Memory cards are commodity products. Their pricing is based on two things...capacity and speed. Right now it sounds like you are seeing a third factor...market price adjustment based on scarcity.

If you are going to shoot 8k video at high frame rates or long bursts, you need those fast cards. Otherwise look for slower ones. They will work fine and save you a lot of money. And keep looking for a reader. A good one will cost you about $70. Downloading via a cable is going to get pretty old.

Greetings:

I have a problem with ejecting the CFExpress Type B card from my Mac computers running the latest version of Ventura and the Apple Photos app. The card is recognized and I have no problem uploading images, but when I go to "eject" the device, it will not do so in the app. I can eject the device manually by physically removing the card, but then get a warning that the "Disk not ejected properly. "Eject NIKON Z8" before disconnecting or turning it off." Aside from that, it seems to work fine.

I have successfully used XQD cards from my Nikon D850 as well as my new Z8 with no issues, and, until recently, I have never felt the need to move to CFExpress. I use both an iMac (2020) and a MacBook Air M1 to read the cards and do light processing using Apple Photos. I recently purchased a CFExpress Type B card (ProGrade 256GB) and currently use a Sony CFExpress TypeB/XQD reader (MRW-G1). I first used a different reader which had the same issues and which I sent back to Amazon believing it was defective in favor of the more expensive Sony.

My questions are: (1) Is this problem shared by others?; (2) Is it doing damage to the card, its data, or anything else when I remove it from the reader without "ejecting it" from the app.?; and (3) can I just ignore the warning since it otherwise seems to work fine?

I have Googled the issue and searched this forum and found that similar issues have cropped up but so far have found nothing definitive to answer my questions.

Your wise counsel is appreciated.

Cheers, Peter