Cowon J3/D2+/... with 64gb+ (micro)SDXC card

[Kizune]

Great news for memory junkies who own a Cowon J3: Earlier today, Anything But iPod member kp-j3 confirmed that 64gb microSDXC cards work perfectly fine with the DAP.

Originally Posted by kp-j3, anythingbutipod.com

SUCCESS!

(Your mileage may vary)

Using firmware 2.26, and a SanDisk 64GB Mobile Ultra MicroSDXC Class 6 card.

I formatted it in fat32, and loaded up approximately 6000 songs on it. I was using sleep mode, so the manually initiated database rebuild attempt did not work, it just blew out the old database for my 32gb card. Turned sleep mode off, shut down. Started and database built with no issues.

Went from approximately 5800 songs with 32gb internal 32gb external to almost 9000 songs with a 32gb/64gb combo.

It seems a little slower starting song 8890, but I guess it's because it's at the end of the card.

Update, 2011-12-08:

Another user from iAudiophile.net, quokka, confirmed that a 128gb SDXC card works with his Cowon D2+.

It might be possible that all newer Cowon players which have a SD/microSD card slot support the new (micro)SDXC cards at least up to 128gb memory.
However, only SDXC cards are supported that follow the SD 3.0 specification since its interface is identical to the SD 2.0 specification.

SD article on Wikipedia:

Originally Posted by Secure Digital, Wikipedia

Compatibility with SDHC
SDXC host devices will accept all previous families of SD memory cards. Conversely, SDHC host devices will accept SDXC cards that follow Version 3.0, since the interface is identical,[27] but the following issues may affect usability:

• SDXC cards that follow Version 4.0 will use the exFAT file system, which the host device might not support.
• An SDHC host device will not test the capability bits newly defined for SDXC cards. It will therefore not be able to use the new features of SDXC, such as transfer speeds above UHS104.[28]

Anything But iPod member razorblader explained another difference between SD 3.0 and SD 4.0 which makes it impossible to use SD 4.0 cards on Cowon's current players:

Originally Posted by razorblaider, anythingbutipod.com

[...] Future SDXC cards which conform to SD v.4 standards will have an extra contact pin and will be incompatible with the current SDHC slots but the current bunch of SDXC cards conform to the v.3 standard and are essentially SDHC cards with higher capacities than 32 GB.

In order to make 3.0 SDXC cards work on your player, all you need to do is formatting the card with FAT32.

Please note that there is no way to distinguish SD 3.0 and SD 4.0 cards except you count the pins, so unless there is a remark about the used SD specification, it's risky to buy SDXC cards just to use them on your J3/D2+/...