SD Association the trade organisation that create SD cards specifications has recently unveiled the latest rating system which will help users tell if the card is powerful enough for the mobile or not for application performance.

SD Card Specification 5.1 has established a new Application Performance Class that is engineered to run to mobile application with comparable performance to use phone's internal storage.

PC World report states that the Android Marshmallow brought support for adoptable storage, which will allow users to merge internal memory with the microSD card. But some users are annoyed by the cards which offer slower performance than the phone's hardware and most of the time it ends up slowing the performance of the phone, mostly gaming applications.

SD 5.1 offers a rating for App Performance Class 1, or A1. The cards that show this symbol will meet the following performance level.

1. Random Read Input-Output access Per Second of 1500

2. Write IOPS of 500

3. Sustained Sequential performance of 10MB/s

Now it would be easier to look for the following symbols on the packaging to ensure that the SD is compatible to the smartphone.

Many people would ask how they will benefit from this innovation, the answer is giant companies like Google, Samsung and many other are moving away with offering external storage support in their devices. Last year Google introduced external memory support through the Nexus Phones and now in the upcoming Pixel and even Galaxy S7 is lined up to have external SD card support. It's been a fine choice for storing photos and music but adding apps on the SD cards is a dicey proposition.

The new spec and labelling system will help the users make a better decision for their smartphone.