All About The Internal Storage of SmartPhones - MyPhonTech

 Nowadays all Smartphones have internal Storage with different Capacities, It can be expanded via a microSD in some cases to further improve the Storage if necessary.

Internal SmartPhone Storage:

When you want to buy a smartphone you find that it has several storage capacities 64Go, 126Go, 256Go .. etc with a different price ,And its type is mentioned  for example, the Samsung Galaxy S22 available on two models with different storage capacity, type UFS 3.1

• 128 GB 8 GB RAM.
• 256 GB 8 GB RAM.

The same for iPhone , for example Apple iPhone 13 available on three models with different storage Capacity, type NVMe (Non-Volatile Memory express) .

• 128GB 4GB RAM
• 256GB 4GB RAM
• 512GB 4GB RAM

 What does UFS 3.1 and  NVMe  means ? and what are its advantages?

Historical Internal SmartPhone Storage:

The Phone's internal storage is one of the most important features of the phone because you can store multiple files like photo albums and install lots of apps without installing a memory card.

In 2007, it was a radical turning point for the phones today , While Nokia was launching several phones with different designs, Apple surprised everyone with its first phone iPhone 2G with 16Go internal storage Flash (EEPROM) ,Where you don't need an external  memory card.

Not only that, but even the look of phones today is inspired by the iPhone!.

After that, several Android phones competed with Apple, including Samsung, Where the iPhone continued to provide its phones with the same internal  memory 16GO  Flash (EEPROM): 

• iPhone 2G
• iPhone 3G
• iPhone 3GS
• iPhone 4 
• iPhone 4S 

But with the advent of 3G and then 4G communication technology, there was a need for a fast-response storage device, especially when downloading files or using applications that require fast response.

in 2012 The arrival of the eMMC 4.5 standard with read speed up to  140MB/s and Write speed 50MB/s   (eMMC: embedded MultiMedia Card) for embedded flash memory applications was developed by JEDEC (JEDEC: Joint Electron Device Engineering Council, is a semiconductor standards organization bringing together all semiconductor companies: Samsung, ibm, qualcomm..etc, here is the list of participants here).

After that they was two others versions  eMMC 5.0  and eMMC 5.1  with read speed up to  250MB/s and Write speed 125MB/s.

All Android Phones have used this Storage option  even Apple has integrated it in:

• iPhones  5
• iPhones  6
• iPhones  6 Plus

In 2015, there was a radical change in the storage memory as it used a new technology developed better than its predecessor, Samsung launched the first phone with UFS 2.0  Flash Storage Specification the Galaxy S6 with  sizes up to 128 GB, (UFS : Universal Flash Storage).

While Apple introduced the new internal storage, NVMe SSD (Non-Volatile Memory express) in its iPhone 6S Smartphone and remains to use this technology in all its smartphones until now , such as the iPhone 13.

 On the other hand UFS 3.1 is the latest version of UFS storage  optimized for 5G-capable devices used in all latest Android Flagship Phones like Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra  Available with several storage options up to 1TB and offers write speeds up to 1.2 GB/s Very suitable for 5G uses.

Now Samsung has officially announced the latest version  UFS 4.0 that is  two times faster than UFS 3.1!.

What do eMMC, UFS and NVMe Mean and What is the Difference Between Them?

All smartphones today either Android or iPhone using the same type of memory known as NAND FLASH.

This flash memory (NAND FLASH) has many advantages: energy saving, durability, compact size, and large capacity support up to 1T.

But the difference lies in the management of this memory ! When writing or reading in this memory or when downloading a file via high speed internet (5G), how does this file install itself in memory at the same download speed!. And also how to access a specific file in a large memory (1T) in a short time! Or use artificial intelligence to manage files.

       And also the execution speed of the operating system and the applications installed on this memory...etc.

All these operations  requires the use of a Controller to manage this memory, hence the emergence of so-called standards (eMMC, UFS, NVMe).

Storage Protocol Architecture (NVMe vs  UFS vs eMMC):

Here are the diagram of the operation of the three protocols used to manage NAND FLASH memory in smartphones.

UFS operation has many advantages such as simultaneous reading and writing at good speed, which made eMMC system stand out from the competition.

While NVMe operation is completely different with some complexity, it supports 64,000 commands per queue and up to 64,000 queues.

 These queues are designed so that I/O commands and responses (read write ..etc)  to those commands operate on the same processor core and can take advantage of the parallel processing capabilities of multicore processors.

which gives a large bandwidth and a very fast read and write speed that's where the name NVM Express comes from!.

For better understanding, you can imagine how NVMe works like the IDM downloader when downloading a large file as it splits it into several parts to speed up the download!

This is how the NVMe system distributes the tasks to each processor core to speed up the reading and writing in a NAND Flash Memory.

All Android Smartphones today use UFS internal storage, while Apple has modified the NVMe protocol to adapt to their needs and developed their own personalized PCI-E control.

so what contains iPhone is a unique revolutionary solution and has kept it secret , as Apple always does!.

List of Some Android Smartphones According to UFS Version and iPhone Internal Storage:

This table shows the date of each version with a list of some phones in which this version was used

Year	UFS	Phones
2011	1 .0	*
2012	1.1	*
2013	2.0	Galaxy  S6 (First UFS Phone).  Galaxy S7, ONE+ 3, Google Pixel XL
2016	2.1	Moto G60, Galaxy M31, Galaxy Note 10 Lite et Redmi Note 9 Pro.
2020	2.2	Redmi Note 11, Poco M4 Pro 5G, Xiaomi 11 Lite 5G NE et Infinix Note 10 Pro.
2018	3.0	Galaxy Note 20 Ultra, OnePlus 8 Pro, Huawei P40 Pro et Xiaomi Mi 10 5G.
2020	3.1	Galaxy S22, Galaxy S22+, Galaxy S22 Ultra, Xiaomi 12 Pro, OnePlus 9 Pro et Moto G200 5G.
2022	4.0	Galaxy S23 , Galaxy Z Fold 4,Galaxy Z Flip 4

As for Apple, it did not provide details on the NVMe internal storage version used on its iPhone.

only there is the type and brand of NAND Flash Memory!.

Here are some examples of internal storage used in some iPhones:

• iPhone Xs :                 SanDisk/Toshiba SDMPEGF18 256 GB NAND Flash . 
• iPhone 11 Pro Max :  Toshiba TSB4236 512GB NAND Flash.
• iPhone 12 Pro Max :   KIOXIA 128 GB NAND Flash 
• iPhone 13 Pro :           KIOXIA 256 GB NAND Flash

 

General Questions About The Internal Storage of Smartphones :

Who is the Fastest  Storage system NVMe(iPhone) or UFS(Android)?

NVMe is faster in random reads and writes than UFS, which makes the iPhone operating system very smooth and running applications quickly.
But for sequential speeds , the UFS is Faster, especially whene transferring large files like copy and paste.

Does iPhone support a microSD card for external storage and Why?

No, The iPhone only uses internal NAND Flash memory (NVMe), for several reasons (Security, Marketing, Non-compatibility of all microSDs on the market and most importantly is  Maintaining the speed of the system!).

Who Manufactures NAND flash memory for Android and iPhone?

There are 6  largest NAND flash memory manufacturers :

• Samsung 
• Kioxia (formerly Toshiba) 
• Micron Technology (Crucial) 
• Western Digital (SanDisk)
• SK Hynix 
• Intel 

Where is the Operating System Stored?

The operating system is stored in the internal storage of the phone (NAND FLASH).

Why in memory there are only numbers like 32Go,64Go,128Go,256Go,512Go,1T! and not 30 or 50, 200..etc?

it's because of the 8-bit architecture!

32 = 8X4

64 = 2X32 (8X8)

128=2X64 (8X16)

256=2x128(8X32)

..etc.

Is the internal phone storage built right into the SoC (Mobile Processor) with RAM or Not?

No,the Internal  storage is always separate from Processor (SoC),but the RAM is in the same box with the processor.

Why ANDROID smartphones do not use the NVMe system instead of UFS?

Because processors like (Snapdragon,Mediatek,Exynos..etc) don't support it.

Real Photos of the Internal Storage of some Smartphones:

Real photos for storage Memory inside two smartphone : Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra and Apple iPhone 13 Pro.