Topic: the main reason why we stuck with 32GB SDHC

[AndCycle]

this is just provide some basic background info as I keep seeing people ask about why and trying to find workaround.

in early years of SD card development there do have hardware limitation,

I got a Olympus LS-10, released on 2008,
initially only support 8GB, later upgrade firmware to expand support to max 16GB,
SD max 2GB
SDHC max 32GB
weird limited by hardware.

and it have some  gotcha with firmware bug like
if you keep it recording to full, you lose all data, if you lost power, you lose all data, etc,
but still serve me well as my last backup.


nowadays we have all new fancy recorder product lineup, and card are so cheap, why still 32GB?
you can even try a SDXC card on modem recorder and it recognize but refuse to let you use it's full potential, whyyyy??

the answer is so simple, MONEY,

SDXC standard require exFAT support, exFAT license is owned by Microsoft,

so if your device wanna support exFAT, you have to pay the M$ tax, for each device you sold,
then go through the development process to verify the exFAT support.

as the storage requirement on audio recorder doesn't scale like smart phone,
there is little interest to pay extra bucks to support it.

[DavidPuddy]

SD media is very cheap these days. I'm not sure I understand the point you're trying to make. If the device supports media with a higher storage capacity, the price increase between a 32gb card and a larger card is often negligible.

I purchased four 128gb SD Micro cards for $20 each before Christmas.

[morst]

SD media is very cheap these days. I'm not sure I understand the point you're trying to make. If the device supports media with a higher storage capacity, the price increase between a 32gb card and a larger card is often negligible.

I purchased four 128gb SD Micro cards for $20 each before Christmas.

I think he is referring to the fact that manufacturers must pay a license fee to use a "standard" SD card format, and evidently the SDXC fee is higher than the SDHC or old SD fees.

[voltronic]

You can certainly format FAT32 volumes beyond the supposed 32GB limit.  The capability was removed from Windows a few versions ago, but I have had success formatting FAT32 volumes far beyond 32GB with both of these utilities:

http://www.ridgecrop.demon.co.uk/index.htm?fat32format.htm
https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter_4/index.html

[Sebastian]

Is this limitation really a problem? 32 GB should be enough to store about 30 hours of 2 channel 24-bit/48kHz audio. Or for 10 hours @ 6 channels. This is probably more than enough continuous recording time for anybody. Most devices will run out of battery power long before hitting the size limit of the SD card. So what's the point of using bigger cards anyway?

[dallman]

Is this limitation really a problem? 32 GB should be enough to store about 30 hours of 2 channel 24-bit/48kHz audio. Or for 10 hours @ 6 channels. This is probably more than enough continuous recording time for anybody. Most devices will run out of battery power long before hitting the size limit of the SD card. So what's the point of using bigger cards anyway?

The size of the SD card one prefers using might be more about personal choice. I prefer 128gb cards in my MP6 and DR680MKIII. 32gb seems small with multi channel decks to me. I have never had a single issue with a 64 or 128gb card. 32gb might seem large to you, but I remember buying a PC with a 60gb hard drive in 1999 and thinking it was huge