Database Users

[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.
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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
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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.
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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.
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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.

Micro SD card slot means no need for 32gb model?

So I'm wondering if there is a micro SD card slot then do you really need to buy the 32gb version? It appears that the current math among tablet manufacturer's is $100 for 16gb of memory which is obviously a joke. So if i buy the 16gb version and then buy a 16gb sd card ($25) do I effectively come out with the same thing for $75 cheaper?

Depends how you use it. I think it will behave like the Samsung Galaxy S in that the built in memory will appear as a different location to the external memory. Files cannot span both locations and thus your file may not fit even though the total combined free space you have left is larger than the file you are trying to copy.

well if thats the case then in general it will work just fine. Chances arent very good that i'm going to have some massive file on there.

Internal memory is probably faster than 25$ microSD card.

You could spend $90 on a Class 10 32GB card and be looking pretty good.

there you go, 32 gb for the price they are offering 16gigs. sounds good to me. not only that but you can spread that cost. Drop the $499 now, wait a couple months and get the micro sd later. thanks for the info

Magnesus said:
Internal memory is probably faster than 25$ microSD card.
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On my galaxy s, my class 4 micro sd card is as quick is the internal memory. I'm sure the tab will allow quicker speeds but it's worth noting that a class 4 card is sufficiently fast enough to play back 1080p without problems. If you want to save time transferring files between tablet and pc then fair enough but I would personally save money and get a class 4 and make a cup of tea while it copies

Just but the 16GB, as long as it has a micro SD slot you won't need anymore than that.

Thats pretty much what it mean, the question now is whether it will actually have an SD card slot, I have read conflicting reports that it does and does not have one.

Blueman101 said:
Thats pretty much what it mean, the question now is whether it will actually have an SD card slot, I have read conflicting reports that it does and does not have one.
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I think the conflicting reports are due to two different versions of the Tab 10.1. The version shown during the MWC does not appear to have a MicroSD card slot. The newer version shown at CTIA does have a MicroSD card slot. Most reviews are consistent with this but a few have gotten it wrong which has probably led to the confusion.
There's a number of differences between the versions but the easy to identify differences are thickness and MP of the rear camera. The first version (MWC) is 10.9mm thick and has an 8MP rear camera. The newer version (CTIA) is 8.6mm thick and has a 3MP rear camera.

Techno79 said:
I think the conflicting reports are due to two different versions of the Tab 10.1. The version shown during the MWC does not appear to have a MicroSD card slot. The newer version shown at CTIA does have a MicroSD card slot. Most reviews are consistent with this but a few have gotten it wrong which has probably led to the confusion.
There's a number of differences between the versions but the easy to identify differences are thickness and MP of the rear camera. The first version (MWC) is 10.9mm thick and has an 8MP rear camera. The newer version (CTIA) is 8.6mm thick and has a 3MP rear camera.
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Yeah i figure thats about what happened. Hopefully we will see some detailed(confirmed) specs soon so we can know what is really driving this thing. Also, perhaps finally review the optional UI question.
Dear Samsung,
Y U NO INFORM EXCITED PUBLIC OF FINAL SPECS!

Actually, what I want is 64GB internal memory model, with or without microSD card
I prefer without, if the space can be used to a little bit more battery and/or reduce the weight!.
I am now getting used to Nexus S, the one without microSD card. To my surprise, I can live with it, comfortably

true, you probably can live without an SD card. But the reason most people will probably get a 16gb plus a 32gb SD is because its cheaper (even with the extra 32gb SD card purchase) then paying an extra $100 for a mere 16GB

I actually have a 16gb class 4 sitting around collecting dust. I'll just stick it in 16gb model
Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk

jvs60 said:
I actually have a 16gb class 4 sitting around collecting dust. I'll just stick it in 16gb model
Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk
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there ya go

gogol said:
Actually, what I want is 64GB internal memory model, with or without microSD card
I prefer without, if the space can be used to a little bit more battery and/or reduce the weight!.
I am now getting used to Nexus S, the one without microSD card. To my surprise, I can live with it, comfortably
Click to expand...
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I wouldn't have thought removing a MicroSD card slot would save much space or weight. A MicroSD card is tiny as too the housing for the slot.
For me, the want of a MicroSD card slot is not for expanding storage space cheaply but more for being able to transfer files to/from MicroSD easily. There's many situations when I would want to do this with a MicroSD card from my other devices or it is a MicroSD card from someone else I am with. In those situations, it's sometimes easier than faffing around with cables, bluetooth or Wifi. So the slot just gives another option.

That's true. Having microSD is handy. Especially if you want to transfer a lot of files or big files.
But, my point is that no-microSD will not stop me buying a tablet
After I owned Nexus S, I don't think it is important anymore as long as the internal storage is big enough.
Again, this is my own preference
Techno79 said:
I wouldn't have thought removing a MicroSD card slot would save much space or weight. A MicroSD card is tiny as too the housing for the slot.
For me, the want of a MicroSD card slot is not for expanding storage space cheaply but more for being able to transfer files to/from MicroSD easily. There's many situations when I would want to do this with a MicroSD card from my other devices or it is a MicroSD card from someone else I am with. In those situations, it's sometimes easier than faffing around with cables, bluetooth or Wifi. So the slot just gives another option.
Click to expand...
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Blueman101 said:
Yeah i figure thats about what happened. Hopefully we will see some detailed(confirmed) specs soon so we can know what is really driving this thing. Also, perhaps finally review the optional UI question.
Dear Samsung,
Y U NO INFORM EXCITED PUBLIC OF FINAL SPECS!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The one released in Aust. last week is a 16GB no SD slot model. I haven't seen a confirmation of the one that has the SD slot but have heard rumours that it will be thinner and up to 32GB.
I thought the internal memory was available to both system & data doesn't this mean that the internal memory would be an ext flavour rather than a FAT?

I see your point and I have to agree that it does seem a bit cheaper just to get the 16gb model and buy a 16gb sd card unless u plan on being a data/movie packrat on ur Tab in which case you will want to get the 32gb model as well as a 32gb sd card.

I want the highest storage available period!
I don't care if it cost more. I would rather get a 32 GB and have another 32 GB of SD card storage.
I wish that there is a 64 GB version with SD card slot so that I can have 32 GB SD card to make the total of 96 GB.
I can never have enough space because I have so many HD movies that I want to store in my tablet.

SD Card Slot speeds

With black friday coming up, I'm looking for a large micro SD card. My main debate is through speed. I want the 128GB Sandisk microSD card, but it's capped to 30MB/s sequential reads, while the 64GB extreme goes up to 80MB/s. Can the tablet take advantage of those higher speeds? I want as little a difference between the internal memory and the external memory as possible. My only concern is 64GB may not be enough, as I download a metric ton of games, and I'm blowing through the internal memory. Basically, I'm asking for buying advice, and this is all very specific to the shield tablet. I have no other intended uses for the SD card.

I have a Samsung 64gb PRO up to 90mb/s and this is the result

Is that what the shield tablet is actually able to write at? If so, then it's worth it for the increased data loading in my games. That's my main concern. Also, how efficient is app2SD type transferring? I want to know if my SD card will be used effectively, or if I will still end up running out of storage space.

Nintonito said:
With black friday coming up, I'm looking for a large micro SD card. My main debate is through speed. I want the 128GB Sandisk microSD card, but it's capped to 30MB/s sequential reads, while the 64GB extreme goes up to 80MB/s. Can the tablet take advantage of those higher speeds? I want as little a difference between the internal memory and the external memory as possible. My only concern is 64GB may not be enough, as I download a metric ton of games, and I'm blowing through the internal memory. Basically, I'm asking for buying advice, and this is all very specific to the shield tablet. I have no other intended uses for the SD card.
Click to expand...
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There's a new version of the 128gb that rated 48mb/s. But if you want faster card you can only get them in 64gb. Like the Samsung pro at 90mb/s.

aznmode said:
There's a new version of the 128gb that rated 48mb/s. But if you want faster card you can only get them in 64gb. Like the Samsung pro at 90mb/s.
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I'm afraid to ask how much this new 128GB model is. I can't justify spending $200 on a micro SD solely for tablet storage.

Nintonito said:
I'm afraid to ask how much this new 128GB model is. I can't justify spending $200 on a micro SD solely for tablet storage.
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I got one for my note 4 at $109. Might find good deals on black Friday
http://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Memor...416866651&sr=1-1&keywords=128gb+micro+sd+card

Unfortunately this isn't available yet in canada

Mine is a Samsung 64gb UHS-1 pro, formatted with NTFS and 64gb cluster size:

Nintonito said:
Unfortunately this isn't available yet in canada
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I see. But I think even at 48mp/s, it's not gonna be the same as internal. If you want something close then the Samsung Pro 64gb with 90mb/s is your best bet. But you are only going to match the read speed. The internal memory's write speed is still faster by 2x. But I really doubt you're going to care about that much if you're just transferring 1-2gb of data to the sdcard. And I'm assuming these are game data? Once those are transferred, it's pretty much done with. Even with my 64gb card now with 11.73 mb/s write speed is plenty fast when I move files to the card. If there are game saves that needs to write to the card, they are gonna be small data. I have about 20 game data on the SD card using Folder Mount and I don't find any issue launching them. The only one that I noticed takes longer is Half Life.

Yeah that definitely sounds good. Faster the better. I want a seamless experience.

Does anyone have experience with PNY sd cards? I saw one for $110 that's a 128GB card with 40MB/s sequential read speeds. How would the card perform, ans would it be enough?

Personally I don't think the extra speed will make that big of a difference. Those benchmarks provide controlled and consistent circumstances which are not realistic. Almost nothing you do on the tablet in normal use will push the read speeds. Tbh write speeds could be more important, as they are typically much slower then write speeds. I'm not saying read speed doesn't matter, but that there is certainly a diminishing return on speeds.
Sent from my SHIELD Tablet using XDA Free mobile app

http://www.amazon.com/Lexar-High-Pe...id=1417018420&sr=8-6&keywords=128+gb+micro+sd
Currently that's the fastest 128 GB card I've found, but you're going to pay for it out the nose. I'd vote to wait a bit and see if you can swing it with at 64 GB UHS card first, like the Samsung Pro series. The faster the card the more seamless the experience will be, and even though use will not mimic the benchmark situation it's still going to take less time to write and read to a very fast card in daily use so it will make a difference for sure.

livinonnoslp said:
http://www.amazon.com/Lexar-High-Pe...id=1417018420&sr=8-6&keywords=128+gb+micro+sd
Currently that's the fastest 128 GB card I've found, but you're going to pay for it out the nose. I'd vote to wait a bit and see if you can swing it with at 64 GB UHS card first, like the Samsung Pro series. The faster the card the more seamless the experience will be, and even though use will not mimic the benchmark situation it's still going to take less time to write and read to a very fast card in daily use so it will make a difference for sure.
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What about if I simply want to use it to load up and watch videos? No gaming nothing else. Is a SanDisk 128GB microSDXC @ 30MB good enough for that? Like say, this one?
http://www.ebay.com/itm/SanDisk-128...05&prg=11353&rk=3&rkt=6&sd=151483862076&rt=nc

Yes that should be fine I just wouldn't put any apps on it at all only media

Thanks for your help guys. Ended up buying a Sandisk UHS-3 64GB card for $100. So far so good. Although android's sd card support for apps is SO BAD.

32GB=sufficient storage?

Self explanatory title (note I'm asking "sufficient", not "enough")
How are you guys finding the onboard storage situation w/ your 32GB models? I'm unclear how much use the SDcard would be. Sure, you can point your camera + Spotify cache to the SDcard instead but just looking at my iphone 6, I would still have need another 17-18GB to cover other apps and their data (this is w/o a silly amount of games). I know you can move some apps from onboard storage to your SDcard, how do you find the performance difference?
A bit bummed over SG's seemingly shortsighted decision to limit most global markets to the 32GB variant. From what I've seen online and with a few demo units, actual free usable storage comes in around 14-16GB, which is fairly pitiful. If Android "only" uses 8GB, where's the extra? Is TW and other add in that large?

I ordered a microsd card with high read/write speed. And the phone is pushing pretty near the card's theoretical limit. Benchmark have it at around 94MB/S read, and 47MB/S write, with a theoretical limit of 97 read 57 write on the card.
Key here is not to order a microsd card with extremely slow write, some of the popular sandisk models out there have 80 read, but only around 16-18 write, and that can be painful sometimes.
Is microsd slower than the new generation samsung internal storage? Yes, because the new samsung internal storage is reading at around 300MB/S. However, if you came from any phone that's not a samsung S6, S6 edge, or note 5, the microsd card read/write speed is probably similar enough to what you are used to as your old device's internal storage speed, and I honestly can't tell the difference since most apps stay loaded in the RAM anyways. I'm also surprised to find that I can move most of my installed apps to my microsd, the only one I have issue with right now is Grand Theft Auto Sand Andreas which is taking up over 2.2GB of internal space.
I had a note 5 before this, and with the 32GB internal on that, I was only left with around 2GB free. Right now I'm at 15GB free on the S7E with the exact same amount of photo/music/apps installed, granted I might have a smaller cache as of now but you get the idea.

To be honest, it's borderline for me. I'm 13.4gb free. I'm OCD about being anywhere below 10gb free. 64gb or enabling adoptable storage would have been better.
With the Gear VR ........ The Oculus app and the apps within Oculus can't be moved to the external SD storage. No option. And if you load any 360, 3D, or regular videos, they must be placed on internal storage for the app to locate them. I keep my 360 VR videos on my SD card, then from the file manager I copy what I want into the phone's storage, then delete the copies after I'm done using the Gear VR. Repeat and Rinse.
Not all games transfer data properly. I don't know if it's a Marshmallow, TouchWiz, or Developer Issue. Basically Need For Speed games (Most Wanted & No Limits) and Asphalt 8 Airborne are the ones I had problems with. It would allow the option to move to external storage and would state that it moved all the data too. But it didn't. It creates a replica data folder on the external storage, but without any data in it. The original folder on the internal storage is still there with all the data. I tried many things like moving the data manually to the correct folder, and deleting the original, but the games just ask to download data again which appears back in the internal storage. Those are the only games I tried to move so far, and I'm thinking maybe the games that download extra data after initially starting up are the issue. I doubt any issue would arise from smaller games like Minion Rush or Subway Surfers, but those are the games you don't need to move.
EDIT: So I found out the Milk VR app can see video on my SD Card. So far it's the only app in the Gear VR that seems to do so.

Yes. 32gb is extremely sufficient. Especially when you have SD card support.
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not sure why this topic always comes up and people are asking other people if they have enough space, it depends on your usage, not of others i'm coming from a nexus 5 with 16GB (~12GB usable) without sdcard option that i've used for the past 2,5 years and it was enough for me. although i must admit that i had to shuffle things around sometimes (e.g. move older pictures to my NAS), hence looking forward to the 32GB

im1knight said:
I ordered a microsd card with high read/write speed. And the phone is pushing pretty near the card's theoretical limit. Benchmark have it at around 94MB/S read, and 47MB/S write, with a theoretical limit of 97 read 57 write on the card.
Key here is not to order a microsd card with extremely slow write, some of the popular sandisk models out there have 80 read, but only around 16-18 write, and that can be painful sometimes.
Is microsd slower than the new generation samsung internal storage? Yes, because the new samsung internal storage is reading at around 300MB/S. However, if you came from any phone that's not a samsung S6, S6 edge, or note 5, the microsd card read/write speed is probably similar enough to what you are used to as your old device's internal storage speed, and I honestly can't tell the difference since most apps stay loaded in the RAM anyways. I'm also surprised to find that I can move most of my installed apps to my microsd, the only one I have issue with right now is Grand Theft Auto Sand Andreas which is taking up over 2.2GB of internal space.
I had a note 5 before this, and with the 32GB internal on that, I was only left with around 2GB free. Right now I'm at 15GB free on the S7E with the exact same amount of photo/music/apps installed, granted I might have a smaller cache as of now but you get the idea.
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what SDcard are you using?

Quite pleased it has come up not being able to use gear vr with the SD card is very bad

ngmic said:
what SDcard are you using?
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PNY turbo, 64GB

512GB microSD in Galaxy S8

Hi all,
I know Samsung states the max capacity card for the S8 is 256GB but with the prices falling I'm strongly considering a 512GB card.
My current one is a Samsung Evo Plus 256GB card (red and grey version).
The new 512GB Evo Plus (grey one) looks to be faster and has A2 support and under £40 now. Mymemory also suggests it is compatible but unsure if they have actually tested it themselves.
As the S8 supports SDXC and exfat and believed to be UHS-1 bus it looks like the new Samsung Evo Plus 512GB might be good?
I did consider a newer model but not a fan that newer phones don't tend to support storage expansion and it's all cloud now. I like the files on the phone as I back them up at home.
Just wanted to post that out to see whether the 512gb samsung evo may be a good idea?
Many thanks

Not sure if that will work or not. I've read about people using larger than speced memory and it working on other phones.
I use the Sandisk Extreme .5 and 1tb V30 rated cards with my N10+'s. Zero issues. Get write speeds of [email protected] going from internal to card.
Consider upgrading to a N10+, these are fast, capable phones with one one the best displays out there. After this flagship Samsung starts losing it.

blackhawk said:
Not sure if that will work or not. I've read about people using larger than speced memory and it working on other phones.
I use the Sandisk Extreme .5 and 1tb V30 rated cards with my N10+'s. Zero issues. Get write speeds of [email protected] going from internal to card.
Consider upgrading to a N10+, these are fast, capable phones with one one the best displays out there. After this flagship Samsung starts losing it.
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Thanks blackhawk, I was thinking that their limitation on size was based on what was available for them to test with at the time so maybe couldn't test 512gb at the time of manufacture (2017 or so). I know at some point I'll definitely need to move on when the OS becomes really obsolete, the battery isn't holding charge for long, I have to take power banks with me to get through a day!
I'll check out the N10+ as I think if I wanted a Galaxy with micro SD support the best I'd be looking at is an A53?

martyp78 said:
Thanks blackhawk, I was thinking that their limitation on size was based on what was available for them to test with at the time so maybe couldn't test 512gb at the time of manufacture (2017 or so).
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I assume it depends on the default cluster size for exFAT:
7 MB-256 MB4 KB256 MB-32 GB32 KB32 GB-256 TB128 KB
https://support.microsoft.com/topic...nd-exfat-9772e6f1-e31a-00d7-e18f-73169155af95
I think for that reason Android formats sd cards up to 32GB in FAT32 while sd cards 64GB+ are formatted in exFAT. So - in theory - every Android should accept sd cards up to 256TB (cluster size 128KB) as long as min. 64GB is compatible according to the manufacturer.

Excellent thanks, I did wonder if there could be any limitations if it supports exfat and sdxc. I'll hold off from 1tb but might be intrigued if anyone does try that size.

sd card sizes are mostly just recomendations,
i run a 400gb sandisk ultra in my s3 wich oficially supports up to 64gb, only downside is that it takes 15mins to recognize the card, after that everything works as it should, get about 12mb/s out of the card
also run a 512gb samsung card in my a5(2017) wich is specified with up to 256gb supported with no problems

Great, thanks for confirming. Useful also as my other half has an A5(2017) and I also have an S3 and an S5.

martyp78 said:
Thanks blackhawk, I was thinking that their limitation on size was based on what was available for them to test with at the time so maybe couldn't test 512gb at the time of manufacture (2017 or so). I know at some point I'll definitely need to move on when the OS becomes really obsolete, the battery isn't holding charge for long, I have to take power banks with me to get through a day!
I'll check out the N10+ as I think if I wanted a Galaxy with micro SD support the best I'd be looking at is an A53?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You could replace the battery, not that big a deal.
Not sure about which of the midrange Samsung's is top of the lot.
The N10+ trumps the new midrange Samsungs except no variable refresh rate display and no 5G (probably should avoid the 5G variant). New N10+'s N975U1 (Android 10) can still be had new from a reliable vendor for $700. PM me if you want his site link. Used used ones for half that price. You may need to replace the battery but it's not a big deal.
The Snapdragon variants (N975U, N975U1) have the best hardware but can't be rooted. They run the fastest and coolest.
Most used ones will be loaded with Android 11 or 12 with the scoped storage nonsense. I prefer Android 9. I have two N10+'s; one running on 9, the newest is running on 10. Android 10 runs ok and scoped storage isn't fully implemented. I bought the second one new in part to avoid Android 11/12.
If you buy used beware of scammers. Use known good vendors only. Test the display with ScreenTest as soon as you get recieve it. The display should be perfect. Then test the cams, spen, connectivity, card slot and so on.
Use a Sandisk Extreme V30 rated card; they're fast and are very reliable.
Use a Zizo Bolt case to protect it otherwise it will get damaged; these are heavy, corner hitting phones.

Excellent, thanks.

martyp78 said:
Excellent, thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You're welcome. Check out the N10+ forum. There's lots of information there. Also Android 10 no rollback to 9, Android 11 no rollback to 10, however Android 12 probably can be rolled back to 11.
These work horses are just a joy to use. Once optimized they run very well stock, are extremely stable and long lived. The N10+ is exponentially faster than the N9 but the flagships that followed to N10+ don't see that leapfrog speed increase in most real time usage.

I just wanted to report back that I have now replaced the 256GB Samsung Evo Plus in my Galaxy S8 with the 2021 newer 512GB Samsung Evo Plus which is V30.
The tests and details are attached. It seemed to have no problem at all and have recorded Ultra 4K video to it perfectly so pleased with my £32.99 purchase as I was going to pay £42 then the price suddenly dropped by £10 last week...

martyp78 said:
I just wanted to report back that I have now replaced the 256GB Samsung Evo Plus in my Galaxy S8 with the 2021 newer 512GB Samsung Evo Plus which is V30.
The tests and details are attached. It seemed to have no problem at all and have recorded Ultra 4K video to it perfectly so pleased with my £32.99 purchase as I was going to pay £42 then the price suddenly dropped by £10 last week...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Why is screenshot no 1 showing only 477,5GB for the micro SD but 64GB for internal? I've never seen that decimal and binary were mixed up. Aside from that 512GB = 476,84GiB and not 477,5GiB as shown there.

WoKoschekk said:
Why is screenshot no 1 showing only 477,5GB for the micro SD but 64GB for internal? I've never seen that decimal and binary were mixed up. Aside from that 512GB = 476,84GiB and not 477,5GiB as shown there.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Must admit I'm not too sure, could be an oddity with the app there. It detected it and made it usable straight away although I formatted it in the phone anyway. Then the apps on my phone filled up 7GB of space without me doing anything.
I bought from a well known trusted supplier as I know are loads of fake cards on the market these days.
I'll do some checks and see if I can determine the size correctly.

WoKoschekk said:
Why is screenshot no 1 showing only 477,5GB for the micro SD but 64GB for internal? I've never seen that decimal and binary were mixed up. Aside from that 512GB = 476,84GiB and not 477,5GiB as shown there.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
samsung makes it so the internal storage always shows up with the next "full" capacity so 32gb 64gb 128gb etc
size for external media is taken from usable size so after filesystem and all so that may explain the difference there

NigrumTredecim said:
samsung makes it so the internal storage always shows up with the next "full" capacity so 32gb 64gb 128gb etc
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Every storage size on every mobile phone is a multiple of 2, e.g. 2^5 (32GB) or 2^9 (512GB). And a storage overview shows always total/free. Also non-Samsung devices.
NigrumTredecim said:
size for external media is taken from usable size so after filesystem and all so that may explain the difference there
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
A GUID partition table (gpt) has a header size of 32 blocks (block size = 512). The default start block of the first partition is 2048 (0x100000). This is 1MiB (2048*512=1048576 Byte) unallocated space. No existing file system takes 34,5GB for its partition table.

WoKoschekk said:
Every storage size on every mobile phone is a multiple of 2, e.g. 2^5 (32GB) or 2^9 (512GB). And a storage overview shows always total/free. Also non-Samsung devices.
A GUID partition table (gpt) has a header size of 32 blocks (block size = 512). The default start block of the first partition is 2048 (0x100000). This is 1MiB (2048*512=1048576 Byte) unallocated space. No existing file system takes 34,5GB for its partition table.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes the physical storage is 32GB but samsung shows 32GiB (at least on android 8)
moreso the stock data partition on my phone is only 24gib big
it will also show 512 gb while the /data partition is on an 400gb sd-card (will show 100+gb used even though that storage doesnt exist)
most other phones i had just showed the capacity of /data instead of the full flash memory (so 398gb on that 400gb sd card for example)
sd card in question https://www.amazon.de/SanDisk-Ultra-microSDXC-Speicherkarte-Adapter/dp/B074RNRM2B
conclusion: samsung appears to not read the full flash capacity but appears to just extrapolate the size of /data to the next full capacity instead just showing the missing amount as system storage.

It seems nearly every android has that stupid bug mixing up GB with GiB in storage calculation, that's not only Samsungs failure. the discrepancy is hidden in occupied space for System, as we recently discussed here.
Why is the OS (System) size different for different storage variants of the same device model?
I have seen that the space occupied by 'System' is different for different storage sizes of the same device. My Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra shows space occupied by system as over 50 GB. Mine is the 512 GB variant (Snapdragon). While I don't...
forum.xda-developers.com

NigrumTredecim said:
moreso the stock data partition on my phone is only 24gib big
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That is correct since /data is one of many partitions on your storage chip. The size of /data in your internal storage is
32GB - (all other partitions except /data) = /data
The meta data on a sd card occupies not more than a few MB. So the system should always show 512GB of 512GB free storage.
It's quite unusual showing both, GB and GiB in one overview. Apart from that 477,5GiB ≠ 512GB. That's too much.

depends on the person that calculates it. in the two articles in other thread former one mentioned 494 GiB the latter one 476 GiB. 2023 at it's best