ProGrade Digital has launched a new, super-fast CFexpress Type A card. Branded Iridium, the card is available in 512GB and 1TB capacities and is capable of a blisteringly-quick 1800MB/s max read speed, and an equally impressive 1700MB/s peak write rate.
But more importantly for video capture is how fast a memory card can maintain its write speed. Here the new Iridium Type A card really stands out thanks to its 1500MB/s sustained write speed. This speed is achieved thanks to its CFexpress 4.0 architecture, which enables performance that's twice as fast as first-generation Type A cards.
ProGrade's CFexpress Type A product range already includes an Iridium card, but that is an older version which comes in 480GB and 960GB capacities. Though its maximum speed is identical to the new 512GB and 1TB versions, sustained write rate is significantly slower at 800MB/s.
Another key difference between the old and new Iridium Type A cards is their VPG certification. Where the old version was VPG200 certified, the new card boasts dual VPG certification, as it complies with both the VPG400 and VPG800 standards.
VPG (Video Performance Guarantee) is a tightly-controlled testing procedure and certification that guarantees a memory card can sustain a minimum write speed when recording video. Plenty of SD and CFexpress cards have VPG200 or VPG400 certification, meaning they're guaranteed to maintain a minimum 200MB/s or 400MB/s write speed. VPG800 certification is rather more special though, only being awarded to a select few CFexpress cards. It guarantees that the new ProGrade Iridium card will sustain a minimum 800MB/s write speed during video capture.
You may wonder why the new Iridium card is labelled with VPG400 and VPG800 ratings, as surely the faster rating should simply override the slower one? The reason the cards sport both labels is because VPG800 doesn't actually replace the older VPG200/400 ratings; it instead supplements them. This is due to the VPG800 rating being part of the new Video Performance Guarantee Profile 5.0, released by the CompactFlash Association in February 2025. VPG-5 is not backward compatible with VPG Profile 4.0 (which covers the existing VPG200 and VPG400 ratings). As such, a VPG800 card may not work with a camera recording mode that requires VPG200 or VPG400.
This is because to achieve the higher sustained write speeds of VPG800, such a card must first be preconditioned (initialized) with low-level formatting. This preconditioning, which has not previously been necessary, essentially resets the card to its original factory condition, permanently deleting any previous data from the card. This in turn means the card is a perfectly clean 'blank slate' which has a large, contiguous storage space, onto which a continuous video data stream can be written at high speed. There's therefore no risk of recording speed being reduced or interrupted by the memory controller needing to allocate part of the recording to a different sector of NAND flash in order to work around any pre-existing data stored on the card.
This sounds perfectly reasonable but there's a catch: simply deleting a video from the card doesn't recover the corresponding storage space for future VPG800 recordings - you're limited to whatever remaining storage space is left after the last preconditioning (low-level formatting). To restore the full capacity of the card for more VPG800 recording, you must again perform a preconditioning. Thankfully this procedure doesn't appear to be necessary for general use, or for VPG400 recordings.
For more information on these latest VPG standards, and why preconditioning is necessary, check out the official guidance from the CompactFlash Association.
The new ProGrade Digital Iridium CFexpress Type A card is available to pre-order from B&H. Expect to pay $569.99 for the 512GB capacity, while the 1TB version costs $949.99.
