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

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In article <584f8d-oo6.ln1@esprimo.zbmc.eu>, Chris Green 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?

Yes.

You've had most of the answer in dribs and drabs from others, but the 
to set it all out together in one place:

There are three SD card standards:

SD cards can be up to 2GB in size.
SDHC cards can be up to 32GB in size.
SDXC cards can be up to 2TB in size.

[ Lots more info here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Digital ]

However, I have seen devices that say that they support SDXC cards up 
to 32GB. When I've tried a 64GB card this has worked, so I assume that 
in that case the 32GB claim was made, as you guessed, because no larger 
card had been available for testing.

I note that many devices today claim to support SDXC cards "up to 
200GB". I doubt that anyone will ever make a 200GB card, so I guess 
this should be taken as meaning that the manufacturer has tested 128GB 
cards but didn't have any 256GB card to try ... and claiming 200GB 
sounds better than claiming only 128GB, but doesn't promise 
compatibility with any future 256GB card.

Final point: the SDXC spec specifies that cards should be formatted 
with the exFAT file system (which has to be licensed from Microsoft), 
and cards of 64GB and greater tend to be supplied preformatted as 
exFAT. 

This means that if you want to use a 64GB card to transfer data between 
an Android device and a PC, the PC must include support for exFAT. 
Current Windows and Mac systems support exFAT out of the box, a Linux 
system will need the Fuse exFAT driver (which should be in most 
repositories).

As the wikipedia article points out: it's possible that there are 
devices that will assume that any card of 64GB or greater will use 
exFAT, and so will fail to read them if they are FAT32. It's also 
possible that there are devices that claim SDXC support but don't 
support exFAT, and that are therefore not capable of reading 64GB cards 
unless they're reformatted as FAT32. I've never come across either 
problem in practice.

-- 
Cheers,
 Daniel.
 

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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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