Optical Storage Technology Association memiawaikan sistem fail UDF untuk membentuk satu sistem fail biasa bagi semua media optik .Tujuannya adalah untuk membuat satu sistem fail biasa bagi media baca-sahaja dan media optik yang boleh ditulis semula. Ini masih lagi tujuan utma untuk pemiawain UDF yangmasih berlangsung, walaup menerusi sokongan bagi media WORM yang lebih selamat is about to be limited[petikan diperlukan], dan sokongan bagi bagi non-optik media boleh ditambah.

When first standardized, the UDF file system was intended to replace ISO 9660, allowing support for both read-only and writable media. Almost directly after the first version of UDF was released, it was adopted by the DVD Consortium as the official file system for DVD Video and DVD Audio. Nowadays, a UDF file system may be found on most authored optical discs in the market, and on almost all recordable DVD media that are used for video recording.

As intended, initially UDF operated mainly on optical media. Most operating systems needed special third-party software to support reading it. Nowadays, almost all operating systems natively support at least reading UDF file systems, and many support some form of writing as well. Because of this increased support, UDF is gaining popularity on non-optical media that mainly need to be exchangeable, such as Iomega REV discs, large flash media, and even on hard disk drives.