SD card slot support for R11 Chromebook

Kaho

Does anyone using the sd card for R11 is over 64gb? Cause i wanna buy a sd card for R11, but somebody said it only support 64gb, but somebody said they are using a 128gb sd card....
I just want to comfirm and don't want to waste money to buy a wrong card!! Thanks

billsey

I believe it's been tested to, and officially supports, 64GB. But any SDHC or SDXC card should work, so the 128GB should be fine, as will 256GB when they are more available.

billsey

I believe it's been tested to, and officially supports, 64GB. But any SDHC or SDXC card should work, so the 128GB should be fine, as will 256GB when they are more available.

Kaho

Thanks billsey! I bought a 128gb sd card any try already, and it's work so well! Now I can store all my music and moive on the 128gb sd card

Pssst3

Which series of R11 Chromebook do you have?

Kaho

Acer CB5-132T-C7R5 Chromebook, i got this model

Pssst3

Oh! Canada!

 

I dont understand why some manufacturers are so lax in explicitly stating what types of sd cards they support. (  Acer in particular has lousy documentation for its Chromebooks. If you want to see what good documentation looks like, check out Lenovo). 

 

So we ignore the virtually nonexistent unresponsive manufacturers' support and become DIY hackers, - something totallly incompatible with Google's concept of a low entry bar computing appliance.

 

Chromebook Help says that "You can access files on external devices ......FAT16,FAT32, exFAT" . It doesn't say that you can write to all these file systems. To me that leaves a loophole for manufacturers. Acer has done nothing to answer it besides saying unofficially that they have tested 64gb cards for operation without saying WHOSE cards were tested.

 

The questions seem to be whether the Acer CB can format and write to larger.cards, and if another system must be used if reformatting is needed.

 

Here's my take:

 

Every sd card I've seen larger than 64gb is labelled sdXC. There's no difference electronically, but to meet that spec the extFAT format must be used by the manufacturer. The only advantage of extFAT for the 'small' volumes of memory cards is the maximum individual file size is bigger.

 

With sdHC support (needed to support 64gb) FAT32 can be used. FAT32 can be used beyond 128Gb, even though Microsoft makes it seem that it can't by hiding the formating in the GUI.

 

If the R11 can write to 64gb sdHC cards, it should be able to read and write to larger sd family cards formatted wIth FAT32.

 

Has anyone successfully formatted a new card labelled sdXC with an R11?

 

If the answer is yes, then we will have a definitive answer on sd card compatibility.

 

 

 

billsey

From what I understand, SDHC supports up to 32GB only. All 64GB cards are SDXC. Both HC and XC support formatting in FAT32, exFAT, NTFS, etc.. Computers equipped wth SDHC slots officially support SDHC cards, but the SDXC cards will also work fine, with the caveats that you might not be able to do a low level format and the higher speed modes that XC supports will not be realized. If the slot is a XC, it should be able to format the higher capacity cards and will usually support at least some of the faster modes. Manufacturers tend to test with what's available while they're designing the product, but don't go back and retest with newer devices.

Pssst3

Your understanding is based on miscommunication and marketing, not experience and testing.

 

The only difference between sdhc and sdxc cards is the file system used to format them at manufacturing time.  

They are electrically and mechanically identical for a given performance level.

 

The different labeling is to satisfy contractual licensing agreements with Microsoft who created both the fat32 and exfat file systems.

 

For SD cards smaller than 1 TB, the only benefit of exfat over fat32 is the maximum individual file size.  A third party formatting app can reformat an exfat sdxc card with fat32 or an sdhc card with exfat of NTFS.  Microsoft doesn't support this for their own reasons, but I'm guessing it has to do with promoting the use of a file system they created with a higher licensing fee exfat. 

 

My original question amounted to whether Acer's Chromebook software will accomodate write access to a larger sd card formatted with exfat. Googles stated spec simply says "access data on an exfat file system", not create data on an exfat file system.

 

Officially Acers Chromebook spec doesn't mention sdhc or sdxc anywhere. They state SD.  Could be miscommunication, but based on other things they've done, I think it's purely laziness.

devoncatt

I tried to use a mini SD card in a full sized adapter, Will it only work with a full sized SD card? it saw the files but wouldn't access the files. I then formatted the SD card in laptop (now named untitled & not possible to change the name). I copied music on to it from google drive.But it refused to play the music on the card. The music was playable on Google Drive or if I downloaded to the download folder. The file apps shows Untitled as the name but also shows no SD card.

 

devoncatt

What variety of SD card did you use  but that worked  and was it a full sized 128 card or a MiniSD in a Full sized SD holder? I'm having no luck with  at this point.