Lexar 128GB SDXC - Who's going to be first on this?


Got two... They work a charm but you need to format to something other than the default partition. I tried ext4/3 to no avail but fat32 works great. You might need to install the dos fs tools to format it though.






No problem... Just remember itwont mount the default partition so don't freak out.






For some reason when using ext3 it got stuck in read only mode and an fsck wasn't resolving the issue. I decided to go with fat32 which so far is workin dine.






For a bit more info...






Open a terminal...



sudo opkg update



sudo opkg install dosfstools






For the next steps replace /dev/sda with whatever your device is (probably /dev/mmcblk0 or 1) and replace /dev/sda1 with whatever your partition is... /dev/mmcblk0p1 or /dev/mmcblk1p1.






Here are the rest of the terminal commands...



Type the following:



fdisk /dev/sda



Command (m for help): p



Disk /dev/sda: 128 MB, 128974848 bytes



4 heads, 62 sectors/track, 1015 cylinders



Units = cylinders of 248 * 512 = 126976 bytes



Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System



Command: n “Create new partition!”



p “Create primary partition!”



Partition number (1-4): 1



First cylinder: (enter for default)



Last cylinder: (enter for default)



Command: t



Hex code (type L to list codes): b



Command: a “Make partition #1 active!”



Partition number (1-4): 1



Command: p



Disk /dev/sda: 128 MB, 128974848 bytes



4 heads, 62 sectors/track, 1015 cylinders



Units = cylinders of 248 * 512 = 126976 bytes



Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System



/dev/sda1 * 1 1015 125829 b FAT32



Command: w “Write table to disk and exit!”



Format the USB drive with a FAT filesystem.



mkdosfs -F 32 /dev/sda1 “It will work with FAT32″



That is all there is to it, really…




Thank you very much, mate~






By the way, where'd you buy your two from?
 
Whats interestiung there is thats probably the right number of bytes for 128MB (not GB); being a log, was he usbnet or wifi logging into pandora and doing it that way and capturing the output, or is that just a sample from a VM or something where he was doing it to an actual 128MB card just to get the commands for this post?


I mean, no special effort is needed for 128MB, and I can confirm my 128MB SDs work fine in Pandora ;) (and in EverDrive, which is where I put my old SD ;)


NearTao -- did you actuallt get 100GB or so of data on each card, and worked? ;)


jeff
 
Whats interestiung there is thats probably the right number of bytes for 128MB (not GB); being a log, was he usbnet or wifi logging into pandora and doing it that way and capturing the output, or is that just a sample from a VM or something where he was doing it to an actual 128MB card just to get the commands for this post?


I mean, no special effort is needed for 128MB, and I can confirm my 128MB SDs work fine in Pandora ;) (and in EverDrive, which is where I put my old SD ;)


NearTao -- did you actuallt get 100GB or so of data on each card, and worked? ;)


jeff


Sorry, the MB is from instructions I stole elsewhere... hence the /dev/sda as well... same idea though so it works on most unix systems fine. So yeah... different card but same steps lol. I would have written them myself as it is no big deal but it would have been painful to do posting from my iPhone where that post was done while I was at work.


but for the nerds who want to see a df output...


/dev/mmcblk0p1 128878096 67101360 61776736 52% /media/mmcblk0p1


so you have about 124-125GB of usable space before you start compressing things down. I certainly cannot complain... fit 28gb of SCUMMVM games, all infinity engine games, a few goodmerge sets, MAME 0.37b5 set and a ton of PSX roms and still have 52% FREE on one card. I have plenty of room for more roms than I can play in my lifetime already. Next steps for the second card is to load up my programming ebooks, comics, movies and stuff.


I figured about 256GB would be enough for me on the OP for a while... probably long enough for the next v2 release of the hardware lol.


To the question of where I ordered... I have had good luck with B & H and they have it $20 off for a total of $180 USD for now. Amazon is around that price, but comes from a third party distro atm... so I figured I would pass there for now.


If anybody else needs help I will try and keep an eye on this topic.
 
but I need a 512 GB SDXC card too store a full set of North American PS1 games.... I mean... erm... family photos............. yes.... family photos..........
 
To the question of where I ordered... I have had good luck with B & H and they have it $20 off for a total of $180 USD for now. Amazon is around that price, but comes from a third party distro atm... so I figured I would pass there for now.
Thank you very much. Good price~ You just saved me a lot of dollars.So happy! :)
 
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On other forums I have been known to be helpful from time to time lol. If I had more time I would contribute more but as it stands I only get a message out once a week or so... And to think I have had my pandora for just about as long as anyone... Must be a year and a half now... Oh well I suck lol
 
Wow - thank you for diving on this one! Now I have to figure out a way to justify it...


Oh - how fast is it? Do we have a good way to benchmark SD cards on our Pandora consoles yet?
 
Offtopic: BP and WizStan .. 8 days to go ..


Right now, my to do list is 'buy beer and earplugs'


jeff

The standard baby kit also includes a handheld of choice... But I guess you already have one of those.


Nothing better than holding a sleeping newborn for 2-3 hours while gaming... "sorry honey, can't take out the trash cuz I might wake up the baby while getting up"... You can also try "the sounds of Mario seems to calm the baby"
 
I remember for my firstborn it was more like .. baby cradled in your arm, sleeping _finally_; you reach for the TV-remote but its about 1cm too far; your phone or gadget.. a cm too far. And you don't go for it.. that 1 centimeter would almost certainly wake the child and erupt in more screaming and crying, so you don't risk it. Thats what I remember :)


jeff
 
Are you booting from the 128GB card? How long does it take from pushing the switch to login prompt?


I'm trying to figure out some sort of relative way to benchmark this against the card I'm using now.


Patriot LX 32GB SDHC Class 10 cold to login prompt in 49 seconds on Zaxon HF5.


Internal NAND cold to login prompt in 35 seconds on Zaxon HF 5.
 
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Are you booting from the 128GB card? How long does it take from pushing the switch to login prompt?


I'm trying to figure out some sort of relative way to benchmark this against the card I'm using now.


Patriot LX 32GB SDHC Class 10 cold to login prompt in 49 seconds on Zaxon HF5.


Internal NAND cold to login prompt in 35 seconds on Zaxon HF 5.

I am booting off of NAND, not SD. The speed compares well to my 32gb class 10 card for file transfers. I tried to format to ext3, but had some issues (drive got set to read only and could not get it back). Hopefully someone else has better luck.
 
Are you booting from the 128GB card? How long does it take from pushing the switch to login prompt?


I'm trying to figure out some sort of relative way to benchmark this against the card I'm using now.


Patriot LX 32GB SDHC Class 10 cold to login prompt in 49 seconds on Zaxon HF5.


Internal NAND cold to login prompt in 35 seconds on Zaxon HF 5.

I am booting off of NAND, not SD. The speed compares well to my 32gb class 10 card for file transfers. I tried to format to ext3, but had some issues (drive got set to read only and could not get it back). Hopefully someone else has better luck.

Were you able to do EXT2? For some reason there are cards that don't like the journal file systems like EXT3 and EXT4. No idea why.
 
You shouldn't use ext3 or ext4 or any journalling filesystem on any flash based media - USB disk, memory cards, SSDs, etc ... they write to the journal a lot which causes the card to die more quickly.


Hence ext2 is fine, as is fat.


The same goes for swap/virtual memory partitions/files - don't put them on flash drives. Having said that, back in the day it was quite common for people to use compact flash cards for swap/virtual memory on laptops through a PCMCIA card reader, because they were faster than a HDD (for random access, and if you're using some lame old, slow, version of IDE on your hard disc but your PCI bus is faster). It's just that it was expected that the card would eventually die and have to be replaced, but it didn't matter so much because no data was stored there. I think there is some specific feature like this in new versions of windows, intended for USB drives (can't remember the name though - I don't use windows if I can avoid it!)
 
You shouldn't use ext3 or ext4 or any journalling filesystem on any flash based media - USB disk, memory cards, SSDs, etc ... they write to the journal a lot which causes the card to die more quickly.


Hence ext2 is fine, as is fat.


The same goes for swap/virtual memory partitions/files - don't put them on flash drives. Having said that, back in the day it was quite common for people to use compact flash cards for swap/virtual memory on laptops through a PCMCIA card reader, because they were faster than a HDD (for random access, and if you're using some lame old, slow, version of IDE on your hard disc but your PCI bus is faster). It's just that it was expected that the card would eventually die and have to be replaced, but it didn't matter so much because no data was stored there. I think there is some specific feature like this in new versions of windows, intended for USB drives (can't remember the name though - I don't use windows if I can avoid it!)

Except that modern flash cards have internal wear leveling - which pretty much makes the 'don't use flash for swap' thing much less relevant. The things I've read on that put 'wear out' somewhere in the >20 years range. By then I'd expect to have the >2TB version and wonder how I ever put up with those tiny 32GB cards.
 
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