Memory Cards. Recommendations and Suggestions.

[david 929]

6 hours ago, _DW_ said:

Didn't have time to check earlier looks like already done https://itsfoss.com/linux-kernel-5-4/

So what is still remaining is for google to put their extra modifications into this kernel for android?

[_DW_ 628]

12 hours ago, david said:

So what is still remaining is for google to put their extra modifications into this kernel for android?

or they take the modification in the kernel to android which is more likely but I don't really followed kernel development.  but the fact it exists and works is the important part here 😄

[david 929]

I pulled the plug and ordered the SanDisk Extreme Pro SDXC UHS-I U3 A2 V30 128GB + Adapter on Amazon.  It looked like it would be coming from SanDisk, but after I ordered, I realized it was from a third party seller.  I sure hope it isn't counterfeit, but I'll test it to be sure I'm getting the speed, etc.

The memory card should arrive on Monday.  The phone on Wednesday. :-)

Edited January 25, 2020 by david

[fxtec-preorder-47xx 39]

I see, this thread is long and confusing. I got one request:

Can someone please post a proved working configuration for mircoSD cards!

Containing:

• Manufacturer/Model/Specs of card.
• Partitioning and which types of partitions.
• Formatting (filesystem)

 

Thank you. I had no luck with otherwise working cards... the Pro¹ did not seem to take notice it's something in that slot or not. Or do I need to reboot?

[fxtec-preorder-47xx 39]

Aha, I just tried my last idea: reboot.

I needed a reboot to get the sdcard recognized. Strange but working.

[lameboyadvance 98]

...Android phones need to reboot in order to see inserted media?

What is this, 1995?

...Anyway, anyone know the maximum size SD card the Pro1 will take yet?

Edited January 26, 2020 by lameboyadvance

[VaZso 1,998]

26 minutes ago, lameboyadvance said:

...Anyway, anyone know the maximum size SD card the Pro1 will take yet?

Tested with 512GB of card and it works fine.

I think it should work up to 2TB.

[ksal95 227]

1 hour ago, VaZso said:

Tested with 512GB of card and it works fine.

I think it should work up to 2TB.

Good to know my CV 512 GB card will work 😁

[david 929]

I got my SanDisk Extreme Pro SDXC UHS-I U3 A2 V30 128GB in the mail today.  I tested it to make sure it wasn't a counterfeit.  I was a little worried for a while, because I wasn't getting the speeds (tested with a laptop and desktop) that it was rated at.  I knew I wouldn't get over 100 MBps in a phone (which I don't have yet), because the bus is limited to 100 Mbps.  But in a PC, I thought I'd get about 170 MB/s read and 95 MB/s write.

As it turns out, you have to use SanDisk's own USB 3 card reader to get those speeds.  I have very nice Lexar USB 3.0 card readers, but there is something special about SanDisk's card readers that is allowing them to get extra speed out of their own cards.  I found this information online in a review and I also found that the only Amazon review showing the faster speeds was indeed using a SanDisk reader.

The speeds jump around from test to test, but this is about what you can expect.

NOTE:  This is with the card formatted as exFAT, as it came from the factory.  I will be formatting to FAT32 different ways to see how the performance is affected.

Edited January 27, 2020 by david

[FlyingAntero 871]

On 1/20/2020 at 2:18 PM, EskeRahn said:

I think I remember from another forum, that some of these formats requires licensing, that might be the reason they go for fat32 to assure the widest possibility for reading on 'any' device, and could require them to buy a licence to use on the Pro1

Found this googling (My bolding)

 

 

I think that F(x)tec should update their specification list for Pro1 if exFAT is not supported. "MicroSD" term itself belongs to SD Card Association (SDA). They have specific criteria for different SD cards which are:

• SDSC: 1 MB to 2 GB
• SDHC: 2 GB to 32 GB
• SDXC: 32 GB to 2 TB
• SDUC: 2 TB to 128 TB

The Secure Digital eXtended Capacity (SDXC) format supports cards up to 2 TiB (2199023255552 bytes), compared to a limit of 32 GiB for SDHC cards in the SD 2.0 specification. SDXC adopts Microsoft's exFAT file system as a mandatory feature. So if you are going to advertise storage "expandable via microSD card up to 2TB" you must support SDXC (and exFAT).

There was similar case with Jolla Tablet and they had extra perk at Indiegogo to support SDXC cards. However, in the end they selected open source solution. Because of that they were only able to advertise 32GB SD cards but 128Gb MEMORY cards. I know that some Chinese manufacturers do that also (not mentioning SD cards, only memory cards).

I just bought Samsung Evo 128Gb MicroSDXC UHS-1 and it is fine for me to use different file system but for most of people this can be an issue.

 

• https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/jolla-tablet-world-s-first-crowdsourced-tablet#/updates/all (Update Jan 29, 2015)

"Hardware updates: microSD card support + bigger battery and more

We would also like to say thanks in helping us reach the stretch goal of $1.5M and enabling support for microSD cards up to 128GB. This perk generated a tremendous amount of discussion and at Jolla we are definitely listening.

We’ve decided to move forward with an open source memory card solution. This enables you to use memory cards up to 128GB on your Jolla Tablet for back-ups and extra storage. Due to Microsoft’s licensing limitation, cards over 32GB, that are formatted in Jolla Tablet, will not be readable with Windows computers or devices that advertise microSDXC support (cameras/phones/tablets). We feel that this suits best with our community's wishes and Jolla's values."

• https://together.jolla.com/question/64451/jolla-tablet-32gb-limit-on-sd-card/?answer=66927#post-id-66927

"Goal #1 - $1,500,000: MicroSDHC support up to 128GB

Once we reach the first goal, every Jolla Tablet will be upgraded to support microSDHC cards up to 128GB! You’ll never have to worry about running out of space again. Currently Jolla Tablet supports cards up to 32GB, besides having 32GB internal storage."

Edited January 27, 2020 by FlyingAntero

[david 929]

Just out of curiosity, which file format did Jolla end up using?

[FlyingAntero 871]

2 hours ago, david said:

Just out of curiosity, which file format did Jolla end up using?

I believe that they used Ext4.

https://jolla.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/201997993-What-kind-of-SD-cards-and-formats-are-supported?mobile_site=true

[david 929]

You can't format for FAT32 with the Windows format utility for cards over 32 GB in size.  I could have let the phone do the formatting, but I opted to use a special program that optimizes for speed.

The end results with this particular benchmark didn't change a lot.  I got a little faster speeds, when I increased how much it was set to read/write per test case.  I also got a little faster speeds on exFAT on another laptop  (with that laptop running Windows 10 and my normal laptop still on Windows 7).  So either due to operating system or drivers or the controller itself, there can be a little variation, but they are all roughly getting the same speed.  But at least the speed didn't go down with FAT32 vs exFAT (which I wouldn't expect it to, other than the manufacturers format for speed too).

 

The program I used is this one:  http://rmprepusb.blogspot.com/2014/06/increase-speed-of-your-sd-card-or-flash.html

I used version 2.1.734, with the following settings:

 

After making the selections, click "Prepare Drive" (the Cyan/Aqua/Blue colored button).

I will be attempting to use the card in my new phone in the next hour or two and will report back on whether the Pro1 forces a reformat.

To compare apples to apples, here are the speeds with writing the same amount of data I showed in the original benchmark results.  The sequential speeds are slower when writing 16MB of data, but the random write speeds go up when writing less data for some reason.

Edited January 28, 2020 by david

[david 929]

Can someone else who has an SD card in their Pro1 run the A1 SD Bench app against it and report the speeds?  I am only getting about 20 MB/s, which is much slower than it should be.  I haven't applied the OTAs yet, so maybe that will fix it.  I just want to see if anyone's phone can get faster speeds and whether you are up to date on OTA updates.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.a1dev.sdbench&hl=en_US

I tried other apps with the same issue.

Oh, and you might get 0 MB/s for the write tests in A1 SD Bench.  I thought I might have gotten a write test to show non-zero at some point, but for the most part, they all come back zero.  That's some sort of app bug or compatibility issue I'm guessing.

[VaZso 1,998]

17 minutes ago, david said:

Can someone else who has an SD card in their Pro1 run the A1 SD Bench app against it and report the speeds?  I am only getting about 20 MB/s, which is much slower than it should be. 

I had a writing speed of 21.49 MB/s and reading speed of 18.46 MB/s...

Internal storage had a writing speed of 191.18 MB/s and reading speed of 506.89 MB/s.

RAM was 7188.19 MB/s.

I am not sure if it uses the card at Pro1 hardware's maximal possible speed as the card should be able to work at about 70 MB/s of writing and near 100 MB/s of reading speeds using a USB 3.0 card reader.

Edited January 28, 2020 by VaZso

[david 929]

3 minutes ago, VaZso said:

I had a writing speed of 21.49 MB/s and reading speed of 18.46 MB/s...

Internal storage had a writing speed of 191.18 MB/s and reading speed of 506.89 MB/s.

RAM was 7188.19 MB/s.

I am not sure if it uses the card at Pro1 hardware's maximal possible speed as the card should be able to work at about 70 MB/s of writing and near 100 MB/s of reading speeds using a USB 3.0 card reader.

Usually you won't get the full speed out of a card in a phone as you do in a computer.  However, I have seen other people get these speeds from the same card on their phones in Amazon reviews.

80/60 and 78/52

Do you have all the latest OTAs updated in the phone?

[VaZso 1,998]

Just now, david said:

Do you have all the latest OTAs updated in the phone?

Yes.

I just wrote that the card it not a limiting factor (Samsung 512 GB SDXC / UHS-1 card anyway).

[david 929]

2 minutes ago, VaZso said:

Yes.

I just wrote that the card it not a limiting factor (Samsung 512 GB SDXC / UHS-1 card anyway).

Yes, thanks for clarifying.  And thanks for testing.  I reported it in the Bug thread.  It seems to be operating at "Fast Speed", which is 25 MB/s max, instead of UHS-I, which is 104 MB/s.  Or it could just be a coincidence that the speeds are close to the Fast Speed bus limit.  Either way, it isn't operating at what it should.

[VaZso 1,998]

1 minute ago, david said:

Either way, it isn't operating at what it should.

Yes. I hope physically it can drive it using higher speeds (I mean proper wiring).
It can be a software issue anyway or even a hardware issue.

[david 929]

More test results from another app.  The internal tests may be skewed due to caching.  I don't know.  But the external SD card shows the same slowness. For some reason the test starts out faster on the SD card and then slows down over time (for writes).  I'm guessing caching has something to do with that.

Internal storage:

SD card:

 

[david 929]

I have verified that the SD card is still operating very slowly on my Pro1, even with the latest OTA (20201006).  It is unfortunate, because I'm pleased with the speed of everything else with this phone.  The writes should be at least twice as fast and the reads should be about 3 or 4 times faster, with the card I'm using (even taking into account that SD cards are slower in phones than through USB 3 card readers on PCs).

Edited February 11, 2020 by david

[Hook 3,020]

My numbers come out the same.  I have this card.

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B0758NHWS8/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Could this be because of being formatted FAT32?  I have no rel knowledge in this area.

I luckily don't often write large files to the card, just occasionally move some media over from my PC.  What I have noticed is that if moving a large amount of media via USB connection to my computer, the connection will time out after a while.  I discovered this when trying to move my whole music library to the card.  It took 3 or 4 attempts to get all of the files over.  I have no idea what that's about.  It always completed the last file operation and so I could easily tell where I had to start the new copy operation, but it was a pain.

Again, luckily I don't do this often.  Most of the time I wouldn't notice the slowness of the operation.  It doesn't affect media playback.

[david 929]

FAT32 shouldn't cause that.  My card tests fine in my PC with FAT32.  Of course, with the standard disclaimer that anything is possible, I guess. 🙂

I have been moving files around more recently, with rooting and migrating things from another phone, so I have noticed the speed issue a bit.  But one thing I am a little concerned with is 4K video writing.  I believe that wants 30 MB/s, so we are lacking a bit there.  I haven't taken any videos yet, because I need to modify my case first, but that risk has been in the back of my mind.

Regarding copying from the PC to the phone SD card, can you share some details, like the Windows version, whether it was PTP or MTP mode in the phone, and whether you had USB debugging enabled?  

Edited February 11, 2020 by david

[Hook 3,020]

39 minutes ago, david said:

Regarding copying from the PC to the phone SD card, can you share some details, like the Windows version, whether it was PTP or MTP mode in the phone, and whether you had USB debugging enabled?  

Windows 10, 64-bit, MTP (it's called "File Transfer" on the phone's USB menu) and, yes, USB debugging is enabled.

[david 929]

2 hours ago, Hook said:

Windows 10, 64-bit, MTP (it's called "File Transfer" on the phone's USB menu) and, yes, USB debugging is enabled.

I had errors on win 10, 64 bit, MTP (yeah, they dumbed down that one, but not ptp or midi, lol) and PTP without USB debugging enabled, but not with it enabled.  That was on the 20191203 firmware.  I haven't tried on the 20200106 firmware.  Which are you on? 

It would be interesting to see if you have the same issue with PTP.