Samsung takes the Universal Flash Storage standard to the next level with some new memory cards

Samsung takes the Universal Flash Storage standard to the next level with some new memory cards

Samsung has announced the company's first family of memory cards based on the new JEDEC Universal Flash Storage (UFS) 1.0 Card Extension Standard. As well as rolling out new removable storage, this is also a glimpse of what is likely to come in future hardware too thanks to Samsung's advancing storage technology. UFS is expected to introduce significant performance enhancements when compared against its predecessor, microSD.

Set to be available in a variety of sizes, ranging from 32GB all the way up to 256GB, these new UFS cards are built to handle intensive 3D gaming and high-resolution movie playback, offering more than five times faster sequential read performance compared to SD cards of today. The UFS cards will be able to handle 530MB/s, which is similar to that of a PC SSD. The new cards will also offer a random read rate of 40,000 IOPS, more than 20 times that of microSD.

Perfect for mobile devices and camera equipment that require speed when reading and writing large files, it's safe to say these new cards (and the standard as a whole) will be blazing fast. We've already seen the tech implemented in embedded form when it comes to mobile hardware, but since these cards are not compatible with existing SD slots, we're going to have to hold out until companies offer a solution in upcoming smartphones. You can expect to see Samsung adding the capabilities to future hardware for consumers to take advantage of these new UFS cards.