SD Association Announces an App Performance Class for Smartphones

Last year, Google release Android 6.0 Marshmallow a little more than one year ago. This update introduced a new feature that let you virtually add the amount of storage you had on a microSD card with your internal storage capacity. This was a surprising move as Google has generally not been a fan of SD cards. They removed SD card slots from their Nexus phones and didn't include one in the Pixel or Pixel XL.

Google's reasoning behind this move was due to performance issues. They don't want the customer to blame the phone or the operating system because of slow performance from an SD card. The people at the SD Association have acknowledged this issue and have just announced a new class of SD cards. The Application Performance Class was introduced in the organization's SD 5.1 specification and this comes with the first App Performance Class1 (otherwise known as A1).

This new Application Performance Class will evolve over time as hardware improves, but it serves as a way for consumers to know their microSD card is fast enough for applications. The A1 app Performance Class comes with minimum random read performance inputs/outputs per second (1500 IOPS), minimum random write performance (500 IOPS) and minimum sustained sequential performance (10 MB/sec).

It's unclear if this move will push companies like Google to offer better support for SD cards, but it's a great move for consumers who know what they're looking for. The SD Association is even taking steps to make it easy for the customer to know if they have the right SD card or not. In the video, they explain that the recommended App Performance Class will be printed on the box of their smartphones.

So if the OEM recommends you get an A1 class microSD card, then it will be placed right on the box. This way the customer knows to go into a store and buy a microSD card with the A1 rating.

Source: SD Association

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