You may or may not remember Planck, a mobile-first SSD that was designed to expand your phone’s storage, but it’s no longer going to be the only one of its kind, as ShiftCam Gear is announcing the Planck Essential and Planck Studio SSDs at CES 2026 this week. This expands ShiftCam Gear’s lineup of Planck products to three and makes it possible for the company to target different groups of users. The original Planck , now known as the Planck Creator SSD, is kind of your middle-ground option. It’s intended for mobile filmmakers and comes in 1TB and 2TB sizes for $149 and $199, respectively.
You plug the little SSD into your phone’s USB-C port, and it directly connects to the extra storage. Now, ShiftCam Gear wants to offer something for the everyday user. The user who might need lots of extra storage on top of what their phone offers internally, but maybe not quite as much as 1TB. Enter the Planck Essential that starts at 256GB of extra space. Then there’s the Planck Studio – the mobile-first SSD for the heavy user, coming in with options in 4TB and 8TB. Naturally, the Planck Studio is intended for production teams, users who work across multiple devices, and anyone who is doing high volume with their recording and photos.
ShiftCam Gear’s Planck Essential SSD will start at $69
While $149 isn’t exactly an extremely expensive price tag, it’s not dirt cheap either. Most phones that come with internal-only storage these days come with a fair amount of it. Some users may find that it’s not quite enough, but then they may not end up needing a whole 1TB of additional storage, so $149 may end up feeling like more of a waste of money. It’s good, then, that ShiftCam Gear is introducing the Planck Essential , which starts at $69. This gives the user 256GB of additional storage on top of what’s already in their phone. And if they want more, there’s the 512GB option for $99.
Those who need more than what the Planck Creator gives can opt for the Planck Studio options. These start at $399 for the 4TB model, or you can bump up to the 8TB model for $599. It’s worth remembering that these are intended for people who shot a very high volume of footage using their mobile device, as well as production teams and people who work across multiple devices and need all that space. Hence the high price.
ShiftCam Gear notes that read and write speeds vary across each model as well. The new Planck Essential has read and write speeds of 300MB/s, while the Planck Studio has read and write speeds of a whopping 3,700MB/s, which is more than double what the Planck Creator offers. The Planck Essential is available starting now, while the Planck Studio launches in March of this year.
