Author Topic: Tested microSD cards?  (Read 3593 times)

Isaac

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Tested microSD cards?
« on: May 07, 2018, 01:07:27 pm »
Who has tried microSD cards in their Gemini? What seems to be the best, largest card to get at the moment?

I am probably going to grab a few off amazon in the 128GB-256GB range to see what is what and will report back, would be great to see what everyone else has tried first to test as many as we can over time.

depscribe

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« Reply #1 on: May 07, 2018, 01:22:17 pm »
Quote from: Isaac
Who has tried microSD cards in their Gemini? What seems to be the best, largest card to get at the moment?
I've ordered and will have Wednesday the 128gb cheapish Kingston -- "Canvas," I think. I'll let you know how it works (which is actually *whether* it works -- they either do or they don't!).
dep

Atari Portfolio (yes, it still works and yes, I bought it new)
Libretto 110 CT (with docking station and all kinds of PCMCIA stuff)
And, now, a Gemini and, fortunately, a GPD Pocket

Alius

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Tested microSD cards?
« Reply #2 on: May 08, 2018, 10:28:13 am »
I am (re-)using a samsung 128GB in my Gemini.  I had to reformat it as FAT32 for Gemini to recognize it in Android though.  I would've preferred to keep it formatted as exFAT, but I am so pleased with my Gemini I won't complain about that minor quibble.

Isaac

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Tested microSD cards?
« Reply #3 on: May 08, 2018, 12:47:57 pm »
Quote from: Alius
I am (re-)using a samsung 128GB in my Gemini.  I had to reformat it as FAT32 for Gemini to recognize it in Android though.  I would've preferred to keep it formatted as exFAT, but I am so pleased with my Gemini I won't complain about that minor quibble.

Have you been able to verify that the full 128GB are available properly under Gemini when formatted as FAT32? I guess there's no real reason to suspect it wouldn't work but that's the main thing I am personally worried about is making sure it uses settings that will allow the full size of the card to be used.

Alius

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Tested microSD cards?
« Reply #4 on: May 14, 2018, 04:56:04 pm »
Quote from: Isaac
Quote from: Alius
I am (re-)using a samsung 128GB in my Gemini.  I had to reformat it as FAT32 for Gemini to recognize it in Android though.  I would've preferred to keep it formatted as exFAT, but I am so pleased with my Gemini I won't complain about that minor quibble.

Have you been able to verify that the full 128GB are available properly under Gemini when formatted as FAT32? I guess there's no real reason to suspect it wouldn't work but that's the main thing I am personally worried about is making sure it uses settings that will allow the full size of the card to be used.

My Samsung SD card reports as 38.42 GB used of 120 GB.  Although I have not attempted to fill it yet, the capacity reports correctly (taking into account formatting and 'gibibytes' vs 'gigabytes').  The only limitation I have encountered so far is I was unable to restore files >4GB when i transitioned from exfat, since FAT32 has this limitation.

KF6GPE

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« Reply #5 on: May 27, 2018, 11:05:37 pm »
I’m using a Samsung 200GB card, one of the red-and-white ones. Works great.

I remain mind-boggled that I can have a quarter terabyte of storage in a palmtop.
« Last Edit: July 03, 2018, 08:18:44 pm by KF6GPE »

Simon Pooley

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« Reply #6 on: May 28, 2018, 08:20:38 am »
Last week I bought one of these https://www.amazon.co.uk/SanDisk-microSDXC-...e/dp/B073S99KPQ - 200GB for £55 and am using that in my Gemini. The Gemini formatted it as FAT32 and it happily holds my >~130GB collection of audio media.

I put the sdcard in my Windows laptop to do the initial bulk copy of data from my network file server.

For subsequent updates I'll probably use the ES File Explorer Pro Android app.

gidds

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« Reply #7 on: May 29, 2018, 05:54:25 am »
I have a 256GB Samsung EVO Select, with 112GB used.  The Gemini needed to reformat it initially, but it's worked fine since.

(Still not enough, though — my music collection is around 300GB…  When 400GB or even 512GB cards become available, I'll be sorely tempted!)
« Last Edit: July 03, 2018, 06:02:20 pm by gidds »
   Andy/
Psion 3a → Psion 5 → Psion 5mx → Gemini → Astro

gidds

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« Reply #8 on: July 03, 2018, 06:01:13 pm »
So, has anyone tried a 400GB or 512GB card in a Gemini yet??
   Andy/
Psion 3a → Psion 5 → Psion 5mx → Gemini → Astro

RevBlackie

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« Reply #9 on: July 03, 2018, 09:23:57 pm »
I have the SandDisk 400GB card in mine, and so far (other than having to reformat it to get the Gemini to play nice with it), it's working great. I have it about half full (mostly movies and music). As far as I can tell, it's reading the used/free space pretty accurately. And in case anyone is wondering, once formatted, it contains 366.73 GB of usable space.

gidds

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« Reply #10 on: July 04, 2018, 05:41:03 am »
Quote from: RevBlackie
I have the SandDisk 400GB card in mine, and […] it's working great.
Cool!  Now I just have to decide whether to buy one immediately, or wait for a decent 512GB one…

Quote from: RevBlackie
it contains 366.73 GB of usable space.
That's just due to the different ways of measuring.  Technically, the S.I. prefixes are always strict powers of 10: ‘G’ for giga = 10^9, ‘M’ for mega = 10^6, &c.  But for years they've been abused by everyone for bytes, to mean powers of 1024.  Or rather, by almost everyone: storage manufacturers mostly use the strict definitions, because it makes their disks look bigger!

There's already a solution to this: new S.I. prefixes ‘Gi’ for gibi = 1024^3, ‘Mi’ for mebi = 1024^2, ‘ki’ for kibi = 1024.  (The ‘bi’ is for ‘binary’.)  These are catching on slowly, and once everyone's using them, there will be no confusion!

In this case, 400 GB is about 372.53 GiB, so you haven't lost as much as you might think to formatting and hidden partitions.
   Andy/
Psion 3a → Psion 5 → Psion 5mx → Gemini → Astro

RevBlackie

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« Reply #11 on: July 04, 2018, 07:21:20 am »
Right now, they're on Amazon for around $200, which is considerably less than they were just a short time ago. A 256GB card is about $85. Considering what a pain it is to swap out cards from the Gemini, I thought the extra money was worth it. I'm curious to see what sort of price range the 512 cards will settle on.

And I wasn't complaining about the available space -- that's the way all SD cards and drives are calculated. I just thought some people might be curious as to the actual capacity to expect. Considering the CF card in my Psion 5mx was 16MB, I'm pretty happy with the upgrade!

Ifanafi

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« Reply #12 on: July 04, 2018, 12:06:30 pm »
Bought the FASTEST SanDisk 200gb, Fat32 formatted SD card (formatted on laptop) now holds 143gbs of music.

Never any issue since installation.

Cheers.


Quote from: Isaac
Who has tried microSD cards in their Gemini? What seems to be the best, largest card to get at the moment?

I am probably going to grab a few off amazon in the 128GB-256GB range to see what is what and will report back, would be great to see what everyone else has tried first to test as many as we can over time.

gidds

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« Reply #13 on: July 16, 2018, 10:03:27 am »
Quote from: RevBlackie
Considering the CF card in my Psion 5mx was 16MB, I'm pretty happy with the upgrade!
Wow, you clearly didn't do as much with your 5mx as I did with mine and its 2GB CF…!  (I had my entire ebook collection, a snapshot of Wikipedia from ~2005, dictionaries, thesauruses, tons of apps, &c…)

…and now my Gemini has all that and my entire music collection and some movies on its shiny new 400GB µSD. 
   Andy/
Psion 3a → Psion 5 → Psion 5mx → Gemini → Astro