The CFexpress storage format is set to get even faster thanks to the latest CFexpress 4.0 standard announced by the CompactFlash Association (CFA) trade organization earlier this week. The current CFexpress 2.0 standard is used in several high-end cameras, such as the Sony a1 and Nikon Z9.
CFexpress 4.0 standard aims to double the performance
CFexpress 2.0 already has a stellar reputation for extremely fast performance, with maximum transfer speeds hitting up to 1 GB/s (1000MB/s) and 2 GB/s (2000MB/s) for Type A and Type B cards, respectively. However, keep in mind that’s ‘theoretical max speed.’ Even the current fastest CFexpress cards on the market don’t achieve this maximum speed, although they are coming close. The just-announced CFexpress 4.0 standard aims to double the performance, with a theoretical maximum throughput of 2 GB/s for Type A and 4 GB/s for Type B.
The underlying technical advancements are two-fold. CFexpress 4.0 upgrades to the faster PCI Express (PCIe) Gen4 standard (hence the jump from 2.0 to 4.0 in the naming scheme) along with the NVM Express (NVMe) 1.4c logical interface, whereas CFexpress 2.0 currently uses PCIe Gen3 and NVMe 1.3c.
