What is allocation size and what should be used for my SD card?

ithehappy

ithehappy

Human Spambot
I just bought a Sandisk Micro SD card. Now while formatting it as FAT32 I was wondering what allocation size I should use? Should I use default, or the largest value or what? What does it basically do?

TIA.
 
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Vignesh B

Youngling
Higher the allocation size, faster is its access time but lesser the available space. Since, you are having a Class 10 card, you may not feel much a difference. Alternatively, if you don't have less storage issue, and you want the performance out of your card, go for the largest size.
I do suggest you to go with the default size; it works fine in most cases(unless you have a discerning eye and are performance addict).
 
OP
ithehappy

ithehappy

Human Spambot
Okay this seems to be a problem. I formatted it keeping allocaiton size as default and as FAT32 and now when I try to copy a 12 GB file it says 'too big for destination'! Then I tried formatting it with exFAT and now the file is copied successfully. What am I missing?
 
V

Vignesh B

Youngling
ithehappy said:
Okay this seems to be a problem. I formatted it keeping allocaiton size as default and as FAT32 and now when I try to copy a 12 GB file it says 'too big for destination'! Then I tried formatting it with exFAT and now the file is copied successfully. What am I missing?
Click to expand...
The maximum file size on a FAT32 formatted drive is 4GB. In exFAT maximum file size is 16 exabytes.
 
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Vignesh B

Youngling
ithehappy said:
Oops, yeah right, I forgot that! So I need to use either exFAT or NTFS!
Click to expand...
Try to avoid using NTFS on flash memories. Its a journalling file system, which means that it logs changes, not just the end result, causing more writes to the drive.
NTFS on flash memory has been known to be inefficient. exFAT’s smaller footprint/overhead makes it ideal for this purpose.
 
OP
ithehappy

ithehappy

Human Spambot
Okay I am having problem with exFAT. If I format with exFAT the card is not being recognised on my phone! Searching some XDA topics now. What's ext4 btw?
 
V

Vignesh B

Youngling
ithehappy said:
Okay I am having problem with exFAT. If I format with exFAT the card is not being recognised on my phone! Searching some XDA topics now. What's ext4 btw?
Click to expand...
Hmm, xda has plenty of threads over this issue. exFAT works flawlessly on my phone(s3) though. So, I guess, it should be compatible with note 2 too.
Ext4 is linux based. Windows won't recognize it then. :p
 
OP
ithehappy

ithehappy

Human Spambot
Oh that Linux, I need to forget it now. So you just formatted yours on PC as exFAT and it was recognised by your S3 without any problem? Are you on stock kernel?
 
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