SD compatibility list
This is a compatibility list for SD, SDHC and SDXC cards. The cards listed in green work with any file system. The cards listed in yellow work well only with one file system (this still means they can be used on the Pandora). The cards listed in red do not work well with any file system. Although it is not covered on this list, the Pandora can also read NTFS-formatted SD cards if the Community Codec Pack is installed.
Note: always measure read speed by opening a terminal window and typing this command:
- the first inserted SD Card: dd if=/dev/mmcblk0 of=/dev/null bs=4MiB count=100
- the second inserted SD Card: dd if=/dev/mmcblk1 of=/dev/null bs=4MiB count=100
Note: The first inserted SD Card will always be /dev/mmcblk0, regardless if you put it into the second or first SD Card slot, whereas the second will be /dev/mmcblk1
If you can afford destroying all your data, you can test write speed. But be careful, you will need to create a new partition table, afterwards! You can use Gparted to make new partition table.
- the first inserted SD Card: # dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/mmcblk0 bs=4MiB count=100
- the second inserted SD Card: # dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/mmcblk1 bs=4MiB count=100
By default, the first partition starts at block 8192 (4096KB) for 32GB cards, and block 32768 (16384KB) for 64GB cards. 64GB cards may need to be reformatted before use.
Card size in GB | Card class | Full name | URL | fat32 is working? | ext2/3/4 are working? | read speed MB/sec | write speed MB/sec | actual capacity (1024byte blocks) | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
32 | 10 | Centon 32GB Class 10 SDHC | [1] | yes | ? | 17.3 | 23.9 | ? | ok so far, first few hours of use |
1 | n/a | Kingston 1GB (blue) | [2] | yes | yes | 12.5 | ? | 1006080 | ok |
8 | 4 | Kingston 8GB Class 4 (black) | not long-term tested yet | not long-term tested yet | 17.1 | 4.8 | ? | From Craig's shop, so must be ok ;) | |
16 | 4 | Kingston 16 GB Class 4 SDHC | [3] | no | no | 15 | 9.5 | 15663104 | Bad controller chip, fails in the same manner as the 32GB card. |
32 | 4 | Kingston 32 GB Class 4 SDHC | [4] | no | no | 16 | 9.5 | 31539200 | Defective flash controller randomly loses writes regardless of filesystem. When attempting to write, blocks sometimes get erased but not written. |
32 | 10 | Kingston 32GB (red) Class 10 | [5] | yes | no | 15.2 | ? | ? | doesn't have badblocks, seems that "Flash Translation Layer" is not suitable for ext filesystems |
32 | 4 | Lexar Multi-Use 32GB | [6] | yes | yes | 16.1 | 14.4 | 31267840 | Much faster than would be expected for a class 4 card. Usual warning about high-speed cards being susceptible to power supply glitches applies. |
32 | 10 | Lexar Premium Series 32GB 100x | [7] | yes | no | 16.7 | 12.0 | ? | Worst ext2 support ever. Copying fine, a LOT of I/O errors at first boot. Literally unusable. Fat32 seems perfectly supported. |
64 | 10 | Lexar Professional 64GB 133x | [8] | yes | yes | 19.6 | 15.1 | 62536704 | R/W speed in the pandora is limited to 16.1/11.3 MB/sec. High power consumption, may fail under load.[9] |
128 | 10 | Lexar Professional 128GB 133x SDXC | [10] | yes | yes | 17.2 | 11.8 | 122.97GiB | Speeds listed are IN a Pandora.[11] |
16 | 6 | Maxflash 16GB Class 6 SDHC | [12] | ? | yes | 14.4 | ? | 16186368 | Works fine |
8 | 6 | Panasonic SDHC 8GB (RP-SDQ08G) | [13] | yes | ? | 16.0-17.2 | 12.1-13.1 | 7778304 | seems to work fine. Ext yet untested. |
32 | 10 | Patriot LX 32GB SDHC Class 10 (PSF32GSDHC10) | [14] [15] | yes | no/yes | 18.1 | 12.6 | ? | Formatting EXT2 and then running fsck right after finds errors. Seems to work well with fat32 /// Entry 2 from another user: Works great with ext2. No errors or issues. |
4 | 10 | Pretec 4GB, Class 10, 233x (white/green) | [16] | yes | yes (mostly) | 14.0 | ? | 3883008 | I had very few fsck problems, and after several tries running fsck, they eventually got corrected. It looks very similar to that broken 32GB pretec. Except that this one almost works good. |
32 | 10 | Pretec 32GB Class 10, 233x (white/green) | [17] | yes | no | 14.1 | 12.4 | ? | doesn't have badblocks, seems that "Flash Translation Layer" is not suitable for ext filesystems |
32 | 10 | PNY 32GB (P-SDHC32G10) | [18] | yes | ? | 17.1 | ? | ? | Works fine. EXT untested. |
16 | 6 | Samsung 16GB SDHC | [19] | yes | ? | ?? | ?? | ?? | seems to work fine. Ext yet untested. |
32 | 10 | Samsung 32GB MicroSDHC Class 10 (MB-MSBGA) | [20] | yes | yes | 18.1 | 11.7 | 30657536 | Works. Claimed to be resistant to magnets, shocks, and seawater—as if you’d be able to find it in the ocean! |
16 | 6 | SanDisk Ultra SDHC 16 Gb 200x | ? | yes | yes | 19.4 | 10.8 | 15549952 | Works fine |
32 | 4 | SanDisk Ultra 32 GB Class 4 SDHC | [21] | yes | yes | 16.4 | 7.1 | 31166976 | OK. |
64 | 4 | SanDisk 64GB SDXC Class 4 | [22] | yes | yes | 16.1 | 4.5 | 62367744 | Works fine |
64 | 10 | SanDisk SDXC I 64GB Ultra 30MB/s Edition | [23] | yes | yes | 17.5 | 9.4 | ? | SDSDU-064G-U46 Have high doubts about this card after some real usage. Transferring lots of files and big ones leads to corruption, whatever the filesystem. Reminds me Transcend crappy cards. |
8 | 10 | SanDisk SDHC 8GB Extreme 30MB/s Edition | [24] | yes | yes | 16.6 | ? | ? | Works nice. Installed Angstrom on it and copied some stuff onto it. Angstrom runs as fast as from NAND. Best thing was, where I ordered it it said class 6, but it is actually 10. :-D Still have to test its speed and actual size. Didn't test Fat a lot, but it seemed to work. |
8 | 10 - UHS 1 | SanDisk Extreme HD Video SDHC UHS-I 8GB 30MB/s 200X | [25] | yes | yes | 16.6 | 15 | ? | Works. |
16 | 10 - UHS 1 | SanDisk Extreme HD Video SDHC UHS-I 16GB 30MB/s 200X | [26] | yes | yes | 16.5 | 14.5 | ? | Works. |
32 | 10 - UHS 1 | SanDisk Extreme SDHC UHS-I 32GB 45MB/s 300X | [27] | yes | yes | 17.0-18.6 | 13.0-23 | ? | Works. |
128 | 10 - UHS 1 | SanDisk Extreme SDHC UHS-I 128GB 45MB/s 300X | [28] | yes | yes | ? | ? | ? | Works. |
8 | 10 - UHS 1 | SanDisk Extreme Pro SDHC UHS-I 8GB 45MB/s 300X | [29] | yes | yes | 15.8 | 12.5 | ? | Works. |
16 | 10 - UHS 1 | SanDisk Extreme Pro SDHC UHS-I 16GB 95MB/s 633X | yes | yes | 18.9 | 17.4 | ? | SDSDXPA-016G-X46 Read/write 20 and 19.1 on 1GHz unit. | |
64 | 10 - UHS 1 | SanDisk Extreme Pro SDHC UHS-I 64GB 95MB/s 633X | yes | yes | 18.2 | 19.1 | ? | SDSDXPA-064G-X46 Read/write 19.9 and 20.9 on 1GHz unit. | |
32 | 6 | TOPRAM 32GB CLASS 6 SDHC HIGH SPEED (TRSD32GSDHCR3) | [30] | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | Reported working here. |
8 | 10 | Toshiba SDHC 8GB (SH008GAA2BA) | [31] | yes | yes | seems to work fine | |||
16 | 10 | Toshiba SDHC 16GB (SD-T16G) | [32] | yes | yes | 18.6 | 22.5 | 16117760 | seems to work fine |
32 | 4 | Toshiba SDHC 32GB (SD-K32G) | [33] | yes | unknown | 15.5 | still testing | ||
8 | 10 | Transcend 8GB SDHC Class 10 | [34] | yes | yes | 13.3 | 10.1 | ? | Have serious doubts about this card. May fail when transferring a lot of data. Seems it doesn't handle. |
32 | 10 | Transcend 32GB SDHC Class 10 | [35] | no
yes working for me
|
no
yes working fo me
|
16.0 | ? | ? | Has serious issues [36]
Bad partitioning ? working fo me
|
64 | 10 | Transcend SDXC Card 64GB ULTIMATE CLASS 10 (PN:TS64GSDXC10) | [37] | yes (needs more testing)
yesbut look at the notes, not good
|
no
?Might work but didn't really test it long enough
|
16.1
<=16
|
16.1
<=16
|
? | After some time the system gives read/write errors. Works fine on a pc with linux with ext2/ext3.
Serious issues. My Linux computer can't read it, but that is probably the computer. First formatted it to ext2 while leaving 16MiB free at the beginning because it was like that when I got it. Had 16MB/s r/w. Then started to have problems after writing about 64GB to it, couldn't mount it, reformatted it, no change, reformatted it as Fat32, still no change, reformatted again as fat32, no problems so far but write speed is 0.5MB/s and read speed 14.76MB/s. I let F3 run over it, the speed was measured using it too. --A few weeks later-- It has got variable w/r speed, it drops after a few seconds of writing data to it. Sometimes it gives other errors, stops working until I reboot, etc. It's useable, but I wouldn't buy it again.
|
32 | 6 | Verbatim Class 6 Premium HD Video 32GB SDHC | [38] | no | no | ? | ? | ? | Behaviour similar to Kingston 32GB Class 4 -[39] |
32 | 4 | Zap Glider 32GB Class 4 | [40] | ? | yes | 16.6 | 4.6 | ? | Works fine |