Last month, the Huawei P10 and Huawei P10 Plus were at the center of a controversy. Some users had discovered that the phones had different types of flash memory installed which resulted in varying performance results. Huawei responded to the issue by saying that the discrepancies in the flash memory was as a result of using different suppliers. They also went on to say there was no notable difference in the overall performance of two phones with different flash memories.
We already know Huawei isn’t the only company that cuts corners with flash storage. There have been reports of iPhones with larger storage capacities having faster read/write speed than those with smaller storage. Turns out Samsung also uses various flash storage for their phones and their most recent flagship, the Galaxy S8 isn’t left out.
The finding was discovered by an XDA member who owns the Exynos 8895 version of the Galaxy S8 (SM-G950FD). After finding out his own phone uses a UFS 2.1 storage, he implored other Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ owners to find out what flash storage type is present in their phone. The results were varying. While some Galaxy S8 units have UFS 2.1 flash storage, others have UFS 2.0; but all Galaxy S8+ units tested have UFS 2.1 storage. Poll results below.
Initially, Samsung had explicitly stated that the UFS storage present in the Galaxy S8 is version 2.1 but if you head to the page now, it has now been removed. The asterisked info that says “May differ by country and carrier” is actually for the RAM and storage configuration and not type. Below is a comparison of the previous spec page and the new one.
The difference in performance between a phone with UFS 2.1 storage and another with UFS 2.0 storage isn’t much compared to that of one with an eMMC 5.1 storage. But it is still disappointing that a company as large as Samsung which is one of the largest flash memory manufacturers in the world will behave in such a manner.
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To find out the type of UFS storage in your Galaxy S8, head to the Play Store and download the AndroBench app. For UFS 2.0, you should get read speeds between 500MB/s – 600MB/s while UFS 2.1 should have read speeds between 750MB/s and 800MB/s. To determine the vendor of the flash memory, install Material Emulator from the Play Store and input the command “cat / proc / scsi / scsi” without the asterisk. Compare the results with that of the table below.
The Galaxy S8 and S8+ are scheduled to launch on the 18th of May in China. Pre-orders will begin on the 10th and sales will start on the 25th. If you pre-register and pay the ¥99 fee and complete payment on May 18, you will be eligible for the free gifts that come with the Galaxy S8.
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