Develop Bugs

Best microSDHC card

Hello!
I want to buy new microSDHC card to my phone and I'm wondering which one is the best.
There are three priorities for me:
- SDHC
- 4GB
- minimum class 6
I found TRANSCEND microSDHC 4GB Class 6 and SILICON POWER 4GB microSDHC CLASS 6. Which one is better? Or maybe you advice something else?

THere is a lot of disscussion about this in this forum. Please search

Sometimes it's hard to find sth when does not speak the native english. Can you please give me the link to this discussion or just post the answer?

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=553412&highlight=sdhc
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=416866&highlight=sdhc
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=493247&highlight=sdhc

Thanks! I've already studied thread nr 1 and 3 and nothing special there. Number 2 is 16GB and 32GB - I need just 4GB and not for WM but for Linux (ext4 and maybe one fat32 partition on it).

well if it's a pda device then it's interface cant keep up with even the normal card speeds
so high speed cards only really matter when you have it connected to a card reader connected to a computer

Rudegar said:
well if it's a pda device then it's interface cant keep up with even the normal card speeds
so high speed cards only really matter when you have it connected to a card reader connected to a computer
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So it's better to buy class 4 but 8GB that 4GB class 6?

i have not seen any difference personally between 4 & 6. so go for highest capacity.
i have used quite a few brands and all my cards now are sandisk. None of them have given me a problem.
most important thimg regarding performance is to make sure that its genunine. more than 85% of cards sold these days are duplicate.

michal_banszel said:
Thanks! I've already studied thread nr 1 and 3 and nothing special there. Number 2 is 16GB and 32GB - I need just 4GB and not for WM but for Linux (ext4 and maybe one fat32 partition on it).
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I don't know jack about linux or 'rooting' onto an sd card, but if I were going to do it, I would make sure that I got the highest quality card available. I've corrupted my 16 G card too many times (mostly my fault, lol) to trust it for running linux off of it. Get something hardy that won't become corrupted, like if the device freezes and you need to reset it. My guess is that you're better off with a smaller card (like the 4 GB one). I'd stay away from a big one if you don't need it.
Basically, it's a huge PITA when your card becomes hopelessly corrupted and you need to back it up and re-format it. I imagine it's a nightmare when your operating system is running off of said card when it becomes corrupted.

Farmer Ted said:
I don't know jack about linux or 'rooting' onto an sd card, but if I were going to do it, I would make sure that I got the highest quality card available. I've corrupted my 16 G card too many times (mostly my fault, lol) to trust it for running linux off of it. Get something hardy that won't become corrupted, like if the device freezes and you need to reset it. My guess is that you're better off with a smaller card (like the 4 GB one). I'd stay away from a big one if you don't need it.
Basically, it's a huge PITA when your card becomes hopelessly corrupted and you need to back it up and re-format it. I imagine it's a nightmare when your operating system is running off of said card when it becomes corrupted.
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That's right!
"most important thimg regarding performance is to make sure that its genunine. more than 85% of cards sold these days are duplicate."
what do you mean? TRANSCEND and SILICON POWER are genuine?

on my purpose,there ARE differences between class 4 and class 6 ,but there are to small differences in speed to pay the double price...I just using class2 Devices (on 3 PDA Phones,2 NDS and an PSP),i never felt there are to slow,yeah on PSP you really fell the difference between an MemoryStick Pro MkII and an Class2 Toshiba MicroSDHC,but for me personally it does not matter -the most of People buy Great Capacity Drives for Media Files right ? ....and Media Files like Movies,Mp3´s etc. running well on Class2 Cards!

Excuse me to say that...but SanDisk Sucks!
a lot of the Sandisk card have Chips from China
(i Don´t know on Class 4 or 6 Cards,but Class2 Card from Sandisk always have Chinese Chips....and there bullsh...)
Japanese Chips (like Cards from Kingston and Toshiba) are a lot better on speed and are a lot more reliable than Chinese Chips
I made my Experiences ,never by SanDisk....
just every Media Market have SanDisk- but that doesn´t mean there are really good..
I have Cards from Siemens,SanDisk,Kingston,Nokia,Toshiba and Motorola (Nokia,Siemens and Motorola are OEM- so i don´t know who produced them)) I have over 20! Cards between 64mb and 16gb---yeah and San Disk are the worst ..dood!
and there IS a Difference between Class4 and 6 Cards,but i think personally there are to less to pay the double Price for it
I have 3 PDA ,2 NDS and an PSP,all of them has Class 2 Cards and i never felt that there are to slow...most of the Devices on the market are to slow to feel the REAL Power of an Class6 Card!

Sd card upgrade problem

So I recently ordered a 16 GB micro sd card off Amazon since I've been using my MT4G for music and leaving my ipod at home, and wanted to bump up my capacity. Anyway, it's a Patriot Class 4 card, and I'm having some trouble. I inserted it into the phone, and selected 'format sd card' from settings, did it, but when I mounted sd card via usb to transfer files, it was going SO SLOW. Like, 50 minutes to transfer 200 MB or so. So...my question is, is there something I'm supposed to have done and didn't do? Or is it a bad card, or what? Because my 8 GB stock card was only class 4, and was MUCH faster.
Thanks for any insight!

Try using windows to format it using the default allocation size. I have seen some talk in the "32gig class 10" thread that doing this really sped up the transfer speeds of the cards over what you get when letting the phone format it.
Good luck.

rrrjr said:
Try using windows to format it using the default allocation size. I have seen some talk in the "32gig class 10" thread that doing this really sped up the transfer speeds of the cards over what you get when letting the phone format it.
Good luck.
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Thanks for the help. I'm really unsure about what to do, been searching and can't really figure out if the card is bad or if I haven't formatted it correctly. Unfortunately, I'm on a macbook, so don't use Windows. Usually, there is a mac equivalent for anything windows can do, so I'll see what my options are. It's just driving me crazy, because it'll take DAYS to transfer all my music lol. Not sure why no one else has jumped in to help me out. Either no one knows anything about it, or it's such an obvious answer that I'm embarrassing myself. Either way, I'd love to hear which it is so I know how f-ed I am.

sunsean said:
Thanks for the help. I'm really unsure about what to do, been searching and can't really figure out if the card is bad or if I haven't formatted it correctly. Unfortunately, I'm on a macbook, so don't use Windows. Usually, there is a mac equivalent for anything windows can do, so I'll see what my options are. It's just driving me crazy, because it'll take DAYS to transfer all my music lol. Not sure why no one else has jumped in to help me out. Either no one knows anything about it, or it's such an obvious answer that I'm embarrassing myself. Either way, I'd love to hear which it is so I know how f-ed I am.
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try doing a full format instead of a quick format with windows.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00413PF6G
I ordered that card last week and had the same issue you had. Max of like 2mbs transfer whether I mounted it through the MyTouch 4G USB, Included adapter or my USB card reader. I tried the panasonic formatting tool and half the time it would kill my card reader or just fail. Messed with it for like 4 days and couldn't find anything that helped. Must be a incompatibility, It was returned and I just received a Transcend 16gb Class 4. Transfer average 4-6mb depending if it's a large file or tons of smaller files.

sunsean said:
So I recently ordered a 16 GB micro sd card off Amazon since I've been using my MT4G for music and leaving my ipod at home, and wanted to bump up my capacity. Anyway, it's a Patriot Class 4 card, and I'm having some trouble. I inserted it into the phone, and selected 'format sd card' from settings, did it, but when I mounted sd card via usb to transfer files, it was going SO SLOW. Like, 50 minutes to transfer 200 MB or so. So...my question is, is there something I'm supposed to have done and didn't do? Or is it a bad card, or what? Because my 8 GB stock card was only class 4, and was MUCH faster.
Thanks for any insight!
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Click to collapse
I've done alot of testing for sd cards and android because i had similar issues with my patriot SD card and I've found that a 32K cluster sizes gives great speeds. Only time you really need smaller is if u are using a actual hard disk or if your average file size are around 3-10 Kb but with mp3 and most other files being around 3-10Mb you lose alot of and speed as a result of having smaller clusters.
Now say u use maverick maps and have cached over several million tiles all of which are 1kb each then use a smaller cluster size to save space or those millions of 1k tiles could fill a entire 8 gig card as opposed to actual size of 700Mb but it will take a horrendously long time to transfer to those card. so its a trade off.
So bottom line use a 32k allocation table. It will give you good optimization of space and speed.

I have also found that formatting the sd card with the phone rather than with my mac also causes slow transfer rates so I format all my sd cards on my mac (or pc) before putting them in my phone. Transfer rates are much quicker that way.

I have Kingston 16gb class 10 and I would only average 1-2mb/s when copying files over.
I reformatted in via Windows to a few different cluster sizes and did some testing with my phone.
For my usage I went with a 64k cluster size. My copy speeds to the card average 13mb/s. I don't really store small files on the card so I'm not worried about excessive space use right now.

What is difference in SD card classes

Ok I have an Acer Iconia a500, currently I have only a 6gb card installed. Now when i look online i see that the micro sd cards are rated by classes. What is that for?
I need a 32gb for my Iconia. I do alot of school work from it. Just want the storage for my school books. any way, can someone break it down for me?
Thank You
Sent from my A500 using XDA Premium App

The SD card's class represents the least write speed.
Class 2: 2MB/s
class 4 : 4MB/s
and so on..

I think it's so you can copy and read files faster

ok, got it, higher the class the faster the write speed.
One more thing, now, the higher the class, does anyone know if they have more problems? like with crashing, or having to be re formatted often?

primus123 said:
ok, got it, higher the class the faster the write speed.
One more thing, now, the higher the class, does anyone know if they have more problems? like with crashing, or having to be re formatted often?
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Nope, problems/crashing etc would be down to quality not size.
Also faster write speed doesn't mean it performs faster when used as a "hard drive" like in a phone, so lower class ones can outperform higher, but you'd have to try them to see.
It's because they're designed with things like cameras in mind, where getting the image saved quickly so you can take another one is the most important thing.
In a mobile phone/tablet they're accessed more randomly, and that is where it's been found that some higher class cards don't perform as well.

Mini SD cards, so tiny for my big hands.
Those mini sd cards are SOOOOO small, I've lost a few over the past 3 years.

so which one should i get for my iconia

androidappdeveloper said:
Those mini sd cards are SOOOOO small, I've lost a few over the past 3 years.
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Tell me about it, I just reordered one after giving up the search on my current one. It's not completely lost, I'll probably come across it one day when re-organizing the room.

I keep mine in those Sd card cases and shove it in a crown royal bag....

You're probably fine with a Class 2 microSD card, as you won't have large files (or a large amount of small files) written in a short time.

Write speeds are generally the most important feature of a memory card. Write speeds determine the amount of time it takes to transfer the data, the moment you for example, click the button on your camera to ask the camera to take the image. You will probably remember that back in the early days of SD memory cards, there was an awful amount of lag time on cards, i.e from when you heard the click on the button (when you asked your camera to take the picture), to when you heard the double click (which is normally when the image has been written to the card).
Read speeds indicate the amount of time it takes for a card to transfer the data to a PC/Laptop. I.e the amount of time it takes to read the data off the card. Generally the higher the capacity of the card, this will naturally give a higher write speed. So if you have a 32GB card full of data and its only a class 2, it would take much longer than a 32GB card thats class 10, to send all the info to your pc etc.
Class 10 cards are recommended for HD video, or minimum class 6 really. You will probably find a 16GB class 4 card for example, will not work on say a Samsung HD Camcorder. It will maybe store only 1 minute of video, as for some reason the HD cannot write the data to the card fast enough it would seem.

Anyone ever lose a mini SDK card?

Plus your SD class is high, more it is fast...

jerryfranks said:
Anyone ever lose a mini SDK card?
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Yes, almost (I found it after w hile), bloody spring so strong it shot across the room!
Pity there's not some little leatherette folder with tiny slots for a few MicroSD cards, I'd buy one!.

iloveapple said:
Write speeds are generally the most important feature of a memory card. Write speeds determine the amount of time it takes to transfer the data, the moment you for example, click the button on your camera to ask the camera to take the image. You will probably remember that back in the early days of SD memory cards, there was an awful amount of lag time on cards, i.e from when you heard the click on the button (when you asked your camera to take the picture), to when you heard the double click (which is normally when the image has been written to the card).
Read speeds indicate the amount of time it takes for a card to transfer the data to a PC/Laptop. I.e the amount of time it takes to read the data off the card. Generally the higher the capacity of the card, this will naturally give a higher write speed. So if you have a 32GB card full of data and its only a class 2, it would take much longer than a 32GB card thats class 10, to send all the info to your pc etc.
Class 10 cards are recommended for HD video, or minimum class 6 really. You will probably find a 16GB class 4 card for example, will not work on say a Samsung HD Camcorder. It will maybe store only 1 minute of video, as for some reason the HD cannot write the data to the card fast enough it would seem.
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Very helpfully post,thanks.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using Tapatalk

Try to continue promoting of you site.

Hi speed cards are more efficient at presenting and recording. It's really up to you. If you buy the cheaper version and it doesn't present at the speed you think it should you'll have answered your own question.

You guys have it mostly right. The higher class your card is the faster it can write a file to its memory, the trade off is that the higher class cards have slower rapid access speeds, something to do with how it prepares files before writing. Basically, a class 10 will write a 1GB file faster, but if you try to write 15 3MB files quickly your performance will suffer. For something like a phone I recommend a class 4 or 6. For cameras I'd go higher (I don't know a whole lot about cameras).

seems like its good

[Q] swap partition on eeprom

Can I use a part of the 1.5gb of rom in the desire z/ G2 to make a swap partition?!
It's dangerous to the eeprom life?
Performance would be much better than microSD I think..

nagash91 said:
Can I use a part of the 1.5gb of rom in the desire z/ G2 to make a swap partition?!
It's dangerous to the eeprom life?
Performance would be much better than microSD I think..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As far as I know such a thing does not exist, though like you suggested it may be dangerous due to data corruption (though if properly partitioned you can fix it)
On the other hand using microSD for swap has been nothing but good for me, it has significantly improved speed, cause it is only a couple hundred Mbs of data on the swap partition so it can transfer quickly and smoothly, also it's only used when absolutely necessary.
What class microSD do you have?

noneabove said:
As far as I know such a thing does not exist, though like you suggested it may be dangerous due to data corruption (though if properly partitioned you can fix it)
On the other hand using microSD for swap has been nothing but good for me, it has significantly improved speed, cause it is only a couple hundred Mbs of data on the swap partition so it can transfer quickly and smoothly, also it's only used when absolutely necessary.
What class microSD do you have?
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I have class 6 microSD, but I think it's fake (trasfering speed is 2 - 3 mbps).
I think that the most important propriety for a good swap is the access time.. but the problem is that I can't find a site where I can see the access time of microSD tested by someone.
I want to buy a 32gb microSD class 10 or class 6, but if I can't find the access time..
I find that mustang and samsung microSD class 10 are cheap..
BTW I would love to know if I can make the swap file in /data or in /temp.
Access time in ROM is a lot faster that in microSD.
I don't think that rom can be damaged by a lot of writing, so why I can't use that support for swap. It would not faster as RAM, but absolutely faster than microSD class 10.
PS: I tried to make swap file on microSD with swapper2 and cyanomod 7.1. I get an error on swapon.. does cyanomod kernel support swap!? Thanks

nagash91 said:
I have class 6 microSD, but I think it's fake (trasfering speed is 2 - 3 mbps).
I think that the most important propriety for a good swap is the access time.. but the problem is that I can't find a site where I can see the access time of microSD tested by someone.
I want to buy a 32gb microSD class 10 or class 6, but if I can't find the access time..
I find that mustang and samsung microSD class 10 are cheap..
BTW I would love to know if I can make the swap file in /data or in /temp.
Access time in ROM is a lot faster that in microSD.
I don't think that rom can be damaged by a lot of writing, so why I can't use that support for swap. It would not faster as RAM, but absolutely faster than microSD class 10.
PS: I tried to make swap file on microSD with swapper2 and cyanomod 7.1. I get an error on swapon.. does cyanomod kernel support swap!? Thanks
Click to expand...
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It should but for the life of me I have no idea why, I'm assuming you were just testing it out but if not, swap is NOT needed for most AOSP ROMs and could in fact slow down your phone and kill your battery.
Also swapper is not the most recommended way of doing it as if something gets corrupted there goes your whole SD Card.. :/ safer to make a partition on it.
As for speeds, the speed from the phone to the SD Card compared to the SD Card to the computer (through the phone/data cable) will vary significantly, and so will read/write times. For me through my phone I can read at around 15 Mb/s (class 10) and write at 3 Mb/s, but if I take it out and put it in a Micro SD Card converter then I can write at speeds of at least 10 Mb/s.
As for access time.. If I'm not mistaken, after RAM, SD storage is one of the fastest digital reading and writing in terms of access time. I have noticed no discrepancies in speed where it would have to read or write to my SD Card's swap so I think that'll be okay.
As for finding out if the ROM can be used... Quite frankly, not a clue, but I would tread lightly there if you want to start experimenting

i am thinking about the same question... Maybe it 's to be safe to use your sd card and make a swap partition. However i am on miui which doesn't require a swap so i don't have to use a swap partition. And the sense 3.5 and 3.0 are to slow and to heavy for me for the old desire z with a such amount of ram memory ..

Empty 64 GB MicroSD card reduced to 32 GB Space available when empty?

I have a Sandisk 64Gb MicroSDHC card. I've been using it for sometime on Android and. I've used Android to format it but never to partition it. I've also used Android to wipe data on the card. I've formatted it varous times again on Ubuntu.
The card was working fine but today, I decided to format and clear all the data on it. Much to my dismay, after when plugging in the card and formatting it, Windows read it to have only 27.8 GB space even though it was empty. Ubuntu also showed 27.48 GB only.
I've not much problems with the card on Android and Ubuntu but today, this serious problem occured. Just how does a 64GB card reduce to 27.48GB? I've formatted the card to FAT32 and EXT4 multiple times to no avail with GParted.
Previously, some time ago, I've formatted the card to FAT32 and because the computer, I forgot if it was Windows or Ubuntu and because the computer read it as having 30GB space, named the card 32GB Volume or something like that (The name has long since changed to one of my choosing). However, Ubuntu still read the card as having 64GB of space and filling it up with more than 30GB worked just fine.
What happened? How do I resolve this? I need the card to work on both Ubuntu and Android.
This is my card. http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005V7WIA2 Based on reviews alone, it seems to be very good quality. I've used the card on Ubuntu, and Motorola Defy (Android), and the Motorola Xoom (Also Android). Both Android and Ubuntu have worked with the card just fine except for one thing Occasionally, when copying files to or from the card, I get an error message. Sorry but I don't recall what the message said.
Also, sorry for this mess of a post. I'll try to reword it once I have the time or overcome my exaggerated grief for this unexpected tragedy.

j814wong said:
Just how does a 64GB card reduce to 27.48GB?
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Use h2testw and check if it might be fake (i.e. actually 32 GB, but re-programmed and re-labeled to say 64 GB).
I got delivery of a new 32 GB thumb drive an hour back and am running the test as I type this. Makes sense to test out all new flash memory purchases as soon as you get them. Lots of fakes going around.
If at all yours turns out to be fake, then you're lucky you got a 32 GB, and not a 2 GB! Hope yours is not such a case!

alfavictor said:
Use h2testw and check if it might be fake (i.e. actually 32 GB, but re-programmed and re-labeled to say 64 GB).
I got delivery of a new 32 GB thumb drive an hour back and am running the test as I type this. Makes sense to test out all new flash memory purchases as soon as you get them. Lots of fakes going around.
If at all yours turns out to be fake, then you're lucky you got a 32 GB, and not a 2 GB! Hope yours is not such a case!
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Click to collapse
I bought it from Amazon not Amazon Used or Amazon Marketplace. Oh well, I'll still check it out with that program you suggested.

uhm.. interesting... now i understand...