MicroSD card - what quality?

[kazuma6666]

Hey there,

I just ordered my J3 to replace my old S9. Been using it 3 years so it's all good.

Now I must buy a microsd card but I never bought one before. There is a wide price range depending on quality. Should I buy a sandisk with the lowest price tag? Is it important? I like my player gapless and I read about the slow access time when using a 64gb card and being near the end of the card. I absolutely don't want that, I never had the problem with the S9 of course.

Thanks a lot for all the reviews and information, it made the choice between the Z2 and J3 possible.

[ej8989]

micro sdhc class10

[rockphantom]

Definitely get a class 10 card (or at least class 6).
I didn't know any better and purchased a class 4 32GB Sandisk card when I first purchased my J3 in May. Unfortunately, the class 4 card produced gaps between tracks which was a disappointment when listening to live recordings.

I picked up a G-Skill 32GB class 6 card a few weeks ago and am happy with its gapless performance.

I have a 32GB G-Skill Class 10 card on the way, and will transfer all of my FLAC albums on my class 4 card to the class 10.

I'll use the class 4 card for albums I only listen to once in a blue moon, just to get some value out of it.

Milan

[kazuma6666]

Thanks a lot for the answers, I'm gonna take a class 10. Not gonna risk it for 10-15 euros.

[rockphantom]

I have a related question I hope someone could answer.

I now have THREE 32GB MicroSD cards for my J3 (Thank You NewEgg discounts).

I've noticed that after formatting, each card is noticeably smaller than its predecessor.

Check this out.

1. Sandisk 32GB Class 4 card (My first card) has 29.4GB of available space after formatting.

2. G-Skill 32GB Class 6 card has 29.2GB of available space after formatting.

3. G-Skill 32GB Class 10 card has 28.9GB of available space after formatting.

I've read that memory products can vary slightly in size.
However, losing 0.5GB from my first card to my third is perplexing.

Is this normal or do I have defective cards?

I've been using SD Formatter to format each card prior to allowing Windows 7 format the card. Windows demands that I allow it to format each card once, even after I have formatted it with SD Formatter.

Any information would be appreciated.

Thanks!

Milan

[DSperber]

Originally Posted by rockphantom

1. Sandisk 32GB Class 4 card (My first card) has 29.4GB of available space after formatting.

2. G-Skill 32GB Class 6 card has 29.2GB of available space after formatting.

3. G-Skill 32GB Class 10 card has 28.9GB of available space after formatting.

I've read that memory products can vary slightly in size.
However, losing 0.5GB from my first card to my third is perplexing.

Is this normal or do I have defective cards?

I've been using SD Formatter to format each card prior to allowing Windows 7 format the card. Windows demands that I allow it to format each card once, even after I have formatted it with SD Formatter.

What is the cluster size you used for each format?

According to Hitachi, I believe the recommended cluster size is:

16GB - 4KB cluster
32GB - 8KB cluster
64GB - 16KB cluster

But according to Microsoft, the default cluster sizes are:



I would only use the SD Format Utility or GUIFormat (which will tell you how many bytes it formatted) to format a card. Can't see why you then re-formatted with FORMAT from Windows?

Does GUIFormat's byte count on the three drives match? Certainly a mystery why they would each size slightly differently in capacity.

[rockphantom]

Thanks for the rapid reply, DSperber.

I believe I used the 8kb cluster size for each card.

After formatting with SD Formatter, I loaded my second card with FLAC files.

Upon reconnecting my J3 to my PC, Windows insisted that I format my second and third cards in order to use them with Windows 7.

I had no choice but to allow Windows to format my cards as the OS wouldn't recognize them otherwise.

This was very puzzling to me.

Has anyone else encountered this issue?

Milan

[DSperber]

There should be no problem formatting the 32GB cards while inserted in the J3, with the J3 connected to the PC.

But have you tried using an external USB card reader to hold the 32GB card instead, and doing both your formatting (with either SD Format Utility or GUIFormat) as well as copying your files from PC to card while it's in the J3? Then "safely remove hardware", unplug the reader from the PC, remove the card from the reader, insert the newly formatted and loaded/maintained card into the J3, and connect the J3 to the PC.

Any USB card reader should work fine. They're very inexpensive. This is the mandatory approach for 64GB cards and FAT32 and the J3, and certainly should provide similar 100% success with a 32GB card.

[rockphantom]

Howdy D,

At the moment, I don't have a card reader.
I have recently ordered 3 different card readers via eBay (they were cheap and looked interesting). Once I receive one of them, I'll follow your suggestion.

I should mention that when I formatted the Class 10 card last night with SD Formatter, the card size shrunk from 29.2GB to 28.9GB.

The Windows 7 formatter maintained the 28.9GB size after it formatted the card as well.

I think the remaining .03GB has been lost forever.

Your feedback on this matter would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Milan