The Mavic 4 Pro might not require a SD card

With Mavic 4 Pro specs out in the wild now, we can start to speculate just how the drone will change the way we fly. That might just start with something most of us can agree on is the biggest pain behind airspace authorizations: SD cards.

Jasper Ellens’ leaked Mavic 4 Pro specs stated that the drone would feature 512 GB of internal storage. While there are some 1TB microSD cards out there, most 512 and 256 GB cards are the standard for many pilots. So if you’ll get the bulk of that internally, is there any reason why you would bring your own with you?

There’s probably still some valid reasons. First, you won’t get the full space on the internal drive like you would on an SD card, as the internal drive will also be used for firmware updates. Second, quickly swapping a full SD card for a fresh one will be way faster than transferring the contents of the internal drive to an external one.

However, if you, like me, I will admit, are someone who tends to forget enough SD cards for a session, then having that extra internal space will be a lifesaver! Just like the Air 3’s addition of consolidating your three remaining batteries into one for one last flight, if you fill all your SD cards, then you’ll get one last go with the internal drive.

This has been a trend we’ve seen for the larger prosumer drones. Starting with the Mavic 3 Cine that gave pilots an unheard-of 1 TB of internal storage to support the Apple ProRes codec for videos. However, it also served as a great storage spot for all your photos and videos when flying around.

The Air 3S came next with a much more modest 42 GB of internal space. Small but still usable if you’re not shooting a massive project that day.

I would expect these numbers to increase over time on larger drones above the 249 g weight limit. For drones like the Mini 4 Pro, it will likely be limited to 2 GB of storage to save both weight and keep the prices lower. Even if DJI accounts for the weight of an SD card in its weight calculations, adding something like a 256 GB internal drive could jeopardize the 249 g limit if a pilot then puts in a heavier SD card. It would also be kind of dumb to have to worry about your SD card’s weight when flying a Mini.

So is there a future where you won’t need an SD card at all when flying your drone? Well, I would like to think we’re already there for the enthusiast who can get away with 42 GB on the Air 3S. However, for you power users and professional pilots, you’ll likely be stuck with keeping track of your teeny tiny microSD cards until DJI starts putting 1-2 TB of storage everywhere. Even then, you might still choose to keep them.

Having options is always a great win at the end of the day.