Database Users

SD Card which format

Hi there,
my 2GB SD card has just arrived and I am wondering which format is safer/faster with WM5, and which cluster size is recommendable...
Thanks,
Manuel
P.S: I benchmarked the card with Pocket Mechanic (it is an extrememory 133xSpeed) and for reading I get a value of 0.96 M/sec - thats quite slow for a 133x Card, isnt it?

IMHO the larger FAT means seek times are much slower for small file writes. In my personal experience, my old old 128MB Panasonic SD card is much faster for general usage than my 1GB Sandisk Ultra II.
Of course, if you copy movies and music onto the card, the 133x would be faster for sustained transfers...
All that, and I can't really answer your question

4GB SD cards again... but Samsung?

Hi all,
http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI...80014389657&rd=1&sspagename=STRK:MEWN:IT&rd=1
Some eBay store is selling 4GB OEM Samsungs (or so he claims?) for a pretty good price. Please don't scream 'SCAM!' yet until I confirm that I haven't recieved a card from him .
But the real question here is, will this work on a Magician? There are plenty of threads about Adata and Transcend but none for Samsung (yes I realise samsungs are rebranded at retails, but I doubt Adata and Transcend rebrand Samsungs?)! Note the description says 'Support SD 1.1', so hopefully that means a yes?
Thanks!
EDIT: The listing above ended a while back. Theres a newer bunch here: http://cgi.ebay.com.au/150X-4GB-OEM...hZ018QQcategoryZ93930QQtcZphotoQQcmdZViewItem

got one in my charmer but yeah they work on magicians too. tested on an imate jam using the latest 1.12 rom.

Thanks for the info, but my one doesn't seem to work in my Magician... heck it looks suspiciously fake, but I've tested it with a 3.6GB batch of files and it holds brilliantly! It works on my older Dell Axim x30, which really doesn't say anything good about the Magician's SD tech...
Well its a bit last ditch, but anyone got any ideas?
Thanks!
EDIT: dave, I found a similar post of yours on Modaco :lol:... well yea since you seem to have bought the exact same item, I was wondering if you could verify some things for me:
- That I-mate JAM it works in. Do you know its firmware details? I tried flashing my O2 XDA II Mini to WWE_11200_128_11210_ship I-Mate but no difference, it still asks me to format the card upon insertion, and fails to format it anyway :roll: .
- Also did your SD card come with a big, ugly red sticker instead of the nice one in the pic?
Thanks!

toomuchdogfur said:
- That I-mate JAM it works in. Do you know its firmware details? I tried flashing my O2 XDA II Mini to WWE_11200_128_11210_ship I-Mate but no difference, it still asks me to format the card upon insertion, and fails to format it anyway :roll: .
- Also did your SD card come with a big, ugly red sticker instead of the nice one in the pic?
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
dont know the firmware as i dont have the phone to hand but its got the lastest rom from www.clubimate.com, as i remember i used the one with the lastest date which is either the file youve mentioned or the UK one with the same date.
my card had a green sticker on it, one which looks like its been printed on an inkjet printer and then torn rather than cut to fit the card!

Would it work with the Blueangel?????
Thanks.

Yea I've tried the latest i-mate international ROM with no success, but I'll get the UK one and try that once my download metering goes into off-peak . I hope that it is a ROM problem and not a hardware one, so then I would have at least an inkling of a chance in getting the SD to work on my XDA Mini!
As for the BlueAngel, I can only say that it won't work on a Wallaby (O2 XDA), but then again thats an era behind the BlueAngel... don't buy it until you're certain, because you won't have much fun trying to get a return from a US seller. What I can say is that its not a fake (tested it by dumping >3GB of files on it), but it does come with an ugly sticker... maybe if you ask nicely the dude will give you a choice of colour. :wink:
Blargh bloody card! Why can't you just WORK!

XDA mini vs. 4gig SDCard.. Help
Hi... pls help anyone.. bought a 4gig SDCard.. first, my XDA Mini wanted me to format it being unaccessible.. then it got converted to only 2.1gig.. its working though (but at that reduced capacity!). I had it replaced (thank goodness my seller was kind).. but its prompting format again due to being unaccessible.. and cant do that again..
is there any software-fix available?
pls.. urgent need help..
thanx..

Re: XDA mini vs. 4gig SDCard.. Help
Still doesn't work!!! Even on UK i-mate JAM ROM. Now I'm resorting to farfetched ideas such as filling the card up to 2GB and 3GB (still in progress) and putting autorun programs on it (doesn't work). I've tried it on FAT16, FAT32 and even NTFS with no luck, partitioned it to 2GB with no results. A few more questions, if you don't mind?
- Did your i-mate prompt you to format your card upon insertion, or did it work on the get-go?
- Was it formatted or partitioned in any particular way?
oicnev said:
Hi... pls help anyone.. bought a 4gig SDCard.. first, my XDA Mini wanted me to format it being unaccessible.. then it got converted to only 2.1gig.. its working though (but at that reduced capacity!). I had it replaced (thank goodness my seller was kind).. but its prompting format again due to being unaccessible.. and cant do that again..
is there any software-fix available?
pls.. urgent need help..
thanx..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Lucky you ! Yes I had the same issue with my Dell Axim x30, what I did was that I used paritioning software to delete the entire 2GB partition, then to paritition the entire 4GB as FAT32... and it worked! So from my view, if your PDA is able to format a certain memory card, even partially, that means it can read it whole BUT it can't format it properly. Hence you format it for it .

a 4GB card would be sweet on a Magician
However, i read on several posts that they have poor compatibility with the Magician; or the Magician is picky on handling certain brands. I thinking of getting a 4GB MMC card [green Adata] on Ebay, because they seem to be more realiable on the Magician from what i have read.
The green Adata 200x MMC 4GB cards can read 30MB per second. Is that slower then the standard or ultra SD cards? Curious, because I've read that SD are suppose to be twice as fast as MMC cards.

dream_sequence said:
a 4GB card would be sweet on a Magician
However, i read on several posts that they have poor compatibility with the Magician; or the Magician is picky on handling certain brands. I thinking of getting a 4GB MMC card [green Adata] on Ebay, because they seem to be more realiable on the Magician from what i have read.
The green Adata 200x MMC 4GB cards can read 30MB per second. Is that slower then the standard or ultra SD cards? Curious, because I've read that SD are suppose to be twice as fast as MMC cards.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I guess you would hafta believe the speed ratings on the cards, hence I presume a 200x MMC would beat the pants of any other flash memory card under 200x, regardless of whether it was a MMC, SD, etc.
Yea I've read of poor Magician compatibility with any cards above 1GB. But what baffles and irritates me most is that dave106 has (seemingly) exactly the same bloody card working in his mate's i-mate JAM, yet my bloody thing will prompt me to format everytime - if I don't, it doesn't read, but if I do, it formats to RAW and doesn't read :? !

hmmmm... examining the 4GB card using Paragon Partition Manager gets some interesting results! Here's the card when properly formatted:
Code:
Partition 0, hard disk 2
Volume label:
File system: FAT32
Drive letter: G:
Serial number: 00000000
Sectors / boot: 32
Sectors / cluster: 8
Size (capacity): 3.8 GB (4.120.833.024 )
Used space: 7.7 MB ( 0%)
Free space: 3.8 GB (100%)
Physical sectors:
First: 63 (Cyl 0, Hd 1, Sec 1)
Last: 8048564 (Cyl 500, Hd 254, Sec 63)
HDD info: Cyl 501, Hd 255, Sec 63
...and here's the card after a stint in Magician's 'format':
Code:
Partition 0, hard disk 2
Volume label:
File system: Unformatted
Drive letter: *:
Serial number: 00000000
Sectors / boot: 0
Sectors / cluster: 0
Size (capacity): 3.8 GB (4.120.833.024 )
Used space: 2048 GB (53363%)
Free space: 3.8 GB (100%)
Physical sectors:
First: 63 (Cyl 0, Hd 1, Sec 1)
Last: 8048564 (Cyl 500, Hd 254, Sec 63)
HDD info: Cyl 501, Hd 255, Sec 63
2048GB used??? Even if I delete the partition on my SD card so it becomes RAW, the used stays put at 0 bytes. It seems as though the Magician gets confused as hell when formatting this card... wonder why?

when i got the card, stuck it in the PC and it was already formatted. Put about 3.5gig of music on it and a few days later tried it out in my mates jam and it came up fine in the memory cpl and in file explorer.

Still no luck... after numerous reflashes and ideas, i've given up on this card. Thanks for all the help anyway dave! My uncle has a XDA Mini as well so I'll try it in his later.

howdy,
not too sure wether this revelation applies to your 4gb cards, but I found out many previously unrecognizable sd cards( upto two gigs) were readable once formatted with sktools.
- No, this is not a joke, try it and lets see whether it applies to 4 gig cards as well.
cheers

RE SKTools
Hi.. just tried SKTools.. I couldn't use its feature for SD Cards, it couldn't detect any SD CARD when i inserted my 4gig SD Card, but it could, when i inserted my 256MB...
But thanks,, i found it so useful for alot of my other pocket pc concerns..
HELP...

Thanks for the tip thormdac, but no luck with it either - doesn't detect the memory card on my XDA Mini, and even if i slot it into my Dell x30 (which can read the four gigs perfectly fine) it cannot format the card such so that it can be read by the Magician. BLAH!
Anyway the seller has offered me a refund, which is either very kind or very suspicious depending on your mindset but I think I'll take up the offer - after I try it in my uncle's XDA Mini on Saturday. Losing ten bucks kinda sucks though :roll:.
Oh and btw I also ran the card through this handy formatting tool from Panasonic/Matsushita - the guys who enforce the SD 1.1 standard. It only works for cards up to 2GB, though even when I partitioned the 4GB card to fit under the limits it spat out an error halfway.
On another note: Another SanDisk eBay scam
Sandisk Ultra II 4GB cards don't exist! I was going to report him, but the sneaky bastard avoided mentioning 'SanDisk' at all... plus the 1-day listing makes me suspect that his account might have been hacked. I just hink it's sad there's these scammers around since there are inevitably people who are going to get sucked in by this :x

OMG!
It worked in my uncle's XDA! In frustration, I carefully dissected my Magician with the help of my uncle only to find... errr, nothing. HOWEVER when I partially put it back together (the first two layers of the top-back panel were still off) and switched it on to test, the card bloody worked! Not knowing what I had did, I put it back together only to have it not work again! @#$!
HMMM... again I pulled off the top two layers of the rear and it worked. Eventually we figured out that if we tightened the screws on the rear panel too much, then the Magician would refuse to read the card properly. A bloody manafacturing defect. Peeling off that fat red sticker on the SD card also helped, and eventually the Magician was reliably reading the SD card!
This might go some length in explaining why 4GB SD cards won't work in the Magician while others will - the thickness of SDs may be putting too much pressure on the contacts in the slot, which are already under some pressure by the panel on top of the SD slot. The only difference between my uncle's and my XDA Mini were the bootloader versions - v1.00 and v1.02 respectively - which seems to indicate that my uncle's is an earlier model - perhaps they don't make them like they used to? Note that my XDA Mini reads every card fine BUT the 4GB - I still cannot come up with an explanation for that, considering that this reading problem seems to be a mechanical problem.
I don't know if I'm right at all, but perhaps if anyone is having problems reading SD cards in their Mini, you might want to try opening the cover above your battery panel (its plastic, held by hinges, you should be able to figure how to open it if you're brave enough) and adjusting the tightness of the screws holding the panel underneath (you WILL need a TORX screwdriver... bloody small one too, 'TORX 06').
Thanks for all your help too!

4gb Sd card not working in Imate Jam
Thanks for the tip "toomuchdogfur" untightening the screws on the back of my T mobile MDA has now allowed me to use my new 4gb SD card ,before it would constantly suggest to format card .

Hmmm... so its not a single case after all. I wonder if there are a large number of Magicians with this fault?

4gb sd in magician
Hi guys , Ihave been driven mad by the imate jam ( magician ) not recognising memory cards, so I contacted imate support and got this reply:
Dear Sir,
Thank you for your E-mail. Regarding your query, please note that the SD card standard is limited to 2 GB and our devices are fully compliant to the standard. Cards with the capacity greater than 2 GB are not compliant to the standard and we cannot guarantee that they will function correctly. As to transferring speed limit, we recommend not using ultra speed SD cards with the speed more than 64x as they either will not work or may pose problems later. Also we would like to inform you that some SD cards need to be formatted using any PC / Laptop (supporting SD cards) before using with our devices.
Regards,
Technical Support - i-mate™
So I finally sent my jam back for repair under warranty as the backlight kept going off too and now it seems to be ok . I did wonder about the thickness of the memory cards because some do feel like a tight fit. I have also read on various forums that the jam cannot manage larger than 2gb size memory cards and lots of owners seem to complain of the same format/ reformat problems.I am looking at getting a 4gb card but don't know which one to try. Most uk available ones are 150x speed. Any I mate jam users with good advice on this topic? :!:
Update 18/10/06
Today I received a Kingmax 4gb 40x sd card from Dabs.com £54.48 and it works in my I-mate jam straight out of the box, no formatting or anything. Finally I can hardly believe it!!!!
http://www.dabs.com/ProductList.asp...y=All&PageMode=3&NavigationKey=0&SearchType=1
ps. MMC plus cards don't work at all in my Imate jam ,although an old ancient 256mb mmc card works.Guess it really is all down to the speed. Keep it below 60x and its hunky dory!

4 GB 150X SD Card tried on O2 ?

I am about to buy a 4 GB 150x Class 2 SDHC Secure Digital Card for my recently bought O2 Neo handset. I would like to know if anyone has tried this earlier and knows if it works.
Umesh
O2 Neo

i have a-data 4gb turbo sd 150x and it works well

Thanks Speeed. Do you know if that is a Class 2 SDHC. I remember reading some post here which said a SDHC 2.0 format might not be compatible with HTC Prophet.

is SDHC working in a prophet?
Hey Umesh, I do have exactly the same question. I already have a 1 GB SD card. But now I need to upgrade and I am wondering if I can buy a SDHC class 2 or even SDHC class 6 card. Can you please post your experiences.
ADVAthanksNCE, Peter

umesh said:
I am about to buy a 4 GB 150x Class 2 SDHC Secure Digital Card for my recently bought O2 Neo handset. I would like to know if anyone has tried this earlier and knows if it works.
Umesh
O2 Neo
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have the Transcend 150x 4gb SD working in my Prophet for almost a year. The only issue is one that applies to all SD cards and not just the 4gb, that is today plugins sometimes don't like to be on the SD card, otherwise everything works perfectly. It seems to me I remember at the time I bought my 4gb SD card there were some models that had issues with the Prophet. I guess you could just get one of the cards that has already been proven to be compatible.

transcend card
I also have a 4gB transcend card that works perfectly....

gujjuman said:
I also have a 4gB transcend card that works perfectly....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can order one here, they have others for sale too, but you might want to get one that works for sure.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820163159

Topram 4Gb
I have a Topram 4Gb 150x sd card and have had no problems. I got it from Ebay.
please note it uses SD 1.1, which is the maximum the Prophet supports.
check it out here:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/TOPRAM-150X-4...ryZ18871QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Hi,
I have a samsung oem 4go 150x, bought on ebay from fastmemoryman, and it is also working perfectly on my prophet.

Topram and Soho failed. Still looking for a good 4GB card!
Hello guys,
Here's my experience with 4GB SD card dilemma using a Qtek s200:
1) Topram 150X:
*Works ok till 2GB but data written beyond 2GB can not read back.
*Surprisingly there's no error after chkdsk, xp-scan.
*No error when writing beyond 2GB but data is not really written.
*Original content of the sectors do not change at all.
*Deep analysis under WinHex states defect starting at sector #3964927 of about 8 million sectors.
* FAT16 and FAT32 all formatting combinations possible on Qtek as well as XP which is surprising. No error using Panasonic SD Formatter as well. This card doest not react to any write operation, even if it fails !!!
SOLUTION: Created a 2GB partition using WM5torage + XP and bypass defected area.
2) SOHO 150X:
*Looks horrible with 5th class sticker misaligned.
*Comes with 90MB of defected sectors already marked bad in FAT.
*Healty reformatting impossible.
*All sectors beyond 1GB are unreadable & unwritable.
SOLUTION: Sent it back to the seller.
QUESTION TO ALL POSTS CLAIMING TRANSCEND & A-DATA WORKS WITH NO PROBLEM:
Of course the 4GB SD's are recognized well when insterted in Prophet. But did you go beyond 2GB and up to 4GB? I strongly need someone who would confirm having written full 4GB and able to read it back with no data loss !!!
I think just inserting the card and seeing 3800MB something free means NOTHING and you should load the card completely without no data loss to be sure everything is OK.
Many posts claim problem with camera not saving to card. No sense anymore, it's not related to the cards but the cam.app as the free space calculation issue is well known now.
Waiting for some good news about Trancend and A-Data which i want to try asap...

SHHC not compatible with Prophet
Not yet tried but given all the information on various sources, Prophet has no chance to recognize any SDHC card. When inserted we will probably won't see anything. Like a RAW card.
The most logical explanation is that the CSD layer of SD2.0 is organized diffently than SD1.1.
Didn't see yet any opportunity to use them with a future ROM update. The hardware limitations of the reader on prophet may be the cause.

g3k said:
Hello guys,
Here's my experience with 4GB SD card dilemma using a Qtek s200:
1) Topram 150X:
*Works ok till 2GB but data written beyond 2GB can not read back.
*Surprisingly there's no error after chkdsk, xp-scan.
*No error when writing beyond 2GB but data is not really written.
*Original content of the sectors do not change at all.
*Deep analysis under WinHex states defect starting at sector #3964927 of about 8 million sectors.
* FAT16 and FAT32 all formatting combinations possible on Qtek as well as XP which is surprising. No error using Panasonic SD Formatter as well. This card doest not react to any write operation, even if it fails !!!
SOLUTION: Created a 2GB partition using WM5torage + XP and bypass defected area.
2) SOHO 150X:
*Looks horrible with 5th class sticker misaligned.
*Comes with 90MB of defected sectors already marked bad in FAT.
*Healty reformatting impossible.
*All sectors beyond 1GB are unreadable & unwritable.
SOLUTION: Sent it back to the seller.
QUESTION TO ALL POSTS CLAIMING TRANSCEND & A-DATA WORKS WITH NO PROBLEM:
Of course the 4GB SD's are recognized well when insterted in Prophet. But did you go beyond 2GB and up to 4GB? I strongly need someone who would confirm having written full 4GB and able to read it back with no data loss !!!
I think just inserting the card and seeing 3800MB something free means NOTHING and you should load the card completely without no data loss to be sure everything is OK.
Many posts claim problem with camera not saving to card. No sense anymore, it's not related to the cards but the cam.app as the free space calculation issue is well known now.
Waiting for some good news about Trancend and A-Data which i want to try asap...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Friend. I have been using the Transcend 4gb 150X with my prophet for almost a year and let me tell you that baby is full!!! I have my GPS maps, a few videos, some big apps, and the rest filled with as much music as I can cram into the thing. It works without any problems at all, I also specify images to be saved directly to the card with no problems. I am not the only one that has reported compatibility with the Transcend.

g3k said:
QUESTION TO ALL POSTS CLAIMING TRANSCEND & A-DATA WORKS WITH NO PROBLEM:
Of course the 4GB SD's are recognized well when insterted in Prophet. But did you go beyond 2GB and up to 4GB? I strongly need someone who would confirm having written full 4GB and able to read it back with no data loss !!!
I think just inserting the card and seeing 3800MB something free means NOTHING and you should load the card completely without no data loss to be sure everything is OK.
Many posts claim problem with camera not saving to card. No sense anymore, it's not related to the cards but the cam.app as the free space calculation issue is well known now.
Waiting for some good news about Trancend and A-Data which i want to try asap...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1
I'm using 4go SD card for more than a month... it is almost full and no problem with any kind of data...
So, it work perfectly.
For those than can't save photos on SD card, this has nothing to do with the SD card format. It depends on if you've unlocked Ext rom or not. It depends also of the rom you've installed on your prophet, some home cooked rom than have native unlocked ext rom will show the same issue.

4GB SD cards on Prophet
Thanks matterhorn for making it more precise. It's very nice to hear such clear feedback.
...and Cedric, are you also talking'bout a Transcend?
I guess you both use your cards on the PC using regular card readers. 2GB and FAT32 compatibility should be enough o cope with 4GB. If the card is healty, i see no reason why a recent, non-SDHC reader would not work with 4GB SD.
I also guess you didn't have any problem using full capacity after re-formatting. Reformatting should not be a problem for a good 4GB card to become bad.
I think i'll give another try with Transcend which is a reliable company and registered to sdcard.org while SOHO and TOPRAM are not. In my language, we call them MANUFACTURERS WORKING UNDER THE STAIRS.

g3k said:
Thanks matterhorn for making it more precise. It's very nice to hear such clear feedback.
...and Cedric, are you also talking'bout a Transcend?
I guess you both use your cards on the PC using regular card readers. 2GB and FAT32 compatibility should be enough o cope with 4GB. If the card is healty, i see no reason why a recent, non-SDHC reader would not work with 4GB SD.
I also guess you didn't have any problem using full capacity after re-formatting. Reformatting should not be a problem for a good 4GB card to become bad.
I think i'll give another try with Transcend which is a reliable company and registered to sdcard.org while SOHO and TOPRAM are not. In my language, we call them MANUFACTURERS WORKING UNDER THE STAIRS.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I use an normal SD card reader to format my card in FAT32 using XP every time I change my ROM, just to make sure there are no hidden nasties to cause problems. Newegg.com has good prices on the Transcend .
Also that tip about the unlocked extended ROM is a good one. When you can have 4gb, who cares about a few megabytes.

So can I assume to confirm the usability of a 4 GB card on my Neo -
If I slide in the 4 GB Card and it shows full memory (4 GB) as available in Memory Status --> Storage Card - that would imply that the full card is (read/write) compatible in the device?
Matterhorn, is your working 4 GB card SDHC 2.0 format ?
Practically, at best I would have only about a couple of minutes to test the 4 GB card at the store where I buy.

SDHC support in Wizard?

Hi,
Although this question has been put up many a times but I don't see a conclusion in any of the threads. Can someone give a finite answer to the SDHC support in Wizard? (Y/N)?
Did anyone try this:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=345038&highlight=sdhc+patch
Thanks.
WIZA200 (HT622)
TNT 1933 ROM

I have asked this too a couple of times.
Its all the more relevant now 8 gig rebadged Toshibas are knocking about under twenty quid.

Right now I have an authentic 4 GB SDHC card from Transcend.
Till now I have tried all the patches/drivers available here for SDHC but couldn't make this to work. I even checked after formatting the the card in FAT16.

The Wizard hardware DOES NOT support SDHC cards. Period... Sorry

JoelC said:
The Wizard hardware DOES NOT support SDHC cards. Period... Sorry
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Is it a hardware issue or a driver issue?
How should I format a 2 GB card that does not have the "SDHC" logo for compatibility with the Wizard?

It's a hardware issue for the Wizards, unfortunately, otherwise some clever person on the forums - and there are a great many! - would probably have succeeded in hacking some driver or other to give our Wizards SDHC support.
As it is, we're stuck with 2GB, or there are some 'non-standard' i.e. non-SDHC 4GB cards that work in some Wizards, some of the time... there is a very good thread about this in the Accessories forum http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=297324, and there are some other, smaller threads there too...
As for formatting, I have a 2GB card formatted as FAT32, with 512 byte sector size and 4KB cluster size, and that works just fine! I can't be sure if these are the best settings - it might be possible to reduce cluster size to reduce slack space, but I have thousands of files on my card and a slack space of just under 6MB, so I think this is OK.
All the best, and hope this helps!

Defy - What's the Fastest SD card speed?

Hi fellow Defyers,
Didn't get any answers to my last post, so I obviously asked the wrong question.
I'm wanting to know what's the correct, fastest speed Class microSD card for my Defy. Nobody really seems to know.
There should be a spec, but I can't find it. I've searched all over this forum, but haven't found a answer. There are lots threads about which brands and classes work and which don't, but nothing much about real world speeds. I know that speeds vary. It depends on the Hardware, ROM and other Software running, but there must be a "best" answer.
I suspect my Defy SDHC card slot is really Class 6 speed, but lots of people report using Class 10 SD cards. What I want to know is are they actually faster?
I've installed the free "SD Tools" SD card Speed Tester app from the Market - Google Play. It's a very simple app, but gave me no problems. Except, speeds vary. I suggest a Reboot, don't open anything else and wait 3 minutes before running, to get the best result.
I get 9.3MB/s Write and 14.4MB/s Read from an ADATA 4GB Class 6 card.
I'm running Android 2.2.2. Can't really root it 'cos it's the Company-supplied phone.
Anyone getting much better than that out of Class 10?
Please post your results [Defy Model, Android ver, Card Make, Size, Class, Test App, Write MB/s, Read MB/s] here!
Mine:
MB525, 2.2.2, ADATA, 4GB, Class 6, SD Tools, Wr: 9.3MB/s, Rd: 14.4MB/s
Cheers,
D

DefiAnt2 said:
It depends on the Hardware, ROM and other Software running, but there must be a "best" answer.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There's apparently another factor that I haven't tested myself and forgot to mention, but that's SD Card format. Seems the cluster size also makes a difference, though that will (should, may?) depend on the type of test. Sustained, large reads and writes (as done by SD Tools) should be faster with a larger cluster size, and I think sustained speeds are what matters for shooting video, or playing HD movies.
To determine your card Format and Cluster size (one way - are there better ways?) is to connect to USB, go to a Command prompt and run CHKDSK X: where X is the Windows Drive letter for your SD Card. The first line gives the Format type. Further down, the Cluster size is the number of "bytes in each allocation unit."
BTW, if CHKDSK says you have errors on your SD Card, well, be careful! You may have errors. Or, you may have a Card Compatibility issue. But I wouldn't go Fixing them with CHKDSK. I'd investigate carefully as to the cause before going further. Like, take the card out of your phone and connect it to a PC using an SD Card Reader, and check it again. If there errors aren't still showing, you definitely have compatibility problems. And, if there are still errors, it very likely means your SD Card data IS corrupted, and was probably caused by a compatibility issue or some other problem like a phone lock up while writing data, or maybe a Battery Pull (VERY BAD IDEA) also while the card was being written.
I'm not exactly sure about how to determine the Sector size for SD Cards (which is why I'm talking Cluster size), but for Hard Disks it's normally 512 bytes / sector. SD Cards could, I suppose be different as they are not rotating media, but I haven't yet figured out how to get that data out of them. Anyway, assuming 512 bytes / sector, 32k sectors (32,768 bytes) per cluster is obviously 32,768 / 512 = 64 sectors per cluster.
Please feel free to post your results [Defy Model, Android ver, Card Make, Size, Class, Format, Cluster size, Test App, Write MB/s, Read MB/s] here!
Mine:
MB525, 2.2.2, ADATA, 4GB, Class 6, FAT32, 32k clusters, SD Tools, Wr: 9.3MB/s, Rd: 14.4MB/s
Cheers,
D
P.S. I found a cheap 8GB Class 10 card... Interesting!

just tested my configuration:
bayer mb525, cm7.2 (2.3.7), kingston class 10 16gb sdhc, formatted fat32 with 64k cluster size, and my results are 10.7w/25.2r.
sent from my cm7 defy...

Please ask all questions in Q&A. Thread moved there.

I get 4.5mb/s write -14.3mb/s read on an class 2 sd I think, not sure, MB526 2.3.6 stock Android

Hi Feche, zakoo2
Thanks for that.
Turns out, nothing is simple. I have now found that it depends a lot on what "services" are also running when you run the test.
For example, if I have Data enabled, Bluetooth enabled and Satellite enabled (but none active), I get significantly lower readings, especially for Read.
On top of that, SD Tools seems to give more consistent results if you ignore the first test and run it a second and third time.
However, I have also found that my MB525 DOES get faster Read results with a Class 10 card. Only slightly faster for Write though.
I guess this means the MB525 Hardware is (more-or-less?) Class 10 capable. At least, for Read. Or, it may also depend on the individual card Manufacturer. A-Pacer not being a Top of the Line brand.
My best results, with all the services turned off:
MB525, 2.2.2, A-Pacer, 8GB, Class 10, FAT32, ??k clusters, SD Tools, Wr: 9.7MB/s, Rd: 20.7MB/s
(Forgot to check cluster size, sorry.)
I'll post other results later.
Cheers,
D2