The Exascend 1TB Essential Pro CFexpress 4.0 Type A Card utilizes a PCIe Gen 4 interface that doubles the bandwidth to 2GB/s. This makes the CFexpress 4.0 Type A Card twice as fast as their predecessors.
The Exascend 1TB Essential Pro CFexpress 4.0 Type A Card joins the 256GB and 512GB capacities in the series. It is one of the latest CFexpress Type A cards to hit the market. It took quite a long time for companies other than Sony to start making CFexpress Type A cards, but now we have Exascend, Pergear, Angelbird, ProGrade, Delkin Devices, and Lexar providing third-party solutions.
As far as I am currently aware, the Exascend Essential Pro CFexpress 4.0 Type A Card, OWC 960GB Atlas Pro CFexpress 4.0 Type A Memory Card, ProGrade Digital 960GB CFexpress 4.0 Type A Iridium Memory Card, and Wise CFexpress 4.0 Type A Mk-II, are the only CFexpress 4.0 cards currently on the market that have a similar capacity.
It isn’t a huge surprise that there are not a ton of options when it comes to CFexpress Type A cards, because you can currently only use the cards in Sony cameras such as the Sony a1, a7S III, A7 IV, A7V, FX30, FX3, and FX6. No other manufacturer, apart from Sony utilizes this type of recording media.
When CFExpress Type A cards were first announced they were only available in smaller-sized capacities, and initially, the highest capacity was limited to 160GB, but in the last year or so we have seen higher capacities being introduced.
In April 2023, Angelbird announced its AV PRO 1TB card, which at the time was the highest capacity available on the market. Unfortunately, in a lot of places around the world, it has been back ordered or out of stock ever since its launch.
The largest capacity currently available is the Sony 1920GB CFexpress Type A TOUGH Memory Card (currently on sale for $998 USD).
In some ways, CFexpress Type A is a strange format because there are limitations to the capacities that can be made, and only a handful of cameras, which are all made by Sony, use this type of media.
Ok, let’s get back to the Exascend 1TB Essential Pro CFexpress 4.0 Type A Card.
Key features
- 1TB Storage Capacity
- PCIe 4.0 / NVMe 1.4 Interface
- Max Read Speed: 1800 MB/s
- Max Write Speed: 1650 MB/s
- Min Write Speed: 400 MB/s (VPG-400)
- Dust, Weather, and Impact-Resistant
- X-Ray and Magnet-Resistant
- 2 Million Hour MTBF
- Endurance (TBW): 600TB
- Includes Data Recovery
Features
The card is Dust-resistant, Weatherproof, Impact-resistant, X-ray-safe, and Magnetic-resistant. it also comes with a limited-lifetime warranty and data recovery service.
The card is also claimed to have thermal efficiency through Exascend’s trademark Adaptive Thermal Control technology.
Fast Speeds?
The Exascend 1TB Essential Pro CFexpress 4.0 Type A Card has claimed write speeds of up to 1650 MB/s and the sustained write speed is stated as being 400MB/s, which makes it VPG-400 compliant.
So how do these claim speeds compare to the OWC 960GB Atlas Pro CFexpress 4.0 Type A Memory Card, ProGrade Digital 960GB CFexpress 4.0 Type A Iridium Memory Card? I have also included some of the 1TB PCIe 3.0 cards as well.
| READ SPEED | WRITE SPEED | |
| Exascend 1TB Essential Pro | 1800MB/s | 1650MB/s |
| Wise 1TB CFexpress 4.0 Type A Mk-II | 1750MB/s | 1865MB/s |
| OWC 960GB Atlas Pro CFexpress 4.0 | 1850MB/s | 1850MB/s |
| ProGrade Digital 960GB CFexpress 4.0 Type A Iridium | 1800MB/s | 1700MB/s |
| Exascend 1TB Essential | 900MB/s | 800MB/s |
| Sony 1920GB CFexpress Type A TOUGH | 800MB/s | 700MB/s |
| Sony 960GB CFexpress Type A TOUGH | 800MB/s | 700MB/s |
| Angelbird AV PRO 1TB | 820MB/s | 730MB/s |
What you clearly need to be aware of is that these listed speeds are largely irrelevant in the real world and you are not going to see maximum read or write speeds. The most important speed to try and find out is sustained read and write speeds which are generally a lot lower than maximum speeds. Unfortunately, some manufacturers don’t quote sustained speeds.
So what are the minimum sustained write speeds of the cards? Well, below you can see the ones that I was able to find information about.
| MINIMUM SUSTAINED WRITE SPEED | |
| Exascend 1TB Essential Pro | 400MB/s |
| Wise 1TB CFexpress 4.0 Type A Mk-II | 4000MB/s |
| OWC 960GB Atlas Pro CFexpress 4.0 | 400MB/s |
| ProGrade Digital 960GB CFexpress 4.0 Type A Iridium | 200MB/s |
| Exascend 1TB Essential | 200MB/s |
| Sony 1920GB CFexpress Type A TOUGH | 200MB/s |
| Sony 960GB CFexpress Type A TOUGH | 200MB/s |
| Angelbird AV PRO 1TB | 650MB/s |
Please note that this is the minimum guaranteed write speed and it is not necessarily as high as what you will get in the real world.
Capacity
I had a look at the capacity of the card on a Mac and it showed 1.02TB.
If you were recording UHD 4K (3840 x 2160) at 59.94 fps in H.264/XAVC S-I 4:2:2 10-Bit on the Sony a7R V a 1TB card would allow you to record for about 4 hours.
If you were recording UHD 4K (3840 x 2160) at 23.98p in H.265/XAVC HS 4:2:2 10-Bit the card would allow you to record for more than 45 hours.
Record 8K
The Exascend 1TB Essential Pro is more than capable of recording 8K and 4K high frame rate material from the Sony a1 and Sony a7V.
Above you can see the recording data rates listed by Sony for the a1.
Above you can see the recording data rates for the Sony FX6. Again, the Exascend card can easily handle all of these requirements without breaking a sweat.
Having a high capacity card also allows you to record for long periods of time. On the highest quality 4K setting on the Sony FX3 you could record 8 hours and 24 minutes of 4K 25p material.
Fast Media Offload
What you clearly need to remember, and this goes for any type of media, is that transfer speeds will vary depending on both the read and write speeds of your card, your card reader, your computer, and what type of hard drive you are transferring to.
If you are using a CFexpress Type A card and transferring to an HDD drive, you won’t be getting fast transfer speeds. If you are transferring to a very fast SSD/NVMe then you will see lightning-fast offload speeds.
Real World speed tests
I did a few tests to see what the sustained read/write speeds of the Exascend 1TB Essential Pro were. For the test, I was using a M1 MacBook Pro and a Exascend CFexpress 4.0 Type B card reader with a CFexpress Type A to B card adapter.
Exascend 1TB Essential Pro CFexpress 4.0 Type A
Above you can see the results for the Exascend 1TB Essential Pro CFexpress 4.0 Type A card with the stress set to 5GB. I got a sustained write speed of 1,398MB/s and a sustained read speed of 1514.1MB/s.
Exascend 1TB Essential
As a comparison, above you can see the results for the Exascend 1TB Essential card with the stress set to 5GB. I got a sustained write speed of 451.7MB/s and a sustained read speed of 779.5MB/s.
Exascend 1TB Essential Pro CFexpress 4.0 Type A
16GB Load 
256MB Load
I also tested the Exascend 1TB Essential Pro CFexpress 4.0 Type A using the AJA System Test Lite software under a 16GB load to see what the read and write speeds were. The sustained write speed was 1269MB/s and the sustained write speed was 1531MB/s. The minimum write speed recorded was 465 MB/s.
I also tested it under a 256GB load and the sustained write speed was 1424MB/s and the sustained write speed was 1617MB/s. The minimum write speed recorded was 1349 MB/s.
16GB Load 
256GB Load
Above you can see how many frames per second it could handle when recording 8K DCI in ProRes 422HQ under the same test conditions.
16GB Load 
256Gb Load
Ok, so many frames per second of 4K DCI ProRes 422HQ could it handle? Well, above you can see.
The results I obtained during all of these tests clearly show that the card is easily capable of recording 8K 29.98p H.265/XAVC HS 4:2:2 10-Bit. The maximum data rate when recording 8K 29.98p on the Sony a1 is 520 Mb/s. It can also easily handle 8K 25p from the Sony a7V.
Ok, what about if we load up the card with recorded files (about 70% full) and have a look at how it performs? As you can see the average write and read speeds did decrease. The min. write speed recorded was just 158MB/s, however, the sustained write speed was 419MB/s which was above the advertised min. sustained speed of 400MB/s. This test clearly shows me that the cards performance does take a hit once you have a decent amount of recorded data on it.
256MB Load 
16GB Load
Let’s do one more test with the loaded-up card with recorded files (about 70% full) and have a look at how it performs with the test file size set to 256MB and then 16GB? As you can see the average write and read speeds were very similar to when the card was empty. What was interesting is that the min. write speed recorded was 936 MB/Sec when the test was done at 256MB and 430 MB/Sec when it was set at 16GB.
You can use a CFexpress Type A card in a camera that takes CFexpress Type B cards
What the? You may be asking how this is possible. Well, as Exascend makes a CFexpress Type B to Type A adapter, I simply put the Exascend 1TB Essential Pro CFexpress 4.0 Type A in that adapter and placed it inside a Nikon Z9.
I could record 5.4K 25p in ProRes RAW without any issues, as well as 7680 x 4320 30fps in H.265 4:2:2 10-Bit.
I tried recording 8.3K 60fps in N-RAW (12-bit), but the recording would only last for a few seconds. This is because the minimum sustained write speed of the card wasn’t high enough.
Price & availability
The Exascend 1TB Essential Pro CFexpress 4.0 Type A is available to purchase for $699 USD.
How does the price compare to the competition?
| PRICE | |
| Exascend 1TB Essential Pro CFexpress 4.0 Type A | $699 USD |
| Wise 1TB CFexpress 4.0 Type A Mk-II | $549.99 USD |
| OWC 960GB Atlas Pro CFexpress 4.0 | $519.99 USD |
| ProGrade Digital 960GB CFexpress 4.0 Type A Iridium | $679.99 USD |
| Exascend 1TB Essential | $499 USD |
| Sony 1920GB CFexpress Type A TOUGH | $998 USD* |
| Sony 960GB CFexpress Type A TOUGH | $578 USD* |
| Angelbird AV PRO 1TB | $499.99 USD |
*Currently on special at B&H as of the 15th May 2024
| PRICE per GB | |
| Exascend 1TB Essential Pro CFexpress 4.0 Type A | $0.69 USD |
| Wise 1TB CFexpress 4.0 Type A Mk-II | $0.55 USD |
| OWC 960GB Atlas Pro CFexpress 4.0 | $0.52 USD |
| ProGrade Digital 960GB CFexpress 4.0 Type A Iridium | $0.68 USD |
| Exascend 1TB Essential | $0.50 USD |
| Sony 1920GB CFexpress Type A TOUGH | $0.52 USD |
| Sony 960GB CFexpress Type A TOUGH | $0.58 USD |
| Angelbird AV PRO 1TB | $0.50 USD |
Above you can see how much the cards cost per GB.
Conclusion
If you own any of the Sony cameras that utilize CFexpress Type A cards, then the Exascend 1TB Essential Pro CFexpress 4.0 offers a good capacity and great performance. It has very good sustained read and write speeds and the card can handle anything you can throw at it without breaking a sweat.
The card worked flawlessly in all of the cameras I tried it with and that’s about all you can ask. Yes, you may not need those CFexpress 4.0 card speeds just yet, but it does make offloading your media a lot faster (with a 4.0 card reader). In the future there will probably be new cameras that will be able to utilize the increased speeds and it it is also nice to know that you card use this card with an adapter in cameras that take CFexpress Type B media.
