Samsung announced the world’s first removable UFS cards today. Based on the JEDEC Universal Flash Storage (UFS) standard, the cards are designed for initial use in 3D VR cameras, action cams and drones capable of taking advantage of their high capacities and data read and write speeds. 32GB, 64GB, 128GB and 256GB versions are available.
The new cards are able to sequentially read data at speeds of up to 530MB/s, around five times faster than a high-end microSD card’s 95MB/s and comparable to mid-range SSDs. This is sufficient to read an entire Full HD movie in around 10 seconds, compared with 50 seconds for the microSD currently in your phone.
Samsung’s next-generation UFS memory cards are designed to replace microSD and offer substantial performance improvements
Samsung
The performance improvements are even greater for random reads. MicroSD manages approximately 1,800 IOPS (input/output operations per second). UFS has the potential to be up to 20 times faster at 40,000 IOPS.
It’s a similar story when writing data. UFS’ 170MB/s sequential writes are double microSD’s maximum performance. The most impressive performance increase of all is when randomly writing. UFS can be up to 350 times faster than a microSD, attaining 35,000 random IOPS compared with 100 IOPS for an SD.
“Our new 256GB UFS card will provide an ideal user experience for digitally-minded consumers and lead the industry in establishing the most competitive memory card solution,” said Jung-bae Lee, senior vice president, Memory Product Planning & Application Engineering, Samsung Electronics. “By launching our new high-capacity, high-performance UFS card line-up, we are changing the growth paradigm of the memory card market to prioritize performance and user convenience above all.”
The performance improvements will be particularly noticeable when writing and reading large amounts of data. As 4K and virtual reality films become more commonplace, both consumers and camera operators will begin to demand more from their gear than microSD can provide.
Samsung’s 256GB UFS card can save 24 large JPEG photos from a high-end DSLR camera in just seven seconds, compared with 32 seconds for a UHS-1 class microSD card. Whether creating or consuming video, the benefits of UFS will appeal when picking next-generation devices.
Samsung’s next-generation UFS memory cards are designed to replace microSD and offer substantial performance improvements
Samsung
UFS’ performance is achieved by supporting multiple commands and adding command queuing features. These innovations allow the memory card controller to support simultaneous reading and writing through the use of specially assigned paths, doubling overall throughput. microSD cards cannot read and write data at the same time, creating bottlenecks when used intensively.
Samsung is currently the leading memory storage provider and has been proactive in developing and promoting next-generation technologies. Today’s announcement follows the launch of its 256GB embedded UFS memory for mobile devices in February of this year. This is the first time UFS has been offered in a traditional memory card form factor though.
With embedded and removable solutions now on the market, UFS could find its way into consumer devices within the next year. Embedded UFS will greatly improve the performance of your smartphone’s internal storage while removable cards will let you expand it without sacrificing speed.
