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microSD 32Gb class 6 and Galaxy S

I am thinking about purchasing a 32Gb microSD for use with my galaxy S.
My concern is that, is this too large? Are there any bad side effect like it being too slow to display picture/start up scann/run applications?

Which brand? That's probably more important for the speed than class (a class 2 Sandisk is often as fast or faster than a class 6 from a lesser brand).
The capacity of the card shouldn't affect the speed during most situations. However the phone does scan for media each time it is turned on or after disconnecting from USB connection (Kies or mass storage), the amount of time this takes depends on:
-the amount of media stored on the card and
-(probably) the read speed of the card.
Note that class rating is minimum write speed - so it's not a great indicator of real-life performance.
Also note that some too-cheap-to-be-true cards are actually smaller capacity cards that report larger capacities to fool the customer.
BTW where are you getting the card from (I want one as well ).

Hi flamingpitofhell,
I am looking at Sandisk as well and most likely get it from their online store. I am trying to find more information whether it is worth the trouble.

I don't think Sandisk sell class 6 cards (yet). Buying from their online store's also more expensive than online retailers (I can get one in Australia for AUD155, which is ~USD137, cf their RRP of USD200).

thanks for the pointer. will look around for local stores here in Thailand.
Which city in Australia are you in? I studied in Perth more than a decaded back.

I'm in glorious Melbourne mate, haven't been to Perth yet

the only LEGIT 32GB Sandisk available right now in the market is only Class 2
if you read anything else, it is FAKE, specially from eBay
wait until the other microSD manufactures start pushing out 32GB on class 4 or class 6 before buying.
i'm using 2x 16GB Class 6 until the 32GB class 6 becomes available.

I'm using Class 2 32GB card in mine, its fine.
Its slower when you're transferring to the card from your PC, but for most people thats only particularly problematic the first time (loading music collection), after that you'll not really notice a difference in the phone (the read speeds are basically the same, and the phone can neither read nor write to the card faster than a Class 2 card can cope with). You can see it in the benchmarks taken post-mimocans fix - Class 2 cards are no slower than any other Class within the phone.
Grab one now and be happy.

NZtechfreak said:
I'm using Class 2 32GB card in mine, its fine.
Grab one now and be happy.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Where did you get yours from and how much for. I`m interested in getting one myself.
Thanks

my local stores already carry the real Sandisk 32GB class 2
too slow for my taste, i like to run Apps from the SD card, also use it as a SWAP partidion to prevent the LAG problem people complains about, it's a very easy fix
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=724251

i wonder what would be better a 16gb class 6 or 32gb class 2...
is it worth sacrifising double of the memory for the speed?

onbacardi said:
i wonder what would be better a 16gb class 6 or 32gb class 2...
is it worth sacrifising double of the memory for the speed?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
it depends what you are trying to do
if it's just to listen to mp3, then Class 2 is fine
if you want to run games, software, watch movies, use it for SWAP drive to have no lag, then minimum a Class 6

Class ratings don't really seem to have too much of an effect on real world performance: http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=1468705. Just discount the last result from the SGS (it's most likely mistaken for the internal SD).

i rather trust my experience coming from PalmOS + WinMb where real life situations using a class 4 or slower cards, made a huge word of difference when launching applications from SD and watching movies from SD
funny enough the numbers reported on that topic shows SGS i9000 to have the fastest speed even using the same card that got lower speed on the other phones.
which seems to point out it's directly proportional to the CPU speed, and the multitasking software running in the back end.
however as you see on those test itself, there are speed differences between class 2, class 4 and class 6
the same class # can not be compared to another class # of a different size,
if you imagine a hard drive, the bigger the hard drive the more layers/disk area it has to read, the same is true even for static SD cards.
however as pointed on those test Transcend usually has the fastest SD cards in the market, that's why i always buy that brand for performance, using a 16GB Transcend myself, waiting for the 32 GB class 6+ to come out
Adata has 2 lines, the performance line, and the standard line
if you want speed get the performance SD cards
Kingston and Sandisk are mostly standard speed, they don't release much performance level SD cards anymore, but they do have lots of those on USB sticks.

I tried my Brothers Sandisk Class 2 32GB and it worked perfectly.
Granted it's not as fast as my Sandisk Mobile Ultra Class 4 but that card flies anyway.
Certainly for recording your large movie files taken with the camera it's no different in speed than using the built in SDCard on the phone.

I have no problems watching 720P video on my phone. I have no problems launching applications either.
So much misinformation...

of course there is no problem, the issue here is getting the top performance, any SD card will work just fine.
it's just a matter of how fast/slow are you able to torelate

The only time you will notice any difference in speed is when transferring data to and from the card.
However, when you have double the space of other cards to consider speed should not be a deciding factor.
I'm already looking to get the Sandisk Class 2 32GB card. It will store all of my work files normally kept on my Laptop.
My Sandisk Class 4 Mobile Ultra 16GB will be my spare ~ should the larger card fail...

Thanks for the information s everyone.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA App

I have the 32GB sandisk card and works perfect. I have a 720p mkv file and my music on there. Playback was superb for the video with no noticeable lag. Mind you the card isn't anywhere near full yet. From my limited knowledge of sd cards, they put data on the fastest part first so the fuller it gets the slower the card is likely to get..
My plan is to put movies and songs on the 32GB file and reserve the internal 13GB for capturing video and taking pictures on the phone.

Disappointing results : 32Gb Class4 Kingston vs Sandisk 16Gb Class 2 microSD

I'm sorry to report that I've returned the Kingston Class 4 32Gb microSD card for its failure to perform.
Performance writing to this Kingston card (from a desktop PC, card in either the N1, or the PC's card reader) was ~820KB/Sec
Writing the same data files to a Sandisk Class 2 16Gb card I achieved > 1.5MB/sec - i.e. approx twice as fast.
(PC is Acer Quad core 2.6Ghz jobbie with 8Gb RAM running Windows 7)
I found it really hard to get 4MB/sec out of the Kingston card - and only achieved it with 1 of the test options on CrystalMark. (write 1Gb sequential files)
When I tried this test with the 16Gb Sandisk class 2 card I got 10MB/sec. Clearly the SanDisk isn't a class 10 card - so I'm guessing the Crystal benchmark test isn't completely appropriate for SD card writers!.
I supplied Kingston with the packaging details / photos etc and they confirmed that it IS a real Kingston class 4 card. They agreed that performance should be better. LamndaTek clearly agreed too - after they received my return and tested it they gave me a full refund. (32Gb £83.66 (Inc VAT)). (Many thanks guys)
I guess the card was faulty.. but I might just be placing my trust in Sandisk now, as I've never had any problems with their cards.
I just thought that you all should know..
Graham

did you test it with a card adaptor or from the nexus one?
Also, if you're writing hundreds of small files vs one large file it makes a difference.

I think it was just a defective card.
Even the POS 32Gb cards floating around out there write at faster than 800kb/sec mb/sec.

SanDisk suck!
I will never buy any sandisk flash,sd card, micro again.. they have the worst CS i have ever delt with.. THey stand on their High Horse thinking their **** dont stink just because they said they only have a 1% defective rate.. which is crap if you ask me.. i went through some many defective flash drives used as keeping files on them and music to play in my scion xb.. So pretty much they told me i was mis using the device.. so i told them i would never buy from them..
so Kingston all the way now. they have the best CS i have ever delt with.. good day!

mynameisjon said:
did you test it with a card adaptor or from the nexus one?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I tested it with both options - the supplied adaptor - and also in the Nexus 1 - couldn't get it faster that I quoted, in any combination. Even tried a reformat - still no good.
Also, if you're writing hundreds of small files vs one large file it makes a difference.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It was a mixture of file sizes for the main copy, i.e. the contents of the 16Gb drive over to the 32Gb drive. About 14Gb were music files which come in at about 4Mb each.
As the other guys said above Kingston customer services were very responsive once they identified the card as genuine.. but LambdaTek were even more so.
I've still never had a Sandisk product give me an error though (I have 3 cards from them)
G.

I've used SanDisk for years without issue. Also been extremely happy with Lexar. Kingston, on the other hand, has been a complete letdown to me! A couple years ago, I bought a 4gb class 6 Kingston card for my digital camera. I didn't run any controlled benchmarks, but real-world use showed only about 2-3mb/sec transfer rates, which I thought was kind of slow. Also, as I was using a card reader instead of just plugging my camera in every time I needed to move pictures, the card was constantly being moved between devices. This proved fatal to the card, as the cheap plastic began to come apart. Never ever have I seen that happen to *any* SD card, even the cheap no-name ones! It started with the little tabs between each of the contacts, but didn't take long before the top and bottom of the card had begun to split. After a few months, the Kingston card was no good - all because of a disappointing casing. I wasn't rough with the card - I didn't treat this card any differently than others. In fact, I still have a 64mb SanDisk card from several years ago that's still going strong (great for sharing some jpgs, docs, etc.) So it might be worthwhile staying away from Kingston altogether...
Brands I've been happy with:
SanDisk
Lexar
Duracell
Transcend
Brands I've been disappointed with:
Kingston

so what is the deal with the N1 and its SD card speed?
i have a Transcend 8gb Class 6 card, i bought it for my G1 and recently got a N1.
on my G1 i would get an as expected 6 mb/sec or better copying files to/from it. in the N1 its never much more than 2mb/sec at most. this is apparently just when copying files via usb though
i just ran the app j bench mark 1.0.
when set to 10mb (2kb buffer) the default and lowest test setting i get
1.5mb sec write 2.5mb sec read
when set to 100mb (8km buffer) i get
6.16 mb/sec write
10.34 mb/sec read
so clearly internally the phone can and does handle the card at full speed but connected to PC's it does not.
and before anyone says it yeah i know just use a card reader to transfer large files.. whatever shouldn't need to do that imho
(megabytes not bits i am quoting here, i know the difference)

I have sandisk 16gb class 2 and under android 2.2 I gоt 1.5 mb/s and under android 2.1 I gоt 7-8 mb/s

gf_gollum said:
I'm sorry to report that I've returned the Kingston Class 4 32Gb microSD card for its failure to perform.
Performance writing to this Kingston card (from a desktop PC, card in either the N1, or the PC's card reader) was ~820KB/Sec
Writing the same data files to a Sandisk Class 2 16Gb card I achieved > 1.5MB/sec - i.e. approx twice as fast.
(PC is Acer Quad core 2.6Ghz jobbie with 8Gb RAM running Windows 7)
I found it really hard to get 4MB/sec out of the Kingston card - and only achieved it with 1 of the test options on CrystalMark. (write 1Gb sequential files)
When I tried this test with the 16Gb Sandisk class 2 card I got 10MB/sec. Clearly the SanDisk isn't a class 10 card - so I'm guessing the Crystal benchmark test isn't completely appropriate for SD card writers!.
I supplied Kingston with the packaging details / photos etc and they confirmed that it IS a real Kingston class 4 card. They agreed that performance should be better. LamndaTek clearly agreed too - after they received my return and tested it they gave me a full refund. (32Gb £83.66 (Inc VAT)). (Many thanks guys)
I guess the card was faulty.. but I might just be placing my trust in Sandisk now, as I've never had any problems with their cards.
I just thought that you all should know..
Graham
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Had the same problem... RMA'd it with newegg and the replacement comes in tomorrow... I hold out hope.

Sandisk more me, no problem so far

My replacement Kingston class 4 holds out class 2 speeds on write of large files, less than that on write of small files. Blazingly slow on write, but faster on read than my class 6 8gb sandisk...
All in all... I can live with it for now...

The article below is an interesting read regarding Kingston and the sdcard market in general.
http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=918

SD read/write speed causing lag on my HD2 but...

So I downloaded this app call H2testw.exe to test for legit sdcards but it also tells the read/write speed as well. I am testing my 8gb and 1gb cards. I set it to write a 300 mb files to the card and verify it.
Info about Android running on the two cards:
8gb = lags coming out of sleep, touch screen freezes, write~7.5 mb/s, read~12mb/s
1gb = no lags, no touch screen, write~4.3mb, read~13mb/s
I'm confused. The read speed is almost the same yet the 1gb microsd is more responsive running MDJ android compared to the 8gb microsd. Any thought?
UPDATE: Maybe this is what's causing the problem. Stolen from Engadget.
What we've learned from our tipsters and from documents culled from Microsoft, Samsung, and others is that the big issue is random access performance -- a figure that isn't taken into account in a card's class rating. Ironically, Microsoft discovered in its testing that cards with higher class ratings actually performed worse on Windows Phone 7 because the tweaks card manufacturers make to achieve high sequential throughput can actually hurt random access times. There's some rocket science involved here, but basically, it's a tradeoff and a bit of a gamble -- if a manufacturer tunes a card for a high class rating, it takes more time to access the first byte at a new location on the card because it's optimizing access for that area of memory, but once it does that, it can blast sequential bytes at very high speed. If you've got a lot of small reads or writes you need to make to different files at different locations in the card's memory, though, you really start to suffer. Cards with lower class ratings tend to spend less time optimizing sequential access prior to the first read / write operation, so it can move around the card (that is, access it randomly) much faster.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Source:
http://www.engadget.com/2010/11/17/windows-phone-7s-microsd-mess-the-full-story-and-how-nokia-ca/

They are probably different classes, plus it naturally takes longer with a bigger card because there's more files and more space to read and write
Sent from my HD2 Nexus One using XDA App

I get screen freezes with 8gb and up but rarely with new builds, haven't tried a card higher than class 6
Also I'm on radio 2.15
Sent from my HD2 Nexus One using XDA App

Oddly enough, I have two 8gb cards, one class 4 the other class 6, and they hiccup more than my 16gb class 2.
Now that is weird.

I'm lost myself...I'm thinking off just getting me a 4gb card and hope for the best...

I heard the 16gb class 10 is perfect but it still cost to much for nand to be around the corner
Sent from my HD2 Nexus One using XDA App

16 gb class 10 no lag cost me over 100 pounds tho
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App

Cheapest 16GB - lags from time to time :/
Maybe defragmentation may help?

tomus said:
Cheapest 16GB - lags from time to time :/
Maybe defragmentation may help?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Defrag wont help...scan for errors...try to have only the android folder and see if it makes a different ..

Btw, guys...
all sd cards are not created equal. all sd cards of the same CLASS are not created equal.
Check out the ongoing drama with win7 phones with SD slots....
class measures throughput, what affects the SOD and related issues is random access speed, not throughput so much.

It's just my 2 cents, but I've tested Class 2, 4, and 6 MicroSDHC cards and found very little noticeable difference once Android is fully booted up and running on the HD2. Moreover, none of the cards create screen freezes or SOD issues or high battery drain problems here. That said, I have noticed that the actual boot time and file transfer speed (from the PC to the card) can be faster on average with quality higher class rated cards of the same size. Also, I've found that the larger the card size, the longer the android boot time, no matter the class. Guess that makes sense, as the system need to read more sectors with larger size cards. Please note that I've only tested Sandisk, Toshiba, TopRam and Samsung cards to date. What's kind of strange is that the Class 2 16 & 32GB Sandisk cards run just as well or slightly better for some reason than some of my higher class rated cards. Go figure...
As far as issues go, I recommend only using quality brand name cards, no ebay fakes or cheap no name brands. Also, I've had great luck formatting all my cards with SD Formatter v2.0 and v3.0, using the quick format mode with the standard 32kb cluster size.
Best to all,
R

rhacy said:
It's just my 2 cents, but I've tested Class 2, 4, and 6 MicroSDHC cards and found very little noticeable difference once Android is fully booted up and running on the HD2. Moreover, none of the cards create screen freezes or SOD issues or high battery drain problems here. That said, I have noticed that the actual boot time and file transfer speed (from the PC to the card) can be faster on average with quality higher class rated cards of the same size. Also, I've found that the larger the card size, the longer the android boot time, no matter the class. Guess that makes sense, as the system need to read more sectors with larger size cards. Please note that I've only tested Sandisk, Toshiba, TopRam and Samsung cards to date. What's kind of strange is that the Class 2 16 & 32GB Sandisk cards run just as well or slightly better for some reason than some of my higher class rated cards. Go figure...
As far as issues go, I recommend only using quality brand name cards, no ebay fakes or cheap no name brands. Also, I've had great luck formatting all my cards with SD Formatter v2.0 and v3.0, using the quick format mode with the standard 32kb cluster size.
Best to all,
R
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Great info here. I think I will just order me a new card from a reputable brand. Maybe my card is just getting old. Maybe a 16gb from Amazon will do. They aren't too expensive nowaday. ~$26.

Does the Radio version effects the lag of the sd card? Or the kernel?

distruct said:
Does the Radio version effects the lag of the sd card? Or the kernel?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No, not on the sd but radio does effect how the build will run, your phone calls, your battery.

Could this be the reason why class don't matter on hd2 android? I mean even some class 4 & 6 have lag and sod problem. I pulled this bit from engadget. It's an article on wp7 and memory card issues.
What we've learned from our tipsters and from documents culled from Microsoft, Samsung, and others is that the big issue is random access performance -- a figure that isn't taken into account in a card's class rating. Ironically, Microsoft discovered in its testing that cards with higher class ratings actually performed worse on Windows Phone 7 because the tweaks card manufacturers make to achieve high sequential throughput can actually hurt random access times. There's some rocket science involved here, but basically, it's a tradeoff and a bit of a gamble -- if a manufacturer tunes a card for a high class rating, it takes more time to access the first byte at a new location on the card because it's optimizing access for that area of memory, but once it does that, it can blast sequential bytes at very high speed. If you've got a lot of small reads or writes you need to make to different files at different locations in the card's memory, though, you really start to suffer. Cards with lower class ratings tend to spend less time optimizing sequential access prior to the first read / write operation, so it can move around the card (that is, access it randomly) much faster.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Source:
http://www.engadget.com/2010/11/17/windows-phone-7s-microsd-mess-the-full-story-and-how-nokia-ca/

azzzz said:
Could this be the reason why class don't matter on hd2 android? I mean even some class 4 & 6 have lag and sod problem. I pulled this bit from engadget. It's an article on wp7 and memory card issues.
Source:
http://www.engadget.com/2010/11/17/windows-phone-7s-microsd-mess-the-full-story-and-how-nokia-ca/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Obviously.
Been saying this for a while, myself - I have experimented, and I get SOD every time with my 16gb class 6 card, but rarely with my class 2 8gb, and never ever (and, tbh, better responsiveness overall) with my 2gb NON-HC card

enneract said:
Obviously.
Been saying this for a while, myself - I have experimented, and I get SOD every time with my 16gb class 6 card, but rarely with my class 2 8gb, and never ever (and, tbh, better responsiveness overall) with my 2gb NON-HC card
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I hope so...my class 2 16gb will be here in a couple of days...i hope it's faster than my current 8gb class 4....
Update: my 16gb class 2 sandisk is here. Things have improved alot. Wake up is faster now with less lag, market download speed is faster now (10kb vs 100kb). Hopefully system performance will be better...

[Q] SD Card Worth It?

I am going to pick one of these up, but before I did, had a quick question (anyone with a WP7 can answer)
Do you feel that 8gb is enough space? Or do you wish you had more? Should I get an SD Card?

Most definitely. I have loaded most of my music and a few videos and I already used over 6GB. That's pretty much all the stock phone has. Now, I have over 14GB still left. Might put some movies on it.

My only disappointment in the focus is the 8GB stock NAND. For a $199 on contract device, 16GB really should be the minimum, especially considering a few other WP7 phones, to say nothing of Android phones and the iPhone, all start at $199 with 16GB.
That said, adding the SD card isn't that big a deal as long as you do it before you've filled the device up. For some reason there seems to be no ability to do a full backup of the phone by any means I've been able to find.

The problem with the SD Cards is that there's intense confusion/miscommunication about which cards work well. Just because it works with 6GB doesn't mean anything. What seems to happen is once you get to 8GB filled, the phone's performance takes a nose-dive, sometimes leading to losing all data.

"Enough space" depends on you, not us. I have an iPhone, iPad and iPod, all 16GB units, each with some 14GB or so of music & apps on them so it the first thing I did when I brought the Focus home was slap an 8GB card in there, format it and load it up. I have maybe 2GB free and it's worked without a single glitch for the past two weeks. For reference, mine is a Sandisk class 2. People seem to have problems with cards other than Sandisk and other than class 2 and I noticed absolutely no performance problems so if you're going to try it, try that and keep the receipt in case you need to return or swap it should something go sour.

Enough Space?
I agree with Mark, whether there is enough space or not really depends on what your usage requirements are.
I had a 32GB Zune and when I bought my Samsung Focus the Zune had over 20GB of data on it. So for me adding and 32GB SD card to the Focus was not only a desire but a very strong selling point for the Phone.
And yes, I am seeing a few issues with the Sandisk Card that is in it. Currently they are not enough to make me yank the Card because I (again) bought the device to specifically be a convergence device for myself and I am at heart a tester and tinkerer so figuring how exactly how WP7 works.doesn't work with an SD Card and the statement that MS and Samsung are working on a fix is enough for me right now.
Smaller Sized Cards seem to be more reliable than larger cards (not to mention less expensive) but that appears to anecdotal evidence as well. My 32GB Sandisk only causes freezes and resets when on Battery for example and I've not had anyone else confirm if they are seeing the same.
Not great answers but, hey, this is the fun of learning as we go along...
- MEK

FishFaceMcGee said:
The problem with the SD Cards is that there's intense confusion/miscommunication about which cards work well. Just because it works with 6GB doesn't mean anything. What seems to happen is once you get to 8GB filled, the phone's performance takes a nose-dive, sometimes leading to losing all data.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have more than 11GB on my Focus with no issues at all. No slow-downs, no hiccups, no data loss period. I am currently using a PNY 16GB Class 2 card. I previously had a Centon 8GB Class 6 card with the same results.
If you read the thread on MicroSD cards, it seems there are some cards that have been working pretty much flawlessly. Both of the cards I mentioned have worked perfectly for me. I gave the 8GB to a friend and he is using it in his Focus as well.

For me, to really make a portable phone/audio/video device be best for me it would need at least 150GB of storage... and a few TB if i wanted to listen to music lossless and a few movies.

MKohlman said:
I agree with Mark, whether there is enough space or not really depends on what your usage requirements are.
I had a 32GB Zune and when I bought my Samsung Focus the Zune had over 20GB of data on it. So for me adding and 32GB SD card to the Focus was not only a desire but a very strong selling point for the Phone.
And yes, I am seeing a few issues with the Sandisk Card that is in it. Currently they are not enough to make me yank the Card because I (again) bought the device to specifically be a convergence device for myself and I am at heart a tester and tinkerer so figuring how exactly how WP7 works.doesn't work with an SD Card and the statement that MS and Samsung are working on a fix is enough for me right now.
Smaller Sized Cards seem to be more reliable than larger cards (not to mention less expensive) but that appears to anecdotal evidence as well. My 32GB Sandisk only causes freezes and resets when on Battery for example and I've not had anyone else confirm if they are seeing the same.
Not great answers but, hey, this is the fun of learning as we go along...
- MEK
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You know, I was thinking about this the other day...the phone has 8GB of internal memory and if you put in an SD card it stripes data across it and the internal memory. If the card is 8GB or smaller that's fine but what happens if the SD card is larger than internal memory? It doesn't stripe the first 8GB and set the rest up as another partition and it does appear to use but it can't be striped. Now you've mentioned that smaller sized cards work better and my 8GB card works perfectly. I wonder if the file system's attempt to work with a larger card is inherently unstable? I know that if you put two different sized drives in a Windows box and stripe across them you will only end up with double the size of the smallest drive, not the actual sum of the two. Might be an interesting poll...indicate the size of your SD card and if the phone has been 100% stable since inserting it.

markgamber said:
You know, I was thinking about this the other day...the phone has 8GB of internal memory and if you put in an SD card it stripes data across it and the internal memory. If the card is 8GB or smaller that's fine but what happens if the SD card is larger than internal memory? It doesn't stripe the first 8GB and set the rest up as another partition and it does appear to use but it can't be striped. Now you've mentioned that smaller sized cards work better and my 8GB card works perfectly. I wonder if the file system's attempt to work with a larger card is inherently unstable? I know that if you put two different sized drives in a Windows box and stripe across them you will only end up with double the size of the smallest drive, not the actual sum of the two. Might be an interesting poll...indicate the size of your SD card and if the phone has been 100% stable since inserting it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not totally convinced based on comments in blogs that the disks are "striped". I think a lot of people are saying this and maybe using the term out of context and everyone just keeps using it. Has Microsoft actually come out to say "WP7 performs RAID 0 configuration"? For a phone OS which was never intended to see anything other than a single drive, don't you think throwing a RAID controller in there just for kicks is a little absurd?
The other term is "span" and if I had money, I'd bet that the two disks were spanned as a single partition, as opposed to striping like RAID 0 does.
Despite all of that, I have tried a 16gb class 4 with more issues than I cared for and currently have an 8gb class 4 with negligible issues. Any card you get, I'd run on Vista/Windows 7 and test for ReadyBoost. That at least tests the card for random access speed, which is important. My 16gb failed readyboost and had lots of issues in my Focus, whereas the 8gb passed and the only issues I've seen with that one are issues that other people might have experienced on their own phones sans sd card.

hyperzulu said:
I'm not totally convinced based on comments in blogs that the disks are "striped". I think a lot of people are saying this and maybe using the term out of context and everyone just keeps using it. Has Microsoft actually come out to say "WP7 performs RAID 0 configuration"? For a phone OS which was never intended to see anything other than a single drive, don't you think throwing a RAID controller in there just for kicks is a little absurd?
The other term is "span" and if I had money, I'd bet that the two disks were spanned as a single partition, as opposed to striping like RAID 0 does.
Despite all of that, I have tried a 16gb class 4 with more issues than I cared for and currently have an 8gb class 4 with negligible issues. Any card you get, I'd run on Vista/Windows 7 and test for ReadyBoost. That at least tests the card for random access speed, which is important. My 16gb failed readyboost and had lots of issues in my Focus, whereas the 8gb passed and the only issues I've seen with that one are issues that other people might have experienced on their own phones sans sd card.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've read both, striped and spanned...who knows. Considering how slow SD memory always was in old WinMo devices, I didn't think it absurd to stripe data to provide the same kind of speed boost you get when striping hard drives. Hard as it might be to believe, it may have just been that WinMo was slow. I hadn't thought of the readyboost test, that's a good idea. Readyboost is pretty picky.

[Q] MicroSD Suggestions

Do you use a MicroSD? What kind? I'm shopping for one and can use some suggestions... From cheap to expensive... Preferably cheap (;
16gb or 32gb
Class rating, I'm not sure. Are there any consideration for this on the tablet?
Ordering from NewEgg so if you have a link for one there, post'em.

Don't go too cheap. With stuff like this you do get what you pay for to some extent.
Sandisk, Patriot, Kingston, PNY, Sony etc are all brands I've had luck with. At present I've got a 16GB PNY. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820178378
I got it for a higher price a while back, but no problems here in my Gtablet, A500, PC or either of my 2 laptops, one of which runs Debian 6.0

I get mine from Amazon, since I get free 2 day shipping with Amazon Prime. Picked up a Sandisk for a little over $56.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003WGJYCY

Is there a difference between SD and SDHC? And what about class?

Heres what im looking at-
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820220547&Tpk=microsd
2x32gb for 80'ish which seems like a good deal to me considering 1 goes for near 70... or am i reading that wrong... wife could use one for her hand me down archos 101.

gammaRascal said:
Is there a difference between SD and SDHC? And what about class?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
SD is limited to 2GB, SDHC was the newer standard, supporting up to 32GB. SDXC is the newest, but I don't think there is a micro form factor yet and I don't imagine our devices have SDXC controllers in them. I may boycott SDXC for using proprietary exFAT as the recommended filesystem too.
Class is a speed based thing. Class = minimum write speed in MB/s(technically a multiple of 8Mbps). So Class 2 = 2MB/s. Class 10 = 10MB/s. Write speeds. Keep in mind reads will be faster usually.

Awesome, thanks for that concise explanation.
Does the tablet have a maximum class rating? Will it bottleneck on class 10? I'm looking at the class 6 as a minimum.

Well, maybe class 4... I just want to store my music on it and have it as some extra storage. Class 4 should be fast enough, eh? I wont be moving apps to it - ill keep those on the primary storage. But for playing music, accessing pictures, class 4 seems like it would fast enough for that.
Thoughts?

Folks,
Also, I have been using SDHC's and microSDHCs for a while now and it
has been my experience that sometimes there a little incompatibilities.
Even good brands sometimes don't seem to work for some reason.
I'm saying, pick your best choice, but that doesn't GUARANTEE it
will work. Need a little good fortune also!!!
Rev

Okay, I'm ordering:
Kingston 16GB Micro SDHC Flash Card w/USB Reader Model MRG2+SDC4/16GB
$32.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820139195&cm_re=microsd-_-20-139-195-_-Product

I wouldn't pay any extra for anything beyond class 6 or so for a tablet. If a 10 was on special for a really good price maybe, or if you shared it with a camera that needed a class 10 maybe get one.
I suppose we could port hdparm or bonnie to our tabs and run it from adb shell or busybox and see if different class cards got different rates.

I got my SD card a few days ago - the one I linked to two posts up.
Plugged it in (has a usb sleeve) and moved a few songs onto it, put it in the tablet, started the tab, started Google Music and it saw them all. Shut down, moved about 8 gig of music onto the card, plugged it back into the tab, booted, launched Music, took a few seconds but it saw them all, played some and everything is golden.
I'll check in if I ever have any issues.
Thanks for the help folks!

I realize you already got your card, but figured I'd throw in one extra piece of info in the event that anyone stumbles upon this thread in a search at a later date.
You asked a question about class and an early poster provided some great info about what SD card classes mean. I think it's important to note that the class you need depends on the intended usage of the card. High speed cards (those with high class ratings) are most important for applications that require you to write large amounts of data in short amounts of time. The best example of this is photography. Rapidly taking high resolution images requires that a ton of data be written to a storage medium very quickly. As such, you'll see class ten cards in a lot of cameras.
If you intend to do things like store documents, music, etc. on the card - primarily for consumption - you don't need high speed.
One thing to note - if you write to the card a bunch (throw a few new hd movies on there every couple days) you will appreciate a better write speed. Also, picking up a higher speed card means that it can be used for a number of different applications (sharing with a camera for example). Given that there often is only a slight difference in price between a low speed and a higher speed it's usually a better deal to get a higher speed card (the flexibility and time savings are worth a few extra dollars).

Good info. Thanks for chiming in!

just a small FYI ...
with froyo ... SDcard IS SDcard & you can APP2SD or used what I have sworn by -->> MOD INSTALL LOCATION ( in phone forums )...etc
Now.. we have HONEYCOMB... and it partition a little differently. ( although I believed it's the manufacturers that have the final saying... based on the comparision between the Acer & the Asus )
the 2 read your physical SDcard like this:
Asus -->> REMOVABLE
Acer -->> EXT microSD
Your EXT SDcard is only good for storing data/medias ...etc ( currently apps cannot be install on the physical card.
your whole internal is actually partitioned into 2 areas
/ 1 small part for the OS/ROM ..etc
/ the LEFTOVER is actually read as THE SDcard !!!
use a file manager and explore the directories structure to see what I mean !!
so ... 2 future solutions:
1/ XDA DEVs will find a way to let us install to a preferred location. ( and they will !!... in due time )
2/ application developers just have to write their new programs to accommodate Honeycomb ..etc