Samsung 512GB eUFS 3.1 Storage For Phones Are Now Being Mass-Produced

Smartphones have become powerful enough to support new multimedia experiences, both in creation and consumption. Smartphone cameras are capable of recording videos in 8K resolution while smartphone screens can fit even up to 4K videos. Those activities, however, also require not just a beefy processor or spacious RAM. They also require high-speed storage that can keep up with all the data transfer demands they entail, which is what Samsung's latest smartphone data storage solution is promising to provide.

There are two factors to consider when picking out the Flash NAND storage for phones. The first one, capacity, is pretty much a done deal by now, with phones sporting at most 1 TB of space. The second and now more important factor is the speed of the storage, where read and write speeds are essential to quickly keep up with camera sensors and Internet speeds.

Samsung's new eUFS 3.1 storage promises to deliver exactly that to flagship smartphones. Boasting a sequential write speed of 1,200 MB/s, the 512GB module is claimed to be twice as fast as a SATA hard drive with a 540 MB/s speed. Of course, it is exponentially faster than a 90 MB/s UHS-I microSD card, hinting that Samsung is slowly but surely de-emphasizing the need for expansion cards.

In practical terms, Samsung eUFS 3.1 storage can not only store 8K videos but also play them back without buffering. Transferring 100GB of data, which may now be normal for phones with many files, photos, and videos, can take only 1.5 minutes. The previous generation UFS 3.0 storage would take 4 minutes, in comparison.

Samsung has started the production of this fifth-gen smartphone storage solution, which will also be available in 256GB and 128GB capacities. The production this month kicked off in Xi'an China but Samsung will soon move production to its Pyeongtaek line (P1) in Korea, perhaps in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.