64gb SD does work in Bionic

[bladewriter]

Blade,

Thanks for the additional detail. In your OP you said it worked, so I hoped my specific question was not rude.

Craig

No worries. I have seen some people claim the 64gb doesn't work in Bionics, so it is good to check. There is also
this review from a while ago:

SanDisk Ultra microSDXC Card 64GB Review & Rating | PCMag.com

Says it works in Bionic, presumably unrooted.

 

[gsbjackson]

Same here... working GREAT on Bionic after letting the phone reformat to FAT32. Took advance of the 50% off price by BB... unfortunately no longer available at that price. :frown:

Probably was a mistake.

Phone running: 5.9.901 ROOTED


Thanks kodiak799.

 

[oldguy]

Formatting 64GB SDXC Card on Bionic

I had bought a 32GB Sandisk class 4 SD card cheap on Amazon. I think it had connection problems because it was not reliable. I finally got it working but I kept getting lost files for reasons unexplainable and the transfer rate was extremely slow--both in the PC card slot and mounted as USB mass storage via the phone cable.
So, I decided to buy an SDXC class 10 64GB card--ordered on Amazon (SanDisk Ultra 64 GB microSDXC Class 10 UHS-1 Memory Card 30MB/s with Adapter SDSDQUA-064G-U46A ) for about $53. I downloaded the EaseUS partition toolkit from CNET (free) to do the FAT32 formatting. I plugged the card into my PC (Windows 7) and ran EaseUS. I first initialized it to GPT and then created and formatted a FAT32 partition with a 64kb cluster size. It worked fine in the phone. However, when connected to the PC in "USB mode," it would not mount the external drive as USB mass storage, although it would show the space as part of the combined capacity of the device when connecting in"PC Mode"--not recommended for data file transfer due to the inability to control where the data goes (internal vs. external storage). So, I removed it and re-initialized the volume (using EaseUS) as MBR and created a partition with my own arbitrarily assigned name (I picked SDEXT64). I formatted the partition at 32KB cluster size as recommended on another forum post. I think I picked Win 7 as the OS but not sure that matters.

It works great in the phone and also mounts as USB mass storage via the connector cable and is recognized by the PC as SDEXT64 (not MOT). It is blazingly fast. I copied about 30GB to it in the card slot in just a few minutes (like less than half an hour. The class 4 card took several hours to copy the same data.

 

[josh1980]

Outstanding! Thanks for the feedback! I ALMOST clicked purchase for that exact card on Saturday. Decided to wait since I don't copy alot of data to/from my phone nor do I need more space. I just "wanted" the 64GB chip "because I can". I try to avoid those purchases because I'm sure in 3 months if I need it the same chip will be cheaper.

 

[Bear in NM]

Oldguy,

Thanks for the additional info to this old thread. I got kinda busy this summer and held off buying one. I decided to buy 2 of the cards through Amazon, and aquire the EaseUS Partition software (thanks for the heads up on that software. it looks pretty robust for free). My cards were also 55ish each. I have had mixed results. The first card had the ext formatting, so I first ran it through the software reformatting it to fat32, with 32K clusters. It formatted, and I copied 20 gigs over to it. I put it in the phone, and nothing. I took it out and have tried every adapter I have in both XP, Windows& and on the phone, and the card is not recognized. It looks to be toast. I placed the second card directly in my phone, and it came up as bad/corrupt with the promt to reformat. I did so, and the phone formatted it to Fat32, and is working right now.

In reading a lot of the reviews on Amazon, it appears these cards are pretty much a crap shoot. Mine both came in the factory Sandisk packaging with the Green Android guy/gal on the package. Both identical, and both cards look the same, although one has more of pink and grey branding, rather than red and grey. I also read in one of the reviews that there may be an issue with ICS when it comes out to everyone. Has something to do with the Licensing of of the file structure from Microsoft and Android above 4.0. I am still running GB, so my hope is that as the card is now formatted Fat32 I should be good.

My suggestion for anyone thinking of doing the Sandisk through Amazon would be to read as many reviews as you can find. My Amazonfu is pretty weak, as when I bought my card they came from one company, but the link in my email confirmation links me back to a different supplier now. I am not sure how this all works with them, but I think if I purchase another card, I would be inclined to perhaps pay retail at one of the big box stores where you know of the return policy. I have not been through Amazon return, but from what I read I will probably not bother. Many of the reviews also talk of the cards failing after a certain amount of time. I would suggest to anyone doing this to have a backup plan in place where important or irreplaceable files are routinely backed up to alternate locations. Folks should be doing this anyway with removable media, but it looks like with these 64's it might be more critical.

So for a hundred bucks, I did get one working card, so I am fine with that. I think I will take my toasted card by my little computer shop in town and see if they can do CPR on it.

Craig

 

[josh1980]

Why not just return it? It seems that you got a bad card.

 

[Bear in NM]

Josh,

I am not 100% sure the card was bad. It was visible for a while, and perhaps I did not eject properly or some such thing. Might have done something wrong in the formatting program, as it was my first stab at using it. I am pretty new on Amazon, and I did not read a single review where the return was easy or without headache. Right now I am not terribly cranky. And I do place a little value on my time. I have a few more cables coming in through Amazon, maybe I'll get to bundle up a bunch of stuff and send it all back ;^) At least when I download music, they play properly.......

Craig