4 ms·

"another use case is to have your entire music library available in your phone." Unfortunately, almost all phones continue to support microSD cards "up to 32 G

by rsync 9y ago

"another use case is to have your entire music library available in your phone." Unfortunately, almost all phones continue to support microSD cards "up to 32 GB". Some will (reportedly) work with 64 GB cards, but if I understand correctly, others need hacks/tweaks to access >32 GB cards ...

errantblaze 9y ago
I didn't realize this was an issue. Does this include flagship phones or is it mostly lower- and mid-range? From experience, the Galaxy S7 supports at least 128GB (a quick search returns a 256GB max). S6 didn't support microSD, S5 supports 128GB, S4 supports 64GB, S3 supports 64GB.
- SAI_Peregrinus 9y ago
  sdxc has been in the spec since 2010. Anything that supports over 32GB (sdxc) can support up to 2TB with no hardware changes. I still have an S4 and use a 128GB card, but I've got a custom ROM. Most of the "up to" values for support are simply the biggest card that was available when the device was released, not the biggest the device can read. That's almost always going to be 2TB, the maximum that exFAT can support.
Leynos 9y ago
My 2 year old Sony Xperia works quite happily with a 128 GB card. A quick survey of recent (2017) models of Samsung, Sony, Motorola, Huawei, and Xiaomi on GSM Arena shows that they all take up to 256 GB (with Motorola being the exception at 128GB). This also seems to be the case for older Samsung phones I looked at. Looks like you're in luck.
SAI_Peregrinus 9y ago
My phone and tablet work fine with 128GB cards. The phone is a Samsung Galaxy S4 running Android 7.1.1, the tablet is an Amazon Fire HD 5th Gen. Any device that supports sdxc cards must support up to 2TB. The exFAT filesystem is required for these, so you can't use FAT32 anymore. sdxc host devices started coming out in 2010, pretty much everything that uses sd cards these days has support for them.
- userbinator 9y ago
  FAT32 has an individual filesize limit of 4GB, but otherwise works fine for a 2TB partition: http://www.cdrlabs.com/images/stories/reviews/silicon-power_armor_a30/silicon%20power%20armor%20a30%20properties.png http://www.cdrlabs.com/images/stories/reviews/silicon-power_...
  - SAI_Peregrinus 9y ago
    Yes, but SDXC drivers don't necessarily support FAT32 on SDXC cards. The spec only requires exFAT. SDHC used FAT32.
    - userbinator 9y ago
      That's interesting. It seems the SD specs (which include SDXC) are mandating a specific filesystem. According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Digital#SDXC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Digital#SDXC Nevertheless, in order to be fully compliant with the SDXC card specification, many SDXC-capable host devices are firmware-programmed to expect exFAT on cards larger than 32 GB. Consequently, they may not accept SDXC cards reformatted as FAT32, even if the device supports FAT32 on smaller cards (for SDHC compatibility). That seems like a gross "abstraction layer violation" to me --- like making SATA controllers which work with SATA6 HDDs only when formatted with NTFS. The filesystem should have nothing to do with SD, which simply implements a block device abstraction. No doubt Microsoft was involved in this ridiculousness...
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
      - lathiat 9y ago
        since they receive patent licensing on exFAT, you can bet that! :) which is the same reason that there is no implementation in the kernel, only fuse. ugh.
      - derefr 9y ago
        "SD" is basically the name of a standard stack, not a particular layer. You can reformat an SDHC card to not be FAT32, but then it won't be an SDHC card any more. There is a point to this: SD cards are used in all sorts of low-level embedded applications, with firmware that uses very inflexible (usually assembler) code to address the card. The assumptions about the SD wire protocol + the FAT32 filesystem + even the particular location of the FAT table on disk are all knotted together in these devices. Because of this, it's not even just that SDHC requires FAT32; SDHC requires FAT32 done with a specific formatting tool released by the SD standards group. Because your OS might put the FAT anywhere, but the tool puts it in exactly one place, and that's the place that dumb embedded devices expect to find it.
simlevesque 9y ago
My Lg G4 has no issue qith a 200gb microSD card.
lenkite 9y ago
Nowadays phones are dropping SD card support because they want everyone to touch the 'cloud'.

by rsync 9y ago

errantblaze 9y ago

I didn't realize this was an issue. Does this include flagship phones or is it mostly lower- and mid-range? From experience, the Galaxy S7 supports at least 128GB (a quick search returns a 256GB max). S6 didn't support microSD, S5 supports 128GB, S4 supports 64GB, S3 supports 64GB.

SAI_Peregrinus 9y ago
sdxc has been in the spec since 2010. Anything that supports over 32GB (sdxc) can support up to 2TB with no hardware changes. I still have an S4 and use a 128GB card, but I've got a custom ROM. Most of the "up to" values for support are simply the biggest card that was available when the device was released, not the biggest the device can read. That's almost always going to be 2TB, the maximum that exFAT can support.

Leynos 9y ago

My 2 year old Sony Xperia works quite happily with a 128 GB card. A quick survey of recent (2017) models of Samsung, Sony, Motorola, Huawei, and Xiaomi on GSM Arena shows that they all take up to 256 GB (with Motorola being the exception at 128GB). This also seems to be the case for older Samsung phones I looked at. Looks like you're in luck.

SAI_Peregrinus 9y ago

My phone and tablet work fine with 128GB cards. The phone is a Samsung Galaxy S4 running Android 7.1.1, the tablet is an Amazon Fire HD 5th Gen. Any device that supports sdxc cards must support up to 2TB. The exFAT filesystem is required for these, so you can't use FAT32 anymore. sdxc host devices started coming out in 2010, pretty much everything that uses sd cards these days has support for them.

userbinator 9y ago
FAT32 has an individual filesize limit of 4GB, but otherwise works fine for a 2TB partition: http://www.cdrlabs.com/images/stories/reviews/silicon-power_armor_a30/silicon%20power%20armor%20a30%20properties.png http://www.cdrlabs.com/images/stories/reviews/silicon-power_...
- SAI_Peregrinus 9y ago
  Yes, but SDXC drivers don't necessarily support FAT32 on SDXC cards. The spec only requires exFAT. SDHC used FAT32.
  - userbinator 9y ago
    That's interesting. It seems the SD specs (which include SDXC) are mandating a specific filesystem. According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Digital#SDXC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Digital#SDXC Nevertheless, in order to be fully compliant with the SDXC card specification, many SDXC-capable host devices are firmware-programmed to expect exFAT on cards larger than 32 GB. Consequently, they may not accept SDXC cards reformatted as FAT32, even if the device supports FAT32 on smaller cards (for SDHC compatibility). That seems like a gross "abstraction layer violation" to me --- like making SATA controllers which work with SATA6 HDDs only when formatted with NTFS. The filesystem should have nothing to do with SD, which simply implements a block device abstraction. No doubt Microsoft was involved in this ridiculousness...
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - lathiat 9y ago
      since they receive patent licensing on exFAT, you can bet that! :) which is the same reason that there is no implementation in the kernel, only fuse. ugh.
    - derefr 9y ago
      "SD" is basically the name of a standard stack, not a particular layer. You can reformat an SDHC card to not be FAT32, but then it won't be an SDHC card any more. There is a point to this: SD cards are used in all sorts of low-level embedded applications, with firmware that uses very inflexible (usually assembler) code to address the card. The assumptions about the SD wire protocol + the FAT32 filesystem + even the particular location of the FAT table on disk are all knotted together in these devices. Because of this, it's not even just that SDHC requires FAT32; SDHC requires FAT32 done with a specific formatting tool released by the SD standards group. Because your OS might put the FAT anywhere, but the tool puts it in exactly one place, and that's the place that dumb embedded devices expect to find it.

simlevesque 9y ago

My Lg G4 has no issue qith a 200gb microSD card.

lenkite 9y ago

Nowadays phones are dropping SD card support because they want everyone to touch the 'cloud'.