Database Develop

*Good* Class 6 MicroSD cards

Hey guys,
I've been having a great deal of trouble with my cheap Transcend 8gb class 6 card . . . spontaneous unmounts, lots of finicky behavior all around. Having the apps on the SD means the phone crashes, and the app permissions get borked to hell.
I've heard these are not very good cards (you get what you pay for in this case) and are known to have problems with the G1 . . . or the G1 is known to have problems with them. Either way, perhaps some of you can help me:
-Are the Transcends indeed "problem cards?"
-Has anyone had one, gotten fed up with the crashing, replaced it, and is in good working order?
-If that's the case, what are some known good cards I can get to replace it?
Thanks!

they are not problematic, they are just not compatible enough! Every device has issues with every other sd card no matter what. I been buying sd cards and I have had problems with these since the day they were born.
In my opinion, transcend are one of the more compatible sd cards. Funny thing is I use a sandisk on my phone and I always had issues with sandisks before on other devices.

First things first, Transcend are by no means a 'cheap brand'. They actually make some of the more expensive memory cards you can buy, and they are very good. My memory card is a Transcend, an 8GB Class 6 like yours.
The difference is that my one has never failed me. It's actually very fast. Furthermore, Transcend are known for making good memory cards. Maybe you just got unlucky with your one.

I ordered the A-Data class 6 to replace my class 4 sandisk based off raving reviews. I havent read much for negative reviews on the A-Data lineup, even though they are a smaller company

I had a transcend 8gb class 6 card that failed completely (can't even access from a PC). When it failed, and due to my apps to sc and other changes, my phone wouldn't boot without a card. I had to install the 128 mb card once I got home and re-update from scratch. When the transcend card worked, it was fast. I've used other cards of theirs in my cameras for a while now, and they've been very good. But this failure caused a bit of a headache for me. I'm at the point where if I see any problems with my sd card, I'll simply replace it to avoid worse problems. Wouldn't have helped in this case as I saw no signs before hand. If it means much, I'd try another transcend card again.

Sorry, didn't mean to bash Transcend undeservedly. So maybe it's just an issue particular to their cards and the G1?

Thread moved to Dream Q&A, please post in the correct place; not dev related.

i went through 2 4gb class 6 adata cards that wouldn't work at all after i partitioned them. phone would bootloop regardless of rom. it worked great if i left all fat32....very strange.

orange that should be a good card. if you have any way to put it into your computer and try to format it, via a usb conector ect. then give that a go. other wise it could be the rom your on, what type of rom are you using or is it stock?

Don't base your purchase decision on the Class classification. Sandisk's Class 2 cards have known to have stellar performances under ATTO.
See this thread... http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=5170215

pr0cl1v1ty said:
orange that should be a good card. if you have any way to put it into your computer and try to format it, via a usb conector ect. then give that a go. other wise it could be the rom your on, what type of rom are you using or is it stock?
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Cyanogen Mod. Latest (4.2.12.2) but I've had this problem in previous versions. A friend's G1 has experienced similar problems with the same Transcend 8gb card, and I vaguely recall hearing warnings against using that brand w/ the G1, but perhaps I'm mistaken.
For now, I've deleted the EXT and swap partitions from the card and did a wipe so that all apps are running from internal memory. I haven't noticed any unmounts today, but last night the phone was unusable and this same sort of thing has happened before with the same card in both my original G1, and the warranty replacement (the warranty replacement was for an unrelated issue).

Sticky for SD Cards

Could we get a sticky thread where people can post what Micro SDCard they are using and how well it works? It would seem really useful to see which cards work well with the Nook Color and which ones to avoid.
Posts should have: Manufacturer, Capacity, Class, and Model. In addition, list what you have run from it and how it performed.
I'll start off. I currently am using a Toshiba 8GB Class 4 Micro SDHC Card, Model C08G. NookieFroyo will run from it but it is slow and makes for a very laggy experience.

I ran Froyo on a regular 2GB microSD, not sdhc, and it was smooth. I don't know why ppl think having higher class microSD will make Froyo run smoother. If you have lag, turn the screen off and on again might fix it. Another thing is that if you have a lot of startup apps on boot will slow your NC.
Sent from my NC using Tapatalk

succulent said:
I ran Froyo on a regular 2GB microSD, not sdhc, and it was smooth. I don't know why ppl think having higher class microSD will make Froyo run smoother. If you have lag, turn the screen off and on again might fix it. Another thing is that if you have a lot of startup apps on boot will slow your NC.
Sent from my NC using Tapatalk
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Could you post what card you used, preferably the specific model? That card could be anything, from class 2 to class 6.
SDHC doesn't mean it's high speed, SDHC means "Secure Digital High Capacity". Standard SDCards are up to 2GB (some may be listed at 4GB, but alot of readers have problems with those as the block size is larger then 512 bytes). Anything larger is classified at SDHC
Class is the speed that the card should Read/Write at. A class 2 card should write at a minimum of 2MB's per second (read speeds are typically higher), a class 10 card should write at a minimum of 10MB's per second.
A higher class card should perform better then a lower class. However not all cards are the same, and card readers vary, which is why I'd like to see this a sticky.

I agree!
I am a newbie/nookie and am wanting to know what micro sd card to purchase to root my nook color. i will be so grateful if anyone posts here about the one they used to effectively root their nook color...
thanks

Well I can't post links yet
Item # N82E16820208453 on Newegg
The transcend seems to be a favorite for it's speed.

Anyone use Sandisk 16gb class 2 card? How is it?

I've just ordered a nook color. I would like to just run roms off of the card. Does anyone have the 16gb SanDisk class 2 card? I speed tested one I already own with crystalDiskMark 2.2. The results were 4.65mb write. 18.62 mb read. The results could be being held back by my terrible usb card reader (vivitar). If the results are accurate, do you think that will be fast enough?

My experience with a Sandisk 16GB Class 2 card is that it works but is actually pretty slow. I have noticable lags on downloads and any activity where sd access is required. In my case, it is slow enough that I have been able to use it to play with froyo, but I would not call it a daily driver booting from this card.

Which microSD card is the MOST STABLE and FASTEST for using HoneyComb in SD card?

So I finally got HoneyComb working on my Nook Color (NC), residing in the microSD card using a Kingston 8GB Class 4. However, this card seems to be one of the slowest and using the HC in NC is almost unusable.
Example:
- Screen rotation takes 3-5 seconds
- Opening new app, depending on which app, can take 1-5 seconds
- Browsing certain website can make the screen unresponsive
- etc..etc..
I know that the HC version available in this website is probably still in "preview" or beta stage and some slowdown is expected, but I am not expecting it to be THIS bad. So I think the culprit is the microSD card itself.
However, I have tried many different MicroSD card and none works. I.e. it gives the "decrypt storage" error when booting up the NC. The cards I have tried are:
- Patriot 16GB Class 10
- A-Data 16GB Class 10
- Kingston 8GB Class 6
The ONLY one that works so far is Sandisk. Unfortunately, from SanDisk website, I do NOT SEE ANY card higher than Class 4.
Thus, can you recommend which is the MOST STABLE and FASTEST card? I.e. the ones that did NOT give slowdown per the examples I have given above.

i'm using sandisk 4 GB class 4 HC
nookie froyo, runs fantastic.
Class 10 cards apparently dont do too well. lots of people have had issues with those. class 6 should be OK, class 2 and 4 workk very nice.

Do you have recommendation for a good Class 6 MicroSD card? SanDisk don't sell anything higher than Class 4. I tried Kingston Class 6 and my Nook Color just spit on it...

lanwarrior said:
Do you have recommendation for a good Class 6 MicroSD card? SanDisk don't sell anything higher than Class 4. I tried Kingston Class 6 and my Nook Color just spit on it...
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I am currently running trancend 8gb class 6. Havent had any issues with froyo, HC or Cm7 booting or running.

I'm using a A-Data Class 6 16Gb card with no trouble. I do have 2 Kingston Class 4 32Gb cards and they have the issue with the decrypt garbage when you try to boot up HC from the sdcard. I've also got a Class 10 32Gb Wintec card which I have not had time to test out yet as I just got it the other day.

After a failed Kingston 16gb class 10, I got a SanDisk 8gb Class 4 and it's speedy enough. I notice very minimal slow down on some menus but I don't know if that's just the OS itself (being a preview after all)

danootz said:
After a failed Kingston 16gb class 10, I got a SanDisk 8gb Class 4 and it's speedy enough. I notice very minimal slow down on some menus but I don't know if that's just the OS itself (being a preview after all)
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That's the exact same card I have, and you did NOT experiences any of the slowness I posted in my 1st thread?

How drastic is the difference between Class 2 and Class 4?
I know that it says that it processes twice as fast, but is it noticeable? Can somebody give an example of when you can actually tell the difference? Playing music, watching movies, booting from microsd?

I have a Sansdisk class 2 8gb card that performs just as well as my class 10 Patriot 8gb (which has booted both HC and currently used as storage for my eMMC CM7 install.)
Sansdisk severely underrates their SD's and many other manufacturers overrate theirs. It is not a perfect rating system.
I would recommend going w/ sansdisk in whatever size you can afford. Class 2/4 will be plenty fast.

Before I switched back to Froyo I was running off the SanDisk 8Gb card from BestBuy - $20 - which I found very responsive. I think it is Class 4, but I could see any label on the card itself or the package.
The SD card speed was not the reason I switched back, it was the lack of other features in HC preview. I can't wait for an AOSP release

8GB Cards
I currently have 2 8GB microsds that I switch between:
-Transcend 8GB Class 6 running Honeycomb from Amazon. Tested it with h2wtest and got 16MB/s write and 14MB/s read. (Not sure if that is a typo on the tool or not and it's supposed to be bits instead of bytes, but that's what it says).
-Sandisk 8GB Class 2 running Nookie Froyo. Tested at 14MB/s write and 18MB/s read.
Both cards run their respective ROMs well, so it seems to jibe with what chisleu said about Sandisk underrating their cards. I could also be limited by the USB adapter I was using, but I had another adapter that was limiting it to 4MB/s both ways.

[Q] SDHC 32 gig class 6

Just got NC for early Father's Day! I luv ma fam!
Everything I been finding here talks about 2,4, or 8 gigs SD cards.
NC says it can use up to 32gig.
Anyone tried this? I figure SDHC 32 G class 6 would work.

MrGeek said:
Just got NC for early Father's Day! I luv ma fam!
Everything I been finding here talks about 2,4, or 8 gigs SD cards.
NC says it can use up to 32gig.
Anyone tried this? I figure SDHC 32 G class 6 would work.
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Everything I've read states the higher capacity cards don't do well running ROMs. Like you I'm new to the nook so I"m sure someone else with more experience will chime in.

I have a 32 gig card installed right now. Works just fine as a data card.
If you want to run custom ROMS off the card, make sure its a sandisk. That flapping sound about larger sized card being bad for Roms is a buncha crap in my opinion (and I have the benchmarks on this card to prove it), but the BRAND of card makes a huge difference when running Roms. Avoid transcend and PNY like the plague.
That said, if you just want the card for data, then yes, the NC can handle them just fine.

skwalas said:
I have a 32 gig card installed right now. Works just fine as a data card.
If you want to run custom ROMS off the card, make sure its a sandisk. That flapping sound about larger sized card being bad for Roms is a buncha crap in my opinion (and I have the benchmarks on this card to prove it), but the BRAND of card makes a huge difference when running Roms. Avoid transcend and PNY like the plague.
That said, if you just want the card for data, then yes, the NC can handle them just fine.
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What size Sandisk card do you recommend for running custom ROMs? I've read 8 but I really would like to run a 16.

With a sandisk, I can't see any reason why a 16 or even 32 gig card would give you trouble on roms.
Using the card to run your "operating system" seems to require a higher small-block read/write speed than most cards have. Two things seem to affect it: 1) brand (sandisk is currently the only way to go), and 2)it seems that higher classed cards sacrifice the small block performance a bit. This makes sense to me, since the classification related to large block sequential read/writes (iirc), so some trade-iffs are always expected.
See this thread for useful things.
And I think most people are buying the smaller card mostly because of price, and partly due to a herd mentality on threads like the above.

Sandisk 16gb is just fine for running the Rom off the sd card; that is my current setup.

LBN1 said:
Sandisk 16gb is just fine for running the Rom off the sd card; that is my current setup.
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What class? I'm having a hard time finding class 4.

skwalas said:
I have a 32 gig card installed right now. Works just fine as a data card.
If you want to run custom ROMS off the card, make sure its a sandisk. That flapping sound about larger sized card being bad for Roms is a buncha crap in my opinion (and I have the benchmarks on this card to prove it), but the BRAND of card makes a huge difference when running Roms. Avoid transcend and PNY like the plague.
That said, if you just want the card for data, then yes, the NC can handle them just fine.
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Funny how all the Transcend cards in all 3 Nooks in my house are brilliant. I've used Transcend for years and have never had a problem, be it in my cameras to my phones.

Nburnes said:
Funny how all the Transcend cards in all 3 Nooks in my house are brilliant. I've used Transcend for years and have never had a problem, be it in my cameras to my phones.
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I was referring to the specific instance of using transcend for running cm7 for example. I understand transcend and patriot are decent when used for data, and I have PNY cards in our cameras, so they seem to work fine for data.

I have a wintec SDCH 16g class 4 and it works fine, but I only use it for data.

I've been looking into this, and here's what it boils down to:
Most MicroSD cards are set up for data transfer aimed at large files, such as video or high resolution pictures. The majority of the market these cards are manufactured for are digital camcorders, cameras, and smart phones with cameras.
They've gotten great at streaming media to and from the cards, and using them as storage mediums.
Running an operating system from the card requires a whole lot of small data transfers, which is not a specification that manufacterers pay much attention to. Most people would never notice improvement in this area of the manufacturing process, so the companies don't waste money on it.
Different manufacturers have different ideas of what their product should be capable of.
SanDisk is the brand that has consistently tested better for small data transfer then other card makers.
Running programs/operating systems from a MicroSD card is a new animal, something that hasn't really been done before now, and the tablet market is still in it's infancy.
I'm sure this issue will be addressed by the hardware makers of memory cards over the next year or so, but for now we are stuck with the task of trying to figure out what works for our purpose given what's available on the market right now.
All this being said, out of a handful of cards I own, my 16 gig SanDisk class 2 MicroSD card is my highest performing card - more then twice as fast as even 4 out of 5 of the 8 gig SanDisk cards I have.
Here is the link to the software we are using to test the cards: Crystal Disk Mark
Post 5 in this thread has a link that takes you to the one that has become our communal benchmark thread, and has a lot of info on this topic.
I would surmise that a 32 gig SanDisk brand card would probably be pretty good given that:
-Sandisk 8 gig cards (in class 2 and 4) are the general recommendation
-SanDisk 16 gig cards consistently test to a higher performance level then the 8 gig cards.
If this is the beginning of a pattern, and the larger capacity SanDisk cards are inherently manufactered to a higher small data standard, then theoretically the 32 gig card would be better.
But, this is only a theory. A 32 gig card is more then just a couple of bucks, and I don't think we have enough benchmarks on them yet to say one way or another.
Even with the SanDisk 8 gig cards, there is a wide range of what you could end up with on small data transfer speed. It's kind of pot luck. Even the slowest ones are many orders of magnitude faster then most other manufacturers, though.
This would be a good thread for people who do have 32 gig cards of any brand to chime in on, so we could keep the discussion about the largest supported capacity card on the Nook seperate from the other threads on this topic.

I saw a thread a week or so ago regarding testing class 4 cards and which were better. I just ordered a NC the other day. Anyone know the thread?

Blue6IX said:
I've been looking into this, and here's what it boils down to:
Most MicroSD cards are set up for data transfer aimed at large files, such as video or high resolution pictures. The majority of the market these cards are manufactured for are digital camcorders, cameras, and smart phones with cameras.
They've gotten great at streaming media to and from the cards, and using them as storage mediums.
Running an operating system from the card requires a whole lot of small data transfers, which is not a specification that manufacterers pay much attention to. Most people would never notice improvement in this area of the manufacturing process, so the companies don't waste money on it.
Different manufacturers have different ideas of what their product should be capable of.
SanDisk is the brand that has consistently tested better for small data transfer then other card makers.
Running programs/operating systems from a MicroSD card is a new animal, something that hasn't really been done before now, and the tablet market is still in it's infancy.
I'm sure this issue will be addressed by the hardware makers of memory cards over the next year or so, but for now we are stuck with the task of trying to figure out what works for our purpose given what's available on the market right now.
All this being said, out of a handful of cards I own, my 16 gig SanDisk class 2 MicroSD card is my highest performing card - more then twice as fast as even 4 out of 5 of the 8 gig SanDisk cards I have.
Here is the link to the software we are using to test the cards: Crystal Disk Mark
Post 5 in this thread has a link that takes you to the one that has become our communal benchmark thread, and has a lot of info on this topic.
I would surmise that a 32 gig SanDisk brand card would probably be pretty good given that:
-Sandisk 8 gig cards (in class 2 and 4) are the general recommendation
-SanDisk 16 gig cards consistently test to a higher performance level then the 8 gig cards.
If this is the beginning of a pattern, and the larger capacity SanDisk cards are inherently manufactered to a higher small data standard, then theoretically the 32 gig card would be better.
But, this is only a theory. A 32 gig card is more then just a couple of bucks, and I don't think we have enough benchmarks on them yet to say one way or another.
Even with the SanDisk 8 gig cards, there is a wide range of what you could end up with on small data transfer speed. It's kind of pot luck. Even the slowest ones are many orders of magnitude faster then most other manufacturers, though.
This would be a good thread for people who do have 32 gig cards of any brand to chime in on, so we could keep the discussion about the largest supported capacity card on the Nook seperate from the other threads on this topic.
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Thank you for a very informative post. As I mentioned earlier I'm new to the NC and your post has helped me considerably.

androidmonkey said:
I saw a thread a week or so ago regarding testing class 4 cards and which were better. I just ordered a NC the other day. Anyone know the thread?
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You might mean my thread on comparing speed results between different readers using the benchmark software.
It's more a look at the testing software and methods of doing so then the actual cards themselves.
The more people who post benchmark results in the thread skwalas linked to back in post 5, the better of an idea we'll have of what works for us.
The amount of information we've collected so far in such a short time is astonishing - this is a great community.

harpo1 said:
What class? I'm having a hard time finding class 4.
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Sandisk 16gb, Class 4; Got it from Radio Shack a month or so ago on sale for like $25.

32 Gig
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004G7D0IW
Bought this one about a month ago. Transferred my 16G class 2 from Radio Shack to the 32G then expanded the partition. I run CM7 off the SD. Works GREAT!. I run movies, apps from the card with tons of room.

Thanks for all the replies! They been very helpful!
However...
Here is the link to the software we are using to test the cards: Crystal Disk Mark
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I tried downloading that and it got flagged as malware by Microsoft Security Essentials.

Rocking a 32 Lexar Class 10 here. Just download SD Tools from the market and its running 11 MB/s write and 25 MB/s read.

lucas993 said:
Rocking a 32 Lexar Class 10 here. Just download SD Tools from the market and its running 11 MB/s write and 25 MB/s read.
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IIRC, Lexar splits their Class X cards into two more classifications, a regular and an Ultra class. Which one was yours?
Also, Radio Shack currently has 8gb Sandisk C4 cards for sale at 14.99. Perfect for playing with an SD install. With Crystal mark and a cheapie USB reader I got 2.5mb/s read, 1.5 mb/s write (both of the small block ones). I believe these are the important ones for an SD card based ROM?

I suspect the main reason there's not much info out there on 32GB cards is that people are less willing to drop $50-80 on something that may not work (IF they're trying to run a custom ROM from the card). If you're not trying to set up a custom ROM install on the SD, get any card you want--you may appreciate that higher sequential read/write in the higher class cards when you're moving multiple GB of movies or music to and from the card.
From everything I've read, the size of the card makes no difference whatsoever. The only reason people harp on the 8GB and 16GB Sandisk cards is because those specific models (both class 2 and 4 in those sizes) have been tested many times and return both reliably high small-block random writes and positive anecdotal reports for running ROMs. The size, manufacturer and class are irrelevant in and of themselves: they just let us identify specific models identified as most consistently working well.
Also, CrystalDiskMark is not malware: just do a custom install and choose not to install whatever is bundled with it (do this always for all software, I'd say). It's whatever program they use to suggest other software that triggers the false positives in security programs.