Western Digital launches WD Purple MicroSD card for enterprise use

Western Digital has a habit of separating its wide range of storage solutions by color with each color designed for specific markets. The Black, Blue, and Green series, for example, cater to performance enthusiasts, mainstream users, and budget builds, respectively. The lesser-known WD Purple series caters to enterprise users where reliability and sustainability are of utmost importance.

The new WD Purple MicroSD card is not very impressive in terms of sequential read and write speeds. At just 80 MB/s and 50 MB/s, respectively, the UHS-I card pales in comparison to the ~275 MB/s speeds offered by UHS-II-compatible models. Instead, the WD Purple MicroSD card is guaranteed to last for up to 1000 write cycles in a wide operating range of -25 C to 85 C. The manufacturer intends to market the card for both indoor and outdoor surveillance systems where environmental fluctuations are common.

The Purple MicroSD card is now shipping in a 32 GB capacity with a 64 GB version expected in May. Prices are very competitive with consumer-class MicroSD cards at $19 and $32 USD for the 32 GB and 64 GB sizes, respectively.

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