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Re: Maximum SD card capacity, what happens if you exceed it?

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On 20/08/16 12:02, Micky wrote:
> On Wed, 17 Aug 2016 23:15:01 +0100, Chris Green <cl@isbd.net> wrote:
>
>> Just about all of our Android devices seem to say that the maximum SD
>> card capacity is 32Gb.  Is this a hard limit or is it just that 32Gb
>> is the maximum size tested?
>
> I don't know about phones, but windows XP could only read 32G unless
> you download and install a little program, while Vista could read 64G
> and probably higher.    If you tried ot read 64G in normal XP**, it
> only read the first 32G.

Windows XP can read/write FAT filesystems in excess of 32GB.
Microsoft created an artificial limit of 32GB in the format.exe program so that it would not format a FAT partition beyond 32GB. The reason being that FAT beyond 32GB has to use a large cluster size, and this can potentially waste a lot of disk space (the cluster size is the minimum "quantum" of disk space allocation, a file containing 1 byte of information will occupy 1 cluster). FAT requires a cluster size of 32kB for > 32GB filesystems. Since NTFS only requires a 4kB cluster size for filesystems up to 16TB, it made some sense to impose the limit.

However, the implementation left a lot to be desired. For example, Microsoft didn't notify you at the time you attempted to format a partition > 32GB as FAT, only when the format actually reached the 32GB point on the disk and it then throws an error. Very annoying.

Using any other format mechanism (format.exe from a previous version of Windows, Linux etc) allows FAT partitions of greater than 32GB to be formatted and accessed on Windows XP.

>
> **I'm not sure what happens if you buy a 64G capable USB adapter and
> plug that into a USB port on normal XP.
>

I expect it would work perfectly well for read/write, but be unable to format beyond 32GB using the Microsoft supplied format.exe program.

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Thread

Maximum SD card capacity, what happens if you exceed it? Chris Green <cl@isbd.net> - 2016-08-17 23:15 +0100
  Re: Maximum SD card capacity, what happens if you exceed it? Ken Blake <Ken@invalid.news.com> - 2016-08-17 15:53 -0700
    Re: Maximum SD card capacity, what happens if you exceed it? crankypuss <undisclosedUserid@gmail.com> - 2016-08-18 08:56 -0600
      Re: Maximum SD card capacity, what happens if you exceed it? Poutnik <poutnik4nntp@gmail.com> - 2016-08-18 19:01 +0200
  Re: Maximum SD card capacity, what happens if you exceed it? AL <noemail@none.com> - 2016-08-17 16:14 -0700
    Re: Maximum SD card capacity, what happens if you exceed it? AL <noemail@none.com> - 2016-08-17 16:31 -0700
  Re: Maximum SD card capacity, what happens if you exceed it? tlvp <mPiOsUcB.EtLlLvEp@att.net> - 2016-08-17 22:21 -0400
    Re: Maximum SD card capacity, what happens if you exceed it? Poutnik <poutnik4nntp@gmail.com> - 2016-08-18 07:38 +0200
      Re: Maximum SD card capacity, what happens if you exceed it? Chris <ithinkiam@gmail.com> - 2016-08-18 07:22 +0000
  Re: Maximum SD card capacity, what happens if you exceed it? crankypuss <undisclosedUserid@gmail.com> - 2016-08-18 08:55 -0600
  Re: Maximum SD card capacity, what happens if you exceed it? Daniel James <daniel@me.invalid> - 2016-08-19 15:20 +0100
    Re: Maximum SD card capacity, what happens if you exceed it? musika <mUs1Ka@NOSPAMexcite.com> - 2016-08-19 15:36 +0100
      Re: Maximum SD card capacity, what happens if you exceed it? Daniel James <daniel@me.invalid> - 2016-08-20 15:52 +0100
        Re: Maximum SD card capacity, what happens if you exceed it? Dave Higton <dave@davehigton.me.uk> - 2016-08-20 19:15 +0100
          Re: Maximum SD card capacity, what happens if you exceed it? Daniel James <daniel@me.invalid> - 2016-08-27 17:49 +0100
            Re: Maximum SD card capacity, what happens if you exceed it? Dave Higton <dave@davehigton.me.uk> - 2016-08-27 20:40 +0100
              Re: Maximum SD card capacity, what happens if you exceed it? Daniel James <daniel@me.invalid> - 2016-08-28 14:54 +0100
    Re: Maximum SD card capacity, what happens if you exceed it? AL <noemail@none.com> - 2016-08-19 08:11 -0700
    Re: Maximum SD card capacity, what happens if you exceed it? Theo Markettos <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> - 2016-08-20 23:32 +0100
      Re: Maximum SD card capacity, what happens if you exceed it? Chris Green <cl@isbd.net> - 2016-08-21 10:28 +0100
  Re: Maximum SD card capacity, what happens if you exceed it? Micky <NONONObobbyburns1111@gmail.com> - 2016-08-20 07:02 -0400
    Re: Maximum SD card capacity, what happens if you exceed it? Micky <NONONObobbyburns1111@gmail.com> - 2016-08-20 07:12 -0400
    Re: Maximum SD card capacity, what happens if you exceed it? Nigel Wade <nmw@local.domain> - 2016-08-22 09:55 +0100
      Re: Maximum SD card capacity, what happens if you exceed it? Micky <NONONObobbyburns1111@gmail.com> - 2016-08-22 11:15 -0400

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