UHS-II is finally seeing some adoption in consumer cameras... My not so new E-M5 II can shoot continuously and indefinitely at 5fps with such a card, almost making the built in buffer irrelevant... It's taken a while for sure tho, and there's still new cameras (nevermind phones etc) launching that don't take advantage of the faster spec. Kind of ridiculous to endure 10-20s buffer to card writing pauses on a $1,000+ camera because they skimped on that.
there are handful of cameras that support UHS-II to fullest(sure your EM-5 mk II is one of the first) but even the camera industry is not so keen on adopting these faster SD cards.
It's well beyond a handful by now, unless we define that very differently... But it didn't start to happen until last year and this year, whereas the cards have been around for 3-4 yrs at least.
The most expensive pro sport cameras don't use SD at all which might mitigate adoption rate a bit for the newer standards in non-sport pro bodies andand consumer cameras.
Even now some only support it or require it for 4K video but don't fully exploit the speeds available for burst shooting (Panasonic)... Fuji, Samsung, and others are using em pretty well tho.
I'm more aware of the mirrorless side than the DSLR side so I dunno about Canikon... High end stuff like the D5 will use CFast or XQD tho.
Remember last week when I said sandisk/western digital released a confusing, obsolete product and idiots showed up arguing a 95 mb/s UHS-I card was "fast" and "better than a 10 year old mechanical boot drive" ? LOL?
8)
Ahem.
I rest my case.
Thank you Samsung for once again pushing the envelope.
FYI, read the original thread here if u want to see how dum dum the inter webs can truly get.
The listed speed is only for the 256GB version and we are yet to see the price. At the wrong price it would be debatable who has the most useless product.
Like the guy who begs for a pat on the head without realizing he's talking about two different and incompatible products, one that is ubiquitous on the market today and can be used in current day devices and one that has approximately 0 compatible devices available now or in the near future. And you're jumping the gun without even knowing availability and pricing.
Are you just throwing ideas out there hoping something sticks and whenever it looks like you have a shot you start begging for praise?
I think you guys are missing the point completely. MicroSD is slow. It's old. The industry seems ot be afraid to leave it for something better as they're afraid they'll lose their market shares when a new technology emerges. I agree with dsumanik. I'm glad that Samsung is big enough to dare pushing forward with this by themselves, since no one else has the guts.
- You aren't allowed to call anybody an idiot, especially when you don't seem particularly bright yourself
- Your "case" is moot, microsd cards exist for devices already on the market with microsd card slots, these cards exist for devices that will eventually in the future implement the new standard.
I sincerely hope the moderators ban this kind of users.
Lol... of course the two cards are not compatible... omg... its like arguing over the cure for cancer because you noticed the formula has a spelling error
....the point is going right over your head.,,,
A 95mb/s UHS-I has no place in the market when UFS tech is ready to roll out the door, let alone UHS-II...
So no my case is not "moot" UHS-II micro SD cards have been out for over a year now.
I heard that they designed the new UFS socket in a way that it will support microSD card as well. That's why they have the same dimensions too. (11*15mm)
I wish they had worked out a way to be backwards/forward compatible with microSD. It was nice to have a unified standard across phones, cameras, and whatnot. UFS may become as ubiquitous as SD is today, but it will have a harder time doing so as a competing standard than it would have otherwise.
I hope support for all the old cards get dropped and this becomes the new standard. Then competition will push these super fast cards to rock bottom prices.
I'm glad this new spec is incompatible with all the other ones. MicroSD cards are just way too slow, and decently fast ones carry a large price premium.
I don't see this becoming popular any time soon. These products will undoubtedly incur a huge premium over common microSD and besides some limited use cases the average consumer will see little to no benefit to the much improved speeds provided by UFS cards.
This will take about 10 years to become affordable, same as SSDs.
Yes, these won't be mainstream soon because of the reasons you mentioned and the big possibility that manufacturers will be adding more built-in memory to devices rendering fast external storage, almost useless.
Still, these cards cards will become popular for enthusiast or professional use for expanding storage of devices who needs such performance. Samsung seems addressing a need in these markets.
Its not actually full of new technology, it won't take 10 years like SSDs because it is an SSD. Add a new interface, firmware and make the chips small and you are set. It will cost a bit but they aren't reinventing NAND flash. They will still be a slow uptake but if you look at the physical design it's safe to say devices will start supporting UFS and MICROSD, the user will then decide how much to spend based on their requirements. SD will have their place but I can see UFS on high end phones and cameras, laptops and tablets for example being quite popular with power users. Personally I can't wait.
I would expect the card storage of the future to be based on NVMe (as with recent iPhones' internal storage), not SCSI, so at best this would only be an interim format.
NVMe looks nice on benchmarks but for user side offers pretty much nothing over sata/ahci.
Even on high end SSD's you only get more sequential speeds but 4k random and access times (what users can actually feel unless you work with tons of data) remains unchanged.
Sequential write speed is not just a "nice benchmark."
As a DSLR owner, it is by far the most important metric for me, since that's the metric that dictates how many consecutive shots I can take before the camera's buffer is filled up. A distant second is sequential read, as that would speed up the process of transferring the photos to my computer. Random read/write are totally irrelevant for me. I believe I speak for almost all photographers and videographers on this.
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38 Comments
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Chaitanya - Thursday, July 7, 2016 - link
I hope unlike UHS-2 format for sd cards this new format gets adopted quickly by industry.Impulses - Thursday, July 7, 2016 - link
UHS-II is finally seeing some adoption in consumer cameras... My not so new E-M5 II can shoot continuously and indefinitely at 5fps with such a card, almost making the built in buffer irrelevant... It's taken a while for sure tho, and there's still new cameras (nevermind phones etc) launching that don't take advantage of the faster spec. Kind of ridiculous to endure 10-20s buffer to card writing pauses on a $1,000+ camera because they skimped on that.Chaitanya - Thursday, July 7, 2016 - link
there are handful of cameras that support UHS-II to fullest(sure your EM-5 mk II is one of the first) but even the camera industry is not so keen on adopting these faster SD cards.Impulses - Friday, July 8, 2016 - link
It's well beyond a handful by now, unless we define that very differently... But it didn't start to happen until last year and this year, whereas the cards have been around for 3-4 yrs at least.The most expensive pro sport cameras don't use SD at all which might mitigate adoption rate a bit for the newer standards in non-sport pro bodies andand consumer cameras.
Even now some only support it or require it for 4K video but don't fully exploit the speeds available for burst shooting (Panasonic)... Fuji, Samsung, and others are using em pretty well tho.
I'm more aware of the mirrorless side than the DSLR side so I dunno about Canikon... High end stuff like the D5 will use CFast or XQD tho.
Laxaa - Thursday, July 7, 2016 - link
I guess this would be a feature the S8 next year.dsumanik - Thursday, July 7, 2016 - link
Remember last week when I said sandisk/western digital released a confusing, obsolete product and idiots showed up arguing a 95 mb/s UHS-I card was "fast" and "better than a 10 year old mechanical boot drive" ? LOL?8)
Ahem.
I rest my case.
Thank you Samsung for once again pushing the envelope.
FYI, read the original thread here if u want to see how dum dum the inter webs can truly get.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/10450/sandisk-rolls-...
jjj - Thursday, July 7, 2016 - link
The listed speed is only for the 256GB version and we are yet to see the price. At the wrong price it would be debatable who has the most useless product.close - Thursday, July 7, 2016 - link
Like the guy who begs for a pat on the head without realizing he's talking about two different and incompatible products, one that is ubiquitous on the market today and can be used in current day devices and one that has approximately 0 compatible devices available now or in the near future. And you're jumping the gun without even knowing availability and pricing.Are you just throwing ideas out there hoping something sticks and whenever it looks like you have a shot you start begging for praise?
SetiroN - Thursday, July 7, 2016 - link
You hit the nail in the head.theduckofdeath - Friday, July 15, 2016 - link
I think you guys are missing the point completely. MicroSD is slow. It's old. The industry seems ot be afraid to leave it for something better as they're afraid they'll lose their market shares when a new technology emerges.I agree with dsumanik. I'm glad that Samsung is big enough to dare pushing forward with this by themselves, since no one else has the guts.
bigboxes - Sunday, July 10, 2016 - link
Exactly. Two different products. One that is useful today. One that may be useful in the future (if it's adopted).SetiroN - Thursday, July 7, 2016 - link
- You aren't allowed to call anybody an idiot, especially when you don't seem particularly bright yourself- Your "case" is moot, microsd cards exist for devices already on the market with microsd card slots, these cards exist for devices that will eventually in the future implement the new standard.
I sincerely hope the moderators ban this kind of users.
dsumanik - Monday, July 11, 2016 - link
Lol... of course the two cards are not compatible... omg... its like arguing over the cure for cancer because you noticed the formula has a spelling error....the point is going right over your head.,,,
A 95mb/s UHS-I has no place in the market when UFS tech is ready to roll out the door, let alone UHS-II...
So no my case is not "moot" UHS-II micro SD cards have been out for over a year now.
Fail more dummies!
Geranium - Friday, July 8, 2016 - link
Or maybe Note 7 will support this card.shabby - Thursday, July 7, 2016 - link
Which current phones will support these cards? Doesn't looks like even the s7 will support these.Laxaa - Thursday, July 7, 2016 - link
No current phones support these, and I guess the upcoming Note 7 won't either. I guess we'll see this in the S8 next year.Flunk - Thursday, July 7, 2016 - link
No current ones, it's right there in the article. UFS cards are not compatible with SD card readers.joex4444 - Thursday, July 7, 2016 - link
The confusion is likely due to a similar shape as a microSD card. There is a difference in the shape but it is very subtle.lmcd - Thursday, July 7, 2016 - link
But it looks like that mSD cards will be compatible with UFS readers? Or am I assuming too much?Roobaby4 - Monday, July 11, 2016 - link
I heard that they designed the new UFS socket in a way that it will support microSD card as well. That's why they have the same dimensions too. (11*15mm)Eden-K121D - Thursday, July 7, 2016 - link
I think this would be supported in the upcoming Samsung Galaxy Note 7 Smartphone and the future S series as wellnismotigerwvu - Thursday, July 7, 2016 - link
I wish they had worked out a way to be backwards/forward compatible with microSD. It was nice to have a unified standard across phones, cameras, and whatnot. UFS may become as ubiquitous as SD is today, but it will have a harder time doing so as a competing standard than it would have otherwise.sonicmerlin - Sunday, July 10, 2016 - link
I hope support for all the old cards get dropped and this becomes the new standard. Then competition will push these super fast cards to rock bottom prices.I'm glad this new spec is incompatible with all the other ones. MicroSD cards are just way too slow, and decently fast ones carry a large price premium.
amnesia0287 - Thursday, July 7, 2016 - link
Now someone just needs to figure out how to stick em in raid :Opeterfares - Thursday, July 7, 2016 - link
Interesting. The shape suggests that the UFS card reader could possibly be designed to accept both SD and UFS cards.lmcd - Thursday, July 7, 2016 - link
Didn't see your comment but seconded.Wardrop - Friday, July 8, 2016 - link
How did you not see his comment, and yet still reply and agree with it? Maybe you're running a screen reader? I'm intrigued.iamkyle - Thursday, July 7, 2016 - link
I like the sharkfin built into the physical form factor.That means you know it's fast!
vladx - Thursday, July 7, 2016 - link
I don't see this becoming popular any time soon. These products will undoubtedly incur a huge premium over common microSD and besides some limited use cases the average consumer will see little to no benefit to the much improved speeds provided by UFS cards.This will take about 10 years to become affordable, same as SSDs.
zodiacfml - Friday, July 8, 2016 - link
Yes, these won't be mainstream soon because of the reasons you mentioned and the big possibility that manufacturers will be adding more built-in memory to devices rendering fast external storage, almost useless.Still, these cards cards will become popular for enthusiast or professional use for expanding storage of devices who needs such performance. Samsung seems addressing a need in these markets.
danielfranklin - Friday, July 8, 2016 - link
Its not actually full of new technology, it won't take 10 years like SSDs because it is an SSD.Add a new interface, firmware and make the chips small and you are set. It will cost a bit but they aren't reinventing NAND flash.
They will still be a slow uptake but if you look at the physical design it's safe to say devices will start supporting UFS and MICROSD, the user will then decide how much to spend based on their requirements. SD will have their place but I can see UFS on high end phones and cameras, laptops and tablets for example being quite popular with power users.
Personally I can't wait.
theduckofdeath - Friday, July 15, 2016 - link
^^^^fazalmajid - Saturday, July 9, 2016 - link
I would expect the card storage of the future to be based on NVMe (as with recent iPhones' internal storage), not SCSI, so at best this would only be an interim format.Lolimaster - Sunday, July 10, 2016 - link
NVMe looks nice on benchmarks but for user side offers pretty much nothing over sata/ahci.Even on high end SSD's you only get more sequential speeds but 4k random and access times (what users can actually feel unless you work with tons of data) remains unchanged.
zogus - Monday, July 11, 2016 - link
Sequential write speed is not just a "nice benchmark."As a DSLR owner, it is by far the most important metric for me, since that's the metric that dictates how many consecutive shots I can take before the camera's buffer is filled up. A distant second is sequential read, as that would speed up the process of transferring the photos to my computer. Random read/write are totally irrelevant for me. I believe I speak for almost all photographers and videographers on this.
JonnyDough - Sunday, July 10, 2016 - link
Excellent. Now Verizon can make more money when they fill up that card more quickly with extra crapware I won't use.Pissedoffyouth - Friday, July 15, 2016 - link
uhhhh what? They don't fill current MicroSD's with crap, why would they do that with this?fnydztjkejyv - Monday, August 24, 2020 - link
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