What’s the largest SD card the Pandora supports?

[Arkay Firestar]

I’ve checked the compatibility on the Wiki but it hasn’t been tested with any 256 or 512 GB cards, which I assume is because they are more recent.

Wanted to get jumbo cards early for Pyra but wondered if I can use them on Pandora also.

 

[levi]

Yes, I expect 256GB and 512GB cards will be perfectly well supported. They won't run in the UHS modes that these cards support these days, but I'd expect their implementation of the older interface is still good. You'll probably need to reformat the cards but formats like ext4 support such sizes, or you might want to try a slightly newer format that actually tries to fit the page deletion behaviour of flash controllers, but the name of which I have temporarily forgotten, but practically I have been using an ext4 formatted cards on my Pandora for its lifespan, and they've not failed me.

 

[atari_afternoon]

Both sizes do work fine.
Recently though, both 256GB one left me shortly before guarantee ran ou, 1 week the one, next week the other, losting files and folder structures, so I could send it back and got myself a 512 one for the same price right after, that was half a year ago. No problems here so far with 512 GB it seems; the file manager however sometimes needs longer to weed through folders.
(The 128 GB ones I had in Pandora use have all been good, no exception or failure, for > 3-6 years by now)
It is just larger cards, also in the phone, that appeasr to tend to fail on me after around 1 year. Have lost both 256 GB ones this way. It is maybe because I tend to fill them up > 90% with data...

 

[PokeParadox]

I still have dual 128GB in my Pandora, I suspect it's possible to reach 1TB per card but have not seen it confirmed.

 

[Arkay Firestar]

Thanks for the replies. I feel like two 256 or 512 cards will be my sweet spot, let’s me have all my lossless music on one and all my games on the other.

 

[Grench]

I used a 256GB card in my Pandora regularly. The catch is that you'll need to reformat the card to get the best use out of it. From the store the large cap cards are F2FS.

 

[docbroke]

I used a 256GB card in my Pandora regularly. The catch is that you'll need to reformat the card to get the best use out of it. From the store the large cap cards are F2FS.

Are you sure new large cards you get are F2FS ?
AFAIK standard filesystem for SDXC cards is exfat.

 

[Grench]

Are you sure new large cards you get are F2FS ?
AFAIK standard filesystem for SDXC cards is exfat.

You are correct and my brain is gone or there are too many file systems to keep track of these days. Big cards are exfat. The Pyra prototype has an F2FS on the microSDXC card that I had been using internally. Wires crossed.

 

[atari_afternoon]

Right about reformatting. @Arkay Firestar, reformatting did not work under windows for me (only started using Ubuntu on my desktop PC since yesterday, grew up with Windows...). Please use GParted http://repo.openpandora.org/?page=detail&app=gparted-gparted to format them right on Pandora before using big cards, works very well because with the default on-Pandora formatter ("Create Pandora SD-card" or similar) I would always have been limited to using 2 or 4 GB out of the whole 256/512 only.

 

[Arkay Firestar]

Ah, does Linux not support exfat well? I have gparted and know how to use it, just need to know what file format will support the bigger cards properly.

 

[docbroke]

Yea exfat is supported in linux. However AFAIK linux file permissions are not supported in these ( Fat32, ntfs, exfat) file systems.

Post automatically merged: Jan 30, 2020

If you are only going to use this card in linux, I suggest ext4 format, if you want to use this with windows too exfat is probably only option.

 

[Letalis Sonus]

However AFAIK linux file permissions are not supported in these ( Fat32, ntfs, exfat) file systems.

NTFS is a POSIX compatible filesystem and does support Unix permissions.

 

[Lanboy]

I formatted a 256 GB SD card with NTFS and the Pandora uses it without any issue. Lets me use it in Windows machines as well.

 

[atari_afternoon]

I think the Pandora-Gparted default is FAT32 .)