CODEX CFexpress Cards Announced – Type A and Type B, VPG1600, and a USB4 Reader

Storage Media

by Nino LeitnerSeptember 2^nd, 2026

Subscribe to News - Accessories

CODEX has spent more than two decades building the recording media that ARRI cameras write to, and unless you have worked a DIT cart, you have probably never bought one. That changes now: the company is launching a full CFexpress range in both Type A and Type B, split across two performance tiers, alongside a USB4 reader. The speeds are serious, the endurance figures are unusually high, and the pricing is anything but shy.

The lineup covers CFexpress 4.0 Type A in 256GB, 512GB and 1TB, and Type B in 512GB, 1TB and 2TB, each in an Excel tier and a higher-endurance Elite tier, all on a PCIe 4.0 interface. Type B tops out at 3750MB/s maximum read and 3500MB/s maximum write, with the Elite 2TB rated for 2800MB/s sustained write and VPG1600 certification. Type A reaches 1800MB/s read and write, the Elite cards holding 1750MB/s sustained write with both VPG400 and VPG800. Endurance runs from 150TBW on the smallest Type A Excel card to 2400TBW on the Type B Elite 2TB. The CODEX CFexpress Type B Reader uses USB4 for transfers of up to 5000MB/s and takes Type A cards through an adapter. Prices start at $331 and run to $1,541, with the reader at $276.

Why a name from the ARRI world is suddenly selling cards

If you have shot on an ALEXA in the last twenty years, you have used CODEX whether you thought about it or not. The company built the XR Capture Drives for the ALEXA XT, then the Compact Drive that debuted on the ALEXA Mini LFand became standard media across ARRI’s current bodies, through to the ProRes-only Compact Drive Express introduced with the ALEXA 35 Base Model.

That is a very specific business: low volume, high margin, effectively locked to one camera manufacturer. Selling CFexpress cards to anyone with a Nikon Z8 is a different game, with dozens of competitors and buyers who compare price per terabyte on a spreadsheet. Marc Dando, Chief Design Officer at CODEX, frames the move as an extension of existing work, saying it is about “giving creators media they know they can trust.” Reputation is a real asset here, and it is the one thing the cheap end of this market cannot manufacture. The question is what it costs.

Excel and Elite, and what actually separates them

The tier names suggest Elite is simply the fast one, and that is not what the numbers say. On Type B, the Excel 2TB manages 3000MB/s sustained write while the Elite 1TB sits at 1800MB/s. The Excel card is faster in raw throughput, yet carries VPG400 against the Elite’s VPG1600.

What you buy with Elite is the guarantee and the lifespan. VPG1600 certifies that the card will not drop below 1600MB/s sustained write, the figure a camera’s firmware checks before allowing a given recording mode. Endurance also doubles at matching capacities: the Type B Excel 2TB is rated at 1200TBW, the Elite 2TB at 2400TBW. For a card that lives in a rental house and gets formatted three times a day for four years, that is the whole point.

The same logic applies on Type A, where the Excel 256GB and 512GB sustain 850MB/s, the Excel 1TB jumps to 1650MB/s, and both Elite cards hold 1750MB/s. Anyone shooting internal 16-bit X-OCN on a Sony FX5 or a BURANO should read that gap carefully. Type A is a single-lane format with a ceiling around 2GB/s under CFexpress 4.0, so at 1800MB/s the Elite cards are effectively running out of road. CODEX credits three in-house technologies called FastLane, HeatControl and ByteGuard, but has published nothing about what they actually do, so for now they are brand names attached to claimed behavior.

Camera compatibility, and one gap worth noticing

The Type A list is a Sony list, as expected: a1, a1 II, a9 III, a7S III, a7 IV, a7 V, a7R V, FX3, FX30, FX6 and FX5.

Type B is far broader, covering Canon’s EOS C50, C400, C300 Mark III, C500 Mark II, R1, R3, R5, R5 Mark II, R5 C, R6 Mark III and EOS-1D X Mark III; Nikon’s Z6, Z6II, Z6III, Z7, Z7II, Z8, Z9, ZR and D6; the Panasonic LUMIX GH6, GH7, S1, S1R, S1 II, S1 II E and S1R II; FUJIFILM’s X-H2, X-H2S, GFX100 II and GFX ETERNA 55; the Leica SL3; Sony BURANO; DJI Ronin 4D-6K and 4D-8K; Blackmagic’s Cinema Camera 6K, PYXIS 6K and PYXIS 12K; and the Atomos Ninja TX, Ninja TX GO and Ninja RAW.

Two things I would check before ordering. CODEX’s announcement says the range supports systems “including Canon, Sony, Blackmagic and RED”, yet the compatibility document published alongside it names no RED body at all, so KOMODO and V-RAPTOR owners should confirm directly. And Blackmagic maintains its own recommended media list for the PYXIS 12K, which a brand-new card obviously cannot be on yet. If you are feeding 12K open gate Blackmagic RAW, “compatible” and “qualified by the camera manufacturer” are not the same sentence.

Physically there are no surprises: Type A is 28 x 20 x 2.8mm (1.10 x 0.79 x 0.11in) at 3g (0.11oz), Type B is 38.5 x 29.8 x 3.8mm (1.52 x 1.17 x 0.15in) at 10g (0.35oz), both rated from -12 to 72°C (10 to 162°F). Power draw on the Type B Elite 2TB peaks at 6W, worth knowing if you already fight heat in a small body.

The reader is the quiet highlight

The CFexpress Type B Reader is a USB4 unit rated at up to 5000MB/s, measuring 98 x 60 x 12.75mm (3.86 x 2.36 x 0.50in) at 128g (4.5oz), and it handles CFexpress 2.0 and 4.0 Type B cards plus Type A with an adapter. One detail stands out against the media it serves: its operating range is 0 to 35°C (32 to 95°F), against -12 to 72°C for the cards. Cards are built to survive a desert; the reader is built for a room. At $276 it is priced against the better Type B readers rather than the cheap ones, and it is the piece of this launch I find easiest to recommend on paper.

Pricing, and how it looks next to Angelbird

Type A Excel runs $331, $482 and $743 for 256GB, 512GB and 1TB, with Elite at $372, $647 and $1,060. Type B Excel is $537, $688 and $1,335 for 512GB, 1TB and 2TB, with Elite at $798 and $1,541. Everything is listed as available to pre-order on the CODEX store, alongside the Type A range and the reader. Per terabyte the small cards look poor, since the 512GB Type B Excel works out at roughly $1,048 per terabyte while the 1TB is $688.

We haven’t found the cards on our retail sponsors’ websites B&H and CVP yet, but I will update this article once they show up there.

The obvious benchmark is Angelbird, which sells into the same space, publishes sustained rather than headline figures, and whose 1TB AV PRO CFexpress A is the card Johnnie shot our FX5 review on. Its US prices exclude VAT, so treat the comparison as indicative. On Type A, CODEX wins clearly: Angelbird holds 800MB/s sustained write across all three capacities at $249.99, $449.99 and $699.99, while the CODEX Excel 1TB sustains 1650MB/s for $743, roughly double the throughput for about $43 more.

Type B flips it. Angelbird’s AV PRO SE CFexpress B v4 sustains 1050MB/s at 512GB ($399.99), 2100MB/s at 1TB ($749.99) and 3150MB/s at 2TB ($1,099.99). CODEX takes the 512GB round at 1750MB/s, but at 1TB the Angelbird card is 350MB/s faster, and at 2TB it beats both CODEX cards on speed while costing $235 less than the Excel. What CODEX offers in exchange is certification and stated endurance, since Angelbird publishes no VPG rating for its Type B line and no TBW figure at all on its own product pages. The support package is a draw, with three years and free data recovery from both, conditional on registration. So the CODEX pitch at the top of the range is not speed, and it is not service either. It is the name, the endurance rating and the certification.

Launching into a flash shortage

The timing is not a small variable. This range arrives in the middle of the worst flash squeeze in years, the same crunch that pushed Sony to suspend nearly all of its memory card sales and that we have tracked since manufacturers first warned us about NAND scarcity. Angelbird’s Roman Rabitsch told us he expects no relief before 2028 or 2029. Launching a premium card line into that market is either brave or very well timed, depending on whether CODEX secured its NAND allocation early, and every card currently shows as out of stock and available to pre-order.

Would you put a CODEX card in your camera over an Angelbird, or does the ARRI heritage not move the needle at that price? Let us know in the comments below.