Samsung Unveils World's First UFS Storage Cards, Could Replace MicroSD (pcworld.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Samsung has unveiled the world's first UFS card that could one day replace microSD cards in devices. The UFS card is based on the Universal Flash Storage 1.0 Card Extension standard and will be available in capacities from 32GB to 256GB. With a UFS card, users will be able to read 5GB of data, or a full resolution movie file, in 10 seconds, Samsung claims. For comparison, a UHS-1 microSD card would take 50 seconds to do the same. UFS cards will be able to fit into a wide range of devices like smartphones, tablets, cameras, and drones, but the devices will need a specific UFS card slot, which could take some time. Samsung claims the 256GB UFS card has a sequential read speed of 530MBps. The random read speed is 20 times faster than a microSD card. The sequential write speed is about 170MBps, which Samsung estimates is two times faster than microSD cards. The random write speed is 350 times faster than microSD, Samsung claims. The Universal Flash Storage 1.0 Card Extension standard is intended to replace the eMMC standard, which is used in low-cost laptops and Chromebooks. Samsung didn't disclose pricing or availability for the UFS storage cards. It's worth noting that Toshiba does also make UFS storage cards, but they have yet to release any based on the UFS 1.0 Card Extension standard.

Comments

Immediate market share

[sjbe]

What possible incentive is there for them to make it backwards compatible.

Selling cards to the owners of the millions of devices that already exist. Providing an upgrade path will keep people using your standard. By not making it backwards compatible there is a strong risk it will fail to be adopted.

They want to sell and obsolete as many devices as fast possible, one way to do that is with constantly changing and evolving the standards ensuring enough improvements to make a replacement desirable

If they want to sell more cards and hardware, keeping it compatible is the fastest way to do that. Even if I want this technology it is going to be years most likely before I have a device that can use it. So they are pushing any possible sale to me out by a long time. On the other hand if the card is compatible with what I have already, even with reduced performance, there is some chance I buy one immediately.

I don't agree with this strategy but it makes good business sense. Hell they don't even provide OS upgrades for most smartphones.

I don't think it is good business at all. It think it is a very short sighted strategy that has been tried before and usually fails.

And the lack of OS upgrades is one of the big reasons why I tend to shy away from most Android devices (with some notable exceptions). While there is a lot I like about Android better than iPhones, Apple at least continues to support their products after you buy them which matters to me at least. (Given what Apple charges they damn well should support them too...)

Re:Immediate market share

[drinkypoo]

What possible incentive is there for them to make it backwards compatible.

Selling cards to the owners of the millions of devices that already exist.

They are already doing that. As literally the only vendors which give a shit about random write performance, they are selling Evo+ cards left and right to the kind of people who are in the market for a faster storage card.

Even if I want this technology it is going to be years most likely before I have a device that can use it.

So in short, it will be years before they sell you one anyway. So that circles around to why should they care about you?

I'm absolutely certain that they are going to sell a certain number of these cards to OEMs as a replacement for eMMC, which is getting a bit long in the tooth. They're not going to have any trouble moving units.

Re:The great thing about standards...

[serviscope_minor]

ould it have killed them to make it backwards compatible with the hardware that already exists?

Ehhhh I'm just not that bothered about this one. The way I (and I suspect many) people use SD and especially micro SD cards is kinda fire and forget. In other words, there's some device that needs one, so I decide what size I want and shove it in there. Mostly it remains there for the life of the device.

My the time the devie life ends, the storage size is kinda small so the card usually winds up in a box waiting for an application which will never arrive.

I odn't always do that, but compared to (say) USB storage which I use a lot between devices, SD cards mostly stay put. So, obsolecence of the format won't really change much in practice.

Re:Removable storage that never gets removed

[peppepz]

I see people complain about this in regards to certain smartphones (looking at you Apple) but I think Apple and you are correct that in 99% of the cases the removable storage adds complexity and cost for a feature that never gets used.

In the case of the iPhone 6S, Apple want from you 749 $ for the 16 GB version and 849 $ for the 64 GB version. Therefore they charge you approximately 2.08 $ per GB. You can buy a cheap UHS class1, 64 GB microSD from Samsung for 21 $ (0.32 $ per GB) or a faster UHS class 3 one from SanDisk for 40 $ (0.63 $ per GB). Moreover, the replaceability of a microSD card means that you don't have to shell more money up front for a bigger device, and you can spend them later if and when the need arises.

So not putting a card slot isn't something that Apple do to reduce the costs for the consumers, they do it to rape their wallets.

Re:The irony..

[Tourney3p0]

WiFi is also commonly unavailable.

Re: The irony..

[Anonymous Coward]

For what it's worth, I don't think many people care about having a swappable battery so they can swap it out in the middle of the day. A swappable battery is good for those of us who don't want to throw away our otherwise perfectly functional 800 dollar pocket computer when the battery dies in two years.

Re:The irony..

[jedidiah]

> In my opinion, what has made it SD cards niche is Android's crappy storage model which makes using your external card more complicated than it ought to be.

Total bullshit.