• Posted byby Kellen

Droid Can’t Actually Handle Your 32GB SD Card

The Android OS and your phone have been telling you that they can handle 32GB SD cards, but they were in fact lying to you.  Well sort of.  Apparently, our 2.1 OS (well all Android OS) is unable to format a card that big at this time.  Yikes.  The good news though?  Google has already acknowledged the issue when asked by CNET…

Google confirmed the problem. “This issue has been fixed, and will be part of our next over-the-air update. We don’t have a specific timeframe to share at this time,” a Google representative said. The flaw applies to all Android phones.

Someone start the Froyo countdown so we can get 32GB goodness!

And I’m just curious, has anyone actually forked out the $150 for one of these?

Source: CNET

Written by

Kellen

It’s not often that you get to merge personal passions into a professional life, but that’s what Kellen did when he launched Droid Life in 2009. After working years of unsatisfying jobs in the medical and property management fields, he took a risk to try and create an online community while playing with the coolest gadgets on the planet each day, a risk that has turned out to be incredibly rewarding. Outside of Droid Life, Kellen is your typical Portlander who drinks way too much good beer, complains often about the Trail Blazers, and can be found out on the streets for a run, rain or shine.

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85 Comments

  • $150 bucks heck no!!! Try ebay. I paid less than $30. I formated the card and it will work but will get errors when you try to add music to the card. Then it will say read only. I figured it was an android problem so I will hold the card until they fix this crap. I also noticed it took a long time to transfer files. As soon as I put the 8gb back in and transfered files it did it really quick and had no errors.

  • I have been using a Sandisk 32gb microSD card in my Droid for 3 months without any problems. I use the 16gb card that came with it for backups – it holds at least a dozen backs if not more. I have 30 videos that I made from DVD's, plus 350 MP3's on the 32gb card,, no problem. I just move them back and forth as needed.

  • I made my 32Gb SDHC micro card work in my Droid X by formatting the card to FAT32 using my PC.
    Worked immediately.

  • I installed a 16GB on my HTC incredible and had to take it off because my phone turned into the slowest phone on the planet. Don't know why this happened. Any sugestions?

  • It suck!!!!!!! just purchased TWO 32gb micro sd cards for my wife and my phones. We both have Moto Cliqs. The new cards totally DO NOT WORK. I thought I had broken the cards somehow until I came upon this article. I actually called t-mobile b4 I purchased these cards and was informed that our phone could handle 32gb so I am very disappointed to have been mislead. Google and T-mobile get your stuff together your customers deserve better.
    Signed,
    Out $400 and Vexed

    • I have been using a Sandisk 32gb microSD card in my Droid for 3 months without any problems. I use the 16gb card that came with it for backups – it holds at least a dozen backs if not more. I have 30 videos that I made from DVD's, plus 350 MP3's on the 32gb card,, no problem. I just move them back and forth as needed.

  • So, could you format on your PC and then plug the card into the Droid and it would see the card?

  • Not sure what you guys are looking at… here's the link to the article that discusses how to use these large cards in current Android phones. Apparently 2.1 can read and use the large cards, but you just have to use a computer to format them because it has an error in the format routine. http://androinica.com/2010/04/20/how-to-format-…

    This article's info was also mentioned by CNET, so it's probably pretty reputable.

  • I want one Baaadddd. I was gonna order from sandisk.com, but they are always out of stock. Where can I find one? cheaper than 200.00 that is.
    By the way, My 16gb is full. I only have about 3 gb of music, but I have every nes game ever, every snes game ever, every gameboy advance game ever, every sega and gamegear game ever, and also every commodore 64 game ever. All on my sd card to go with my emulators, not to mention other miscellaneous files and folders.

      • It was tooo tempting, I actually broke down and bought it. I figure at that price, I could take the risk of it turning out to be a 2gb or something.

        • Supposedly he has about 1900 of them available and that may explain the price. Even if it turns out to be a very small, light paper weight I manage to spend more than that at the car wash in a week. I guess we all will be finding out if we made a mistake.

          • Well, they are on their way. I got the shipping confirmation email and they left bejing yesterday so hopefully in a few days I will know if it was worth it.

          • I actually contacted the guy when the auction was canceled and he replied “not to worry”. Also received a shipping notice yesterday. That postal service usually takes about 2 weeks. Not real clear on what the Australian eBay sites problem was as the initial notice was one of those general, one size fits all things. As there is an incredibly high markup in these memory devices that may very well be the initial bulk cost of the device.

          • I just got mine in the mail… Im working with it, backing up my old card gonna transfer everything to the new one. As it looks right now, its a 32gb class 6 card. I dont know how its gonna work, but I will update in an hour or so once everything is done.

          • Mine showed up yesterday and is definitely a 32gig card. Was going to run some speed tests and the windows box card reader decided to die. Strangely enough Linux does not have many test tools and the ones that are available are user nasty to set up and run. Not being in a big rush I figured I would try and skin the cat this weekend. If you are going to try APS2SD then google gparted and dl the live CD iso from sourceforge. It will do all the formatting you want and can do all the odd linux formats. Be sure to read the documentation though. You can also load it onto a separate partition on your hard drive. Card reader has to be accessible through the machine bios for this to work. As the card reader is plugged into USB it should be.

            I am real happy with the 27.00 card, that is a considerable saving off of any other price seen.

            As is the card is formatted FAT-32 and should function as is if all you want is a huge SD card.

          • It is definitely a 32gb card. I think my old computer is having issues with the size of the card. Im running windows xp. I can read the card and format the card FAT32, but when Im transferring files to the card from my sd back up, It doesnt get all the way through before failing. If I use the card on my computer, it works fine. If I place it in the Droid, it works fine. The problem comes when Im transferring a large amount of files the transfer jams up or something. Im gonna play with it some more and see if I can figure out what the problem is.

          • Not yet. Im patiently waiting for it(fidgeting sporadically). I dont really expect it to arrive till later next week. I will post back just as soon as I get it and check it out.

        • looks like the Chinese are interested in selling these. I would council waiting paiently until those of us who have one in the mail report back.

  • Sooo, if you're not taking updates 'cause you're still on 2.01 rooted, you're still screwed?

    And that does make sense to format on a computer, then use the card…is that what it would take?

      • I'm using DroidMod. Honestly, I have it doing everything I want so far, and the newer mods haven't really been to my liking.
        I'm not against a 2.1 mod, just slow to leave one that's working great already.

  • Not sure of the need for 32Gb until I am able to install apps directly to the SD card (I am assuming this is still not a possibility??). Would be great if I loaded the phone with tunes, but that's what the 32Gb Zune is for. By the time the formatting issue gets resolved, the SD will drop $30 anyway.

    • if rooted and using rom manager, you can partition the sd card so you can install some apps on there.

      • Thanks, but I'd rather not root at this point. Hoping they make the possibility part of the next update.

  • $150 seems a bit ridiculous for an SD card

    another update…do you know of other fixes/add-ons scheduled for this release?

  • I've pretty much filled up my card, but I put full movies as well as music on my card. Each movie takes up about 1.5g so it filled up quick. I make a lot of backups for my ROMs, too. A 32g card would be awesome.

    • You are using to high of resolution. The droid screen is only 3.7 inches. Using the resolution set aside for the iphone will make a movie aroud 500mb. If use you apple tv it is around 700mb. The resolution on the small droid screen looks great at that size.

  • How about if we can use some of that space for apps

    atleast the free apps there is no piracy there

    also if use astro to backup the apk. then i can simply copy it onto another device so the piracy excuse doesn't work

    Please include this in another update my droid is running out of space

  • I wanna know where can you even find these bad boys? I wanna get one. Especially, since the 16 Gig that came with my Droid bricked on me..

  • Since I use my Droid as my iPod (my actual iPod was stolen with my car a couple months ago), having more than the 16gb of space would be awesome. I've just about filled up the 16gb card with my music. But there's no way I would pay 150 dollars for an sd card.

  • $150, where at? I only seen them for $200 plz post so i can save some cash. and i don't see the big deal if you really need to format it take it out and format on your computer.

    • I agree…the phone is meant to last 2 years, 16 gigs plus online storage is about 10x more than I need.

      • You guys either don't have a lot of music (or multimedia in general) OR you like it at the lowest quality. Most people with these phones could fill the 16GB with just music and still need room for more.

        My card is full of music, pics, a couple TV shows, and backups, backups, backups. I need to clean those up.

  • could you thus format it on a computer and then use it? presumably it's ext2fs or FAT32..

    • FAT-32 is the SD card format unless you have moved the aps to the SD card and created a OS swap partition.

      The question still is this, does it read a formatted card properly?

  • I've been pricing them too. Curious – you say it can't format the card. Does that mean it will work if formatted first somehow?

    • This was my first thought too. Having to format the card in another device isn't a big deal at all.

  • Shoot, what could you be possibly doing with the 32GB memory card? The 16GB is more than capable enough for those extra apps and musics.

    • you have a point. But thats also what everyone always says when they hear of a new larger sized hard drive…..remember the 90's?? “You'll never use 1gb of space on your computer!”

  • Your timing is impeccable! I was just getting ready to order a 32GB card. For some reason, I came back to DROID-LIFE

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