” version. That’s nice, but I don’t need that level of read/write times (190mb/ps vs. 150mb/ps), and I’m very interested in the idea of 1TB for less than $100.
To understand why I’m so excited about this deal, you need to know a little about me:
- First, I have been doing this job for a long time and have seen almost the entire history of modern computer storage.
- Second, I keep everything, which means I never run out of storage space.
- Third, I have a habit of getting rid of small microSD cards and am always looking for new ones.
However, let’s go back to the first. In the mid-1980s, our storage options were limited to giant gloppy disks (8- and then 5-inch) that, if we were lucky, could hold 360K. In 1986, IBM blessed us with 1.44 MB, 3.5-inch floppy disks (not floppy because they all came in hard, protective cases), which were the standard for much of the 1990s. Our spinning hard drives were also small. We didn’t really talk about gigabytes until the mid-1990s.
At the same time as hard drives exploded in storage space, portable storage continued to shrink and grow in capacity. Flash drives initially offered no more space than a typical floppy, but soon they offered MBs and then GBs of storage space.
I can vividly remember the first time I held a 16GB microSD in my hand in the early s. It was a prototype at the time and I wondered when I would ever use these cards and so much mobile storage. I couldn’t imagine 4K video and 24MP photos.
Now I have 32GB, 128GB and 256GB microSD cards scattered around my office.
Never enough space
On the second point of why I always need more storage space, I blame my love for photography and drones. I take a lot of bird and moon shots, and while my Sony Alpha a6000 accepts standard SD cards, I have a collection of micro SD card adapters the size of an SD card: you just slide the small card into the large card and use it just like any other standard SD card. So easy. My deal card happens to include a memory adapter – for free.
Most of my drones use microSD cards which usually go flying when I press to release the little buggers from the drone.
This brings me back to why I often lose these cards. As much as I love them, microSD cards are virtually weightless, and if they slip out of your hand, it’s easy to lose them along with all your precious photos and videos.
Why this map? Why now?
I’d say a $99 1TB microSD card is a threshold product. It means we can now expect $99 (or cheaper) prices on 1 TB (or more) in the future. You pay a lot of money for, for example, a 1 TB iPhone 14 Pro or 1 TB MacBook Pro. Of course you also get screens, chassis, a CPU and cameras, but the storage is part of the cost.
My only caveat about microSD cards, though, is that while I’m sure you can find even cheaper CyberMonday microSD deals, be careful. I buy the SanDisk for a reason. It’s a trusted name, and if you get storage from another brand, you might not be happy with the card’s performance. What I’ve found is that cheaper cards don’t withstand writing, deletion, and rewriting. Errors are introduced and soon the card is corrupted and unusable.
However, if you buy such a card, you will probably be happy. And think about it, you could have 5 TB of portable storage for $495. That’s pretty awesome, right?
Check out Cyber Monday’s microSD card deals below.
More early Cyber Monday deals
- Amazon devices: 50% off Echo Dot, Fire TVs and tablets (opens in new tab)
- Apple devices: AirPods, iPads, Apple Watch (opens in new tab)
- Beauty: 60% off makeup and skin (opens in new tab)
- Cheap Gifts: gifts under $25 (opens in new tab)
- Christmas Pajamas: family pajamas from $14.99 (opens in new tab)
- Coffee makers: Keurig, Ninja, Cuisinart and more (opens in new tab)
- Fashion: tops, jackets and shoes from $4.50 (opens in new tab)
- Gift ideas: 40% off Christmas gifts for the family (opens in new tab)
- Headphones: 40% discount on Apple, Samsung and Bose (opens in new tab)
- House: up to 70% off cordless vacuum cleaners (opens in new tab)
- Kitchen: 25% off coffee makers, hot air fryers and more (opens in new tab)
- Smart home: 59% discount on speakers, vacuum cleaners and TVs (opens in new tab)
- toys: best-selling toys from $12.99 (opens in new tab)
- TVs: smart TVs from $99.9 (opens in new tab)