Samsung Just Rendered the microSD Obsolete with Its Blazing-Fast UFS Memory Card

We now know what comes next after the microSD card when it comes to expandable memory for smartphones. Samsung just unveiled the world’s first Universal Flash Storage (UFS) removable memory card, which offers capacities of 32, 64, 128, or 256 gigabytes of storage and blisteringly quick performance speeds.

The UFS blows its older competitors out of the water, namely the microSD cards built by SanDisk. While Samsung has been competing with SanDisk to offer successively higher capacity and performance storage cards in recent years, Samsung’s debut of UFS 2.0 storage solution appears to have conclusively struck a killing blow, effectively rendering microSD cards obsolete.

Outlets such as the Verge are already reporting that the UFS, which boasts readings speeds 530 megabytes per second (which is five times faster than the best microSD card), has “killed the microSD.” According to Samsung, the UFS can read a 5GB full HD movie in 10 seconds, whereas a UHS-1 microSD accomplishes the same in 50 seconds, barely chugging along in comparison.

The UFS also boasts write speeds of 170 MB per second, which is again unprecedented. All these innovations are necessary to keep apace with the vast amounts of high-resolution footage that users are generating and downloading, allowing faster access to content.

As such the UFS is also ideal for use in DSLRs, 3D VR cameras, action cameras, and drone cameras.

While the new UFS comes pre-installed in some Samsung devices such as its Galaxy S6 and S7, there are no other smartphones as of yet that can support the card.