Samsung just announced that it has begun mass production of a 512GB embedded Universal Flash Storage memory chip for mobile devices, meaning that your next Galaxy phone could have seemingly endless storage.
High storage phones models currently come with 128GB or 256GB of memory, but Samsung's new 512GB chip is double or quadruple that. Samsung says the chip consists of eight 64-layer 512GB V-NAND chips, but what's interesting is that although it doubles the storage and density of Samsung's 256GB chip, it takes up the same amount of physical space.
Of course Samsung's and other Android phones sometimes have the option of expandable storage through a microSD chip, but internal storage has its benefits. The 512GB chip is able to read and write new data at 860MB per second and 255MB per second respectively, which Samsung claims is eight times faster than your average microSD card. Plus, expandable storage has always been an add-on; internal storage is built directly into your phone.
Samsung says that the chip is intended for use in next-generation phones, which makes us wonder which phones will get it. Will the Galaxy S9 or Galaxy Note 9 come with 512GB of storage? Or will it appear in other manufacturers' phones, like how some iPhones used Samsung memory chips.
Increasing sizes of internal storage is a good thing. This is especially the case as apps get bigger, operating systems take up more space and photo and video quality increases for built-in cameras. Samsung claims that the 512GB chip can hold approximately 130 10-minute 4K Ultra HD videos, which is good news for all the phones that come with 4K video recording capability.
If you can't imagine using that much storage, Samsung also announced that it'll expand production of its 256GB chips, too. So as memory extremes increase on the high end we may see more phones with 256GBs of storage, too.
