There is a lot of information on this board about people having corruption trouble with various SD cards, but there is not too much specific, detailed information from people who are having great success with them. I'd like to hear from those who do not have any issues with their SD card setup. I'd like to know how long they've been working fine, what cards you use, what program you used to format the card, what file system, and whether there are any odd messages about them in dmesg even though the cards are working correctly. If you know any other relevant information about running SD cards in the Pandora without trouble (besides what's already posted in the wiki, pandorapress, forum, etc.), that would be most appreciated. I am hoping one or more common links will emerge between those who are having no issues with their cards.
Are Your Sdhc/sdxc Cards Working Perfectly?
- Thread starter HS3006
- Start date
tsh
Active Member
2 x 16GB class 2 cards. One formatted EXT2, as main OS (boot, root), one formatted as supplied (FAT) used for mainly music.
No problems with heavy use of the root one (built the kernel 6 times over 2 days). Both usually remain mounted full time.
No problems with heavy use of the root one (built the kernel 6 times over 2 days). Both usually remain mounted full time.
sebt3
homebrew player (P. & C.)
Robotron therapy as needed said:
-Type : Kinston 8G class 4
- Filesystem : fat32
- Fromated with : mkfs.vfat
- Used in slot : 1
- IO errors since day one : 0
No problem with or without wifi
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Eniko
Raving Python fangirl
2x 32gb class 4 Sandisk, no problems whatsoever. I didn't even format them, I just plugged them into my Pandora and off I went.
skeezix
Internal Development
Using filesystems like ext2fs with write on SD is sort of 'asking for it' in my experience - doesn't react well to sudden crashes or otherwise lose of cached data (ie: battery is cut out or whatever.) All told, even that is not such a problem these days where the system is pretty stable.
FS's like FAT may stink, but they due to to survive power failures and crashes and such pretty nicely, so I tend to just leave my SDs as FAT32; I do tend to format them with Panasonic or HP formatter tools, but since hotfixes, I've had no issues whatsoever. (Being working on Pandora for so long, I can't exactly recall when corruption exactly went away; I was reformatting my SD cards 5 times a day for the first year of Pandora coding
(That was a separate issue entirely; Notaz is a god that walks among us for one day he went looking and found a bug in SD driver, and I've had no problems since. But that was long before public release, and thus moot.)
So ..
Kingston, 2 x 8GB class 6 SDHC cards; FAT32, absolutely no problems.
jeff
FS's like FAT may stink, but they due to to survive power failures and crashes and such pretty nicely, so I tend to just leave my SDs as FAT32; I do tend to format them with Panasonic or HP formatter tools, but since hotfixes, I've had no issues whatsoever. (Being working on Pandora for so long, I can't exactly recall when corruption exactly went away; I was reformatting my SD cards 5 times a day for the first year of Pandora coding
(That was a separate issue entirely; Notaz is a god that walks among us for one day he went looking and found a bug in SD driver, and I've had no problems since. But that was long before public release, and thus moot.)So ..
Kingston, 2 x 8GB class 6 SDHC cards; FAT32, absolutely no problems.
jeff
sebt3
homebrew player (P. & C.)
there are many thread about SD problems in the "I need help" section some other are available here in the general section. Here is a few :DaMummy said:
http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?/topic/55586-sd-card-corrupted/
http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?/topic/54950-do-not-use-cheap-sd-cards-solved/
http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?/topic/54979-inputoutput-error-in-mmenu/
http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?/topic/54941-after-using-sd-cards-with-the-pandora-other-computers-wont-read-them/
http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?/topic/55077-looks-like-the-is-a-readtiming-problem-with-sd-reading-when-high-cpu/
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to all people who said their SD cards are running fine:
Can you also copy a big file (>200mb) from SD slot 1 (left one) to the right SD slot?
Only under those circumstances the copy fails, when copying smaller files or other other direction, everything works fine (with my Pandora)!
Can you also copy a big file (>200mb) from SD slot 1 (left one) to the right SD slot?
Only under those circumstances the copy fails, when copying smaller files or other other direction, everything works fine (with my Pandora)!
urjaman
"I Know. We're going for a ride."
Long story short, Yes.
And here is the Long Story:
I have a single Kingston 8G SDHC Class 4 card.
Initially it was partitioned from the factory with a single FAT32 partition. Worked fine for the time I used it that way (a few days).
I re-partitioned it to FAT32 + ext2, booted from FAT32 with (auto)boot.txt using the ext2 as root
Then I shrinked the ext2 a bit and put a (temporary) CLI rootfs to a third partition (this and the previous setup was in use for 2-3weeks, cant recall).
Then I wanted to boot the pandora entirely from SD, built MLO and u-boot and remade the partitioning;
Now it is partitioned with 3 partitions, first two according to http://code.google.com/p/beagleboard/wiki/LinuxBootDiskFormat ,
third a FAT32 data partition for the rest of the disk (400M FAT32 boot, 3G ext2, rest FAT32 data). (this setup has been in use a few days now).
I've needed to e2fsck the rootfs a few times after crashing when running from it, but it has survived (it is still the same binary FS I made in the first re-partition, though shrinked with e2resize (or whatever it was) and dd'd over USB MS to my PC and back).
There's a development loop ext2 file (1G, might expand it a bit someday) on the DATA partition,
on which I've compiled countless kernels already, working just fine.
And here is the Long Story:
I have a single Kingston 8G SDHC Class 4 card.
Initially it was partitioned from the factory with a single FAT32 partition. Worked fine for the time I used it that way (a few days).
I re-partitioned it to FAT32 + ext2, booted from FAT32 with (auto)boot.txt using the ext2 as root
Then I shrinked the ext2 a bit and put a (temporary) CLI rootfs to a third partition (this and the previous setup was in use for 2-3weeks, cant recall).
Then I wanted to boot the pandora entirely from SD, built MLO and u-boot and remade the partitioning;
Now it is partitioned with 3 partitions, first two according to http://code.google.com/p/beagleboard/wiki/LinuxBootDiskFormat ,
third a FAT32 data partition for the rest of the disk (400M FAT32 boot, 3G ext2, rest FAT32 data). (this setup has been in use a few days now).
I've needed to e2fsck the rootfs a few times after crashing when running from it, but it has survived (it is still the same binary FS I made in the first re-partition, though shrinked with e2resize (or whatever it was) and dd'd over USB MS to my PC and back).
There's a development loop ext2 file (1G, might expand it a bit someday) on the DATA partition,
on which I've compiled countless kernels already, working just fine.
EmuGuy
Member
1x8GB Panasonic Class 10 in left slot (PNDs, videos, music), 1x8GB Kingston Class 6 (more videos) in right slot. Only SD problem I have is that pesky "can't unmount" error, but I think that's being worked on, and is not card related.
I've copied a 400MB file from the right to the left, haven't tried the other way though, not sure why it would matter... :unsure:
I've copied a 400MB file from the right to the left, haven't tried the other way though, not sure why it would matter... :unsure:
Prometheus
Well-Known Member
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- 9,472
I'm going to write primarily about my main card, but most of this also applies to my others (I'll list the brands for those at the end ).
Card: Verbatim Premium HD Video SDHC, Class 6, 32GB
Formatted as: ext2
Formatted with: KMFormat (a KDE front-end which simply calls the usual command-line tools), under Kubuntu 8.04.
Working fine since: June 3rd, when I received my first Pandora unit. Still working fine.
Problems: None. I did end up with a corrupted psx4pandora file when an early build of that emulator crashed and I had to do a Pandora-button-reset, and I couldn't delete it until I ran fsck, but I would expect issues like that with any file-system due to the application crashing as it did.
Most of my other cards are (or have been) also formatted as ext2, and were formatted in the same way. These cards are an assortment of a couple of 16GB Play.com own-brand Class 4 cards, one 4GB Play.com own-brand Class 4 card, and one Kingston 8GB Class 6 card. I have had no problems with these either, and have also had no problems with my FAT-formatted cards (one of my 16GB Play.com cards is now FAT because I sometimes copy music to it from my Macintosh instead of my main box), which consist of a 16GB Play.com own-brand Class 4 card, a SanDisk 128MB card, and a Kingston 2GB card.
I've had no problems copying between slots with any mixture of these cards, on either of the Pandoras I've had. I will test this again when I receive my replacement unit.
EDIT: Oh, additionally, while I think of it, all of these cards use Grade A flash chips. You can determine this by testing with H2testw and checking how much space the application says was ok once it gives you the results. If it's a normal amount once you factor in formatting overheads, then it's most likely a Grade A chip. For example, a 2GB card with a Grade A flash chip will give you 1.9GB of usable space, and so on - if H2testw said, say, 1.8GB or 1.7GB, it's probably a lower-quality chip (or one that's gradually wearing down). I wonder if this is worth looking into further?
EDIT 2: I've made my own thread relating to my previous edit here, because I don't want to cause any derailment in this one.
).Card: Verbatim Premium HD Video SDHC, Class 6, 32GB
Formatted as: ext2
Formatted with: KMFormat (a KDE front-end which simply calls the usual command-line tools), under Kubuntu 8.04.
Working fine since: June 3rd, when I received my first Pandora unit. Still working fine.
Problems: None. I did end up with a corrupted psx4pandora file when an early build of that emulator crashed and I had to do a Pandora-button-reset, and I couldn't delete it until I ran fsck, but I would expect issues like that with any file-system due to the application crashing as it did.
Most of my other cards are (or have been) also formatted as ext2, and were formatted in the same way. These cards are an assortment of a couple of 16GB Play.com own-brand Class 4 cards, one 4GB Play.com own-brand Class 4 card, and one Kingston 8GB Class 6 card. I have had no problems with these either, and have also had no problems with my FAT-formatted cards (one of my 16GB Play.com cards is now FAT because I sometimes copy music to it from my Macintosh instead of my main box), which consist of a 16GB Play.com own-brand Class 4 card, a SanDisk 128MB card, and a Kingston 2GB card.
I've had no problems copying between slots with any mixture of these cards, on either of the Pandoras I've had. I will test this again when I receive my replacement unit.
EDIT: Oh, additionally, while I think of it, all of these cards use Grade A flash chips. You can determine this by testing with H2testw and checking how much space the application says was ok once it gives you the results. If it's a normal amount once you factor in formatting overheads, then it's most likely a Grade A chip. For example, a 2GB card with a Grade A flash chip will give you 1.9GB of usable space, and so on - if H2testw said, say, 1.8GB or 1.7GB, it's probably a lower-quality chip (or one that's gradually wearing down). I wonder if this is worth looking into further?
EDIT 2: I've made my own thread relating to my previous edit here, because I don't want to cause any derailment in this one.
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mitosis
Still Fresh
Robotron therapy as needed said:
The logic here is extremely flawed. Why would someone come on here just to state what ought to be the obvious expected outcome: everything working great? If you buy a gadget, get home and start playing with it, and have NO issues with it... do you then call up customer service and tell them everything's working fine?
I think not.
So here's some proper logic for ya: If there are something like 600 Pandoras in the wild, and there are something like 30 people complaining of SD card corruption, then 570 people AREN'T having any issues with corruption.
I'm quite sure
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atomicthumbs
I am the king of the collectors, with hospital bed
I have one 16gb class 6 Patriot card, and one 32gb class 6 Transcend, and haven't had any trouble with either. Both are FAT.
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DataWrite Class4 SDHC 8GB
Kodak Class4 SDHC 32GB
Both work fine here.
Kodak Class4 SDHC 32GB
Both work fine here.
tsh
Active Member
Correction, my cards are both 16Gb class4. 1 is PNY, the other DATASTORE.
I get errors copying large files (ubifs.img) between the two cards - I can copy from either to the NAND (till it is full!) with no errors.
I also get reliable md5sum on these files (only tested from 1 card so far), but copying either way (and swapped in slots) fails.
I get errors copying large files (ubifs.img) between the two cards - I can copy from either to the NAND (till it is full!) with no errors.
I also get reliable md5sum on these files (only tested from 1 card so far), but copying either way (and swapped in slots) fails.
paulguy
Member
I was getting IO errors copying from card to card, but it was also copying from a dying card which doesn't work very well at all, now, so it's hard to tell what the cause was. I also have wholly non-working wifi, which is also an SD device, not sure if that's related to a bad SD hardware or the wifi chip itself.
By the way, this is the card that screwed up:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820220444
Even though it's 32GB and rather pricey, I'm sure they cut corners and used cheap, unreliable crap.
By the way, this is the card that screwed up:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820220444
Even though it's 32GB and rather pricey, I'm sure they cut corners and used cheap, unreliable crap.
EmuGuy
Member
zapman said:
My apologies, you're absolutely right! Tried it yesterday...if I copy a file bigger than about 25MB from slot 1 to slot 2, it fails with I/O errors. More info in this thread. Seems to be the slots, not the cards.
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