by Cyber Monday isn’t always about big-ticket items. You know what I mean: that 65-inch 4K TV for $499, that king-size mattress for $870 (opens in a new tab), or that Air Fryer for $54.99. Sometimes, it’s all about the little things. I mean really small things, like a 1TB SD card that fits on the tip of a finger.
Currently, I’m overly excited about a Cyber Monday deal on one of these cards: just $99 for the storage that once filled four hefty 256GB spinning hard drives, which, when stacked, were so tall as half a loaf of bread.
The specific Cyber Monday deal (really a Cyber Weekend deal, amirite?) I’m talking about a $99 SanDisk Ultra microSD 1TB card (opens in a new tab) (originally $136.99). This is not SansDisk’s fastest solid stage storage option. In another stellar Cyber Monday deal, you could pay $117 for the “Extreme” version. That’s fine, but I don’t need that level of read and write times (190mb/ps vs. 150mb/ps), and I really like the idea of 1TB for under $100.
To understand why I’m so excited about this deal, you need to know a little about me:
- First, I’ve been doing this job for a long time, and I’ve seen almost the entire history of modern computer storage.
- Second, I save everything, which means I never have enough storage space.
- Third, I have a habit of losing tiny microSD cards and am always looking for new ones.
However, let’s dig back into the first thing. In the mid-1980s, our storage options were limited to gigantic hard drives (8-inch and then 5-inch) that held, if we were lucky, 360K. In 1986, IBM blessed us with 1.44 MB 3.5-inch floppy disks (not floppy disks because they were all in protective hard cases), which were the standard for much of the 1990s. Our spinning hard drives were tiny, too. . We weren’t really talking about gigabytes until the mid-1990s.
At the same time that hard drives were increasing in storage space, portable storage was shrinking and increasing in capacity. Flash drives initially offered no more space than a typical floppy disk, but soon offered MB and then GB of storage.
I can still vividly remember the first time I held a 16GB microSD in my hand in those early years. At the time, it was a prototype, and I was wondering when, if ever, I would use these cards and so much mobile storage space. I couldn’t imagine 4K video and 24MP photos.
Now I have 32GG, 128GB and 256GB microSD cards scattered around my office.
never enough space
On the second point of why I always need more storage, I blame my love for photography and drones. I take a lot of pictures of birds and moons, and while my Sony Alpha a6000 accepts standard SD cards, I have a collection of SD card-sized micro-SD card adapters – just slide the small card into the large card and use like any other standard SD card. So easy. My offer card includes a free memory adapter.
Most of my drones use microSD cards which usually fly out when I press to release the little buggers on the drone.
This brings me back to why I often lose these cards. As much as I like them, microSD cards are virtually weightless, and when they slip away, it’s easy to lose them underfoot, along with all your precious photos and videos.
Why this card? Because right now?
I’d say a $99 1TB microSD card is a threshold product. It means we can now expect prices of $99 (or cheaper) on 1TB (or more) in the future. You pay a lot of money for, say, a 1TB iPhone 14 Pro or a 1TB MacBook Pro. Obviously you also get displays, chassis, a CPU, and cameras, but storage is part of the cost.
My only caveat on microSD cards, though, is that while I’m sure you can find even cheaper CyberMonday microSD deals, be careful. I’m buying the SanDisk for a reason. It’s a trusted name, and if you get some off-brand storage, you might not be happy with the card’s performance. What I found is that the cheapest cards are not write, erase and rewrite resistant. Errors are introduced and soon the card becomes corrupted and unusable.
However, if you buy a card like this, you’ll probably be happy. And think about it, you could have 5TB of portable storage for $495. That’s pretty impressive, right?
Check out the Cyber Monday microSD card deals below.
More Early Cyber Monday Deals
- Amazon Devices: 50% off Echo Dot, Fire TV and tablets (opens in a new tab)
- Apple devices: AirPods, iPads, Apple Watch (opens in a new tab)
- Beauty: 60% discount on makeup and skin (opens in a new tab)
- cheap gifts: gifts under $25 (opens in a new tab)
- Christmas pajamas: family pajamas starting at $14.99 (opens in a new tab)
- coffee makers: Keurig, Ninja, Cuisinart and more (opens in a new tab)
- Fashion: tops, coats and footwear $4.50 (opens in a new tab)
- gift ideas: 40% discount on Christmas gifts for the family (opens in a new tab)
- Headphones: 40% discount on Apple, Samsung and Bose (opens in a new tab)
- Home: Up to 70% discount on cordless vacuum cleaners (opens in a new tab)
- Kitchen: 25% discount on coffee makers, fryers and more (opens in a new tab)
- Smart House: 59% off speakers, vacuum cleaners and TVs (opens in a new tab)
- Toys: best selling toys starting at $12.99 (opens in a new tab)
- televisions: Smart TVs starting at $99.9 (opens in a new tab)
