microSD slot spec for Acer Chromebook Spin 13 CP713-1WN

johnsutton
johnsutton Member Posts: 3 New User
edited May 2020 in Chromebooks
I'd like to buy the largest and fastest microSD card that is compatible with the slot on my Chromebook.  I assume the slot is SDXC but is it UHS?  And which: UHS-I, UHS-II or UHS-III?
Here is the info on the bottom of the machine:

Acer CP713 series
MODEL NO. N18Q2
CP713-1WN-5962 GE FR02 MFG Date : 2019/06/27
S/N: NXEFJEK003XXXXXXXX
SNID: XXXXX

Thanks!


Edited the content to hide sensitive information
Acer-Samuel

Best Answer

  • billsey
    billsey ACE Posts: 34,102 Trailblazer
    Answer ✓
    They don't seem to have those specs called out:
    Card reader:
    • Supports below card types and their corresponding capacity:
    • Micro SD: 2GB
    • Micro SDHC: 4GB min. / 64GB max.
    • Micro SDXC: 64GB min. / 128GB max
    Note that the 128GB max statement just means they didn't test with larger cards, I expect the larger ones would work fine. The SD controller is part of the chipset, the Intel Kaby Lake U, I wonder if Intel has specs on the speed supported?
    Click on "Like" if you find my answer useful or click on "Yes" if it answers your question.

Answers

  • billsey
    billsey ACE Posts: 34,102 Trailblazer
    Answer ✓
    They don't seem to have those specs called out:
    Card reader:
    • Supports below card types and their corresponding capacity:
    • Micro SD: 2GB
    • Micro SDHC: 4GB min. / 64GB max.
    • Micro SDXC: 64GB min. / 128GB max
    Note that the 128GB max statement just means they didn't test with larger cards, I expect the larger ones would work fine. The SD controller is part of the chipset, the Intel Kaby Lake U, I wonder if Intel has specs on the speed supported?
    Click on "Like" if you find my answer useful or click on "Yes" if it answers your question.
  • johnsutton
    johnsutton Member Posts: 3 New User
    Thanks for that billsey.  Looking in chrome://system I find:

    model name : Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-8250U CPU @ 1.60GHz

    MCH: device id 5914 (rev 08) is Kabylake-R ULT
    PCH: device id 9d4e (rev 21) is Kabylake-U iHDCP 2.2 Premium
    IGD: device id 5917 (rev 07) is Kabylake-R ULT GT2

    Googling suggests that the SD controller is related to PCH (rather than MCH or IGD?).  Intel have this document about their 8th gen processors:

    https://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents/product-briefs/8th-gen-core-u-and-y-series-brief.pdf

    which contains a table with the marvellously obtuse heading "The latest 8th Gen Intel® Core U-series processor, formerly codenamed Whiskey Lake, has the following feature advancements relative to its predecessor released in Q3'2017 formerly codenamed Kaby Lake-R".  The table has a row called Storage which gives:

    KABY LAKE-R U42 (15W) : Intel® Optane SSDs/Memory, PCIe 3.0, SATA, SDXC 3.01, eMMC 5.0
    WHISKEY LAKE U42 (15W) : Intel® Optane SSDs/Memory, PCIe 3.0, SATA, SD 3.0, eMMC 5.14

    and in a table further down describing PCH-U KEY FEATURES there is:

    Integrated SDXC (SDA 3.0) Controller : YES

    Researching SD/SDA/SDXC 3.0/3.01 I find mention of both UHS-I (UHS-1) and UHS-III (UHS-3) but nothing definitive.  Note that AFAIU UHS-3 implies a second row of physical pins compared with UHS-1.

    So, what to conclude?  It's probably safe to buy SDXC UHS-1 up to any size available, and within your budget!  It would be REALLY nice to know if the slot does in fact support UHS-3 as this implies 3x the write speed of UHS-1.

    Having just escaped from the Apple ecosystem, I am struck by having had to spend >1 hour of my time researching something which Acer could have simply included in their documentation!

  • billsey
    billsey ACE Posts: 34,102 Trailblazer
    Ah, but if they said something like "SDXC 3.01 supporting speeds of 104MB/sec" someone would complain when their benchmark only showed 48MB/sec transfers. :) Realistically most people don't care, they're mostly interested in the capacity that works.
    Click on "Like" if you find my answer useful or click on "Yes" if it answers your question.
  • bugsyii
    bugsyii Member Posts: 12

    Tinkerer
    OK, so I've now tried 2 SDXC UHS-1 cards, both SanDisc, one 256GB and one 128.  Neither one will format, with the informative message "Could not format" .
    Suggestions?  Other's experience?
  • bugsyii
    bugsyii Member Posts: 12

    Tinkerer
    Took the 16GB card out of my camera, put it in the slot, immediately recognized and I copied a file to and from it. It's a Hama brand Micro SD HC(?): 10 years old, at least.  So it seems it isn't the computer (Acer CP713).
    ?

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