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Replace Internal SD card?

Can I replace my internal SD card with a faster/larger one?
Is it soldered to the logic board? or just plugged inside the housing?
I tested the speed via Activity monitor, and am getting speeds ~9MB/s This is good, but I notice lag when I start playing a movie, or music.
Also Whats the largest SD card i can put into the external SD slot?
Thanks.

32Gb in the external SD slot, and I haven't noticed any lag playing movies or music on either internal or external memory.

I'd stick with a 16GB external card until the speeds on the 32's come up ...
The current flavor of (sandisk) 32GB SDHC cards is class 2.
From what I can tell byt looking at pictures of the PCB's in the phone the internal SD card is integrated on the board ... I do not believe it can be modified or replaced ...

Well thats sux. Does anyone know what the speed rating is on the internal SD? Like I said I was getting ~9MB/s non formally viewing Activity Monitor on my mac while adding files.
I will try to run some tests to see what the actually speed is if noone has an answer.

Here we go. See screenshot of Disk test from XBench 1.3. The SD card could be a Class 4 I think.

wpb2 said:
Can I replace my internal SD card with a faster/larger one?
Is it soldered to the logic board? or just plugged inside the housing?
I tested the speed via Activity monitor, and am getting speeds ~9MB/s This is good, but I notice lag when I start playing a movie, or music.
Also Whats the largest SD card i can put into the external SD slot?
Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It also depends what format and video player your using. For example on rockplayer I have a 2.2GB 720p 2001 space odyssey that won't even play but it plays perfect on the samsung video player. However i also transformers 2 1.1GB 720p that plays on rockplayer but its choppy and that also plays perfect on samsungs video player

@wpb2
2MB/s = class 2
4MB/s = class 4
6MB/s = class 6
I'd say its class 6 judging by your uncached read/write speeds of 6.10/7.41 MB/s. I think thats as fast as you're going to get for SD cards.

I have a Kingston 16GB class 2 SD card and with a 8kb buffer I get 16mb/s reads and 13mb/s writes. The internal NAND gives me 14mb/s reads and 0.5mb/s writes. Go figure

wpb2 said:
Well thats sux. Does anyone know what the speed rating is on the internal SD? Like I said I was getting ~9MB/s non formally viewing Activity Monitor on my mac while adding files.
I will try to run some tests to see what the actually speed is if noone has an answer.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It sounds like you are measuring write speed. This would not affect playing movies. when you see lag playing the movie, are your playing it on the mac or the phone? I have watched some HD rips on my phone, and they play amazing.

wpb2 said:
Can I replace my internal SD card with a faster/larger one?
Is it soldered to the logic board? or just plugged inside the housing?
I tested the speed via Activity monitor, and am getting speeds ~9MB/s This is good, but I notice lag when I start playing a movie, or music.
Also Whats the largest SD card i can put into the external SD slot?
Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My question is how does the worlds leading manufacture of Flash memory go with an internal SD card for their flagship top of the line Android phone. What a dumb move.

Battlehymn said:
I'd stick with a 16GB external card until the speeds on the 32's come up ...
The current flavor of (sandisk) 32GB SDHC cards is class 2.
From what I can tell byt looking at pictures of the PCB's in the phone the internal SD card is integrated on the board ... I do not believe it can be modified or replaced ...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sorry to reply to an old thread but I have a question.
Could I replace the board in a Verizon Fascinate with one from a Vibrant, Captivate or Epic 4 G to bump it up from 2GB to 16GB or are the GSM/CDMA radios also integrated into this board as well.
A Franken-ate mod if you will...

angermeans said:
My question is how does the worlds leading manufacture of Flash memory go with an internal SD card for their flagship top of the line Android phone. What a dumb move.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Is this your first ANdroid phone? All of them have internal sd and option for external, 16gb is pretty big for and internal and I use my exteral for viewing media, no problem. The argument is stupid.

SD? We don't need no steenkin' SD!
OK, Samsung just calls their built-in flash memory an "internal SD" as a convention to help end-users think of it as being functionally different from the 2GB of internal system memory. It might even be interfaced similarly to SD specs, but there is not actually a removable MicroSD card inside your phone. Just think of it as a metaphor.

The internal SD card is not an actual SD card. It is a chip of flash memory that is not user replaceable. The performance issue is a software issue.

I have often wondered, as there is a micro sd sized removable panel, sealed with a screw that is behind the battery slot.

SD Card Constantly Unmounting

I got a new SanDisk 32GB SD Card and since putting it in the phone 2 days ago it has unmounted itself twice. The second time was during a lengthy write operation. I think the first time was during a short write operation. But I think both times was during writing to the card.
Nothing will let it remount other than a reboot. I can't take it out and put it back in and have it autodetect and mount. Nor can I put a different SD card in and have that card auto mount.
I'm not sure if this could be a ROM problem or if it's an obvious bad SD Card. (Though I'm leaning toward the card being bad since I never had this happen in the previous year I've owned the phone with any other cards, then it happens 2 times in 2 days since getting a new card)
I'm going to try reformating the card again and see if that makes a difference. But obviously it could be 3-4 days before I know if it doesn't unmount itself again.
Anyone have any thoughts on this in the mean time? Any suggestions on how to test the card? Or things to do to make this better? Or should I just take it back to the store and get a new one? (Which i don't want to do if it's not a card problem because then I'll just have the same problem)
I'm running Bruce's CM10 Kang Jan 3rd build.

You can test the card with SD card tester from the market. It will tell you if the card is reading and writing as it should be and also the speed at which it is completed. I believe the app is simply called SD card tester. Hope this helps. Best wishes and good luck.

I too am having problems with a new SanDisk 32g card. Within a day of putting it in my phone starts bogging down and freezing. Card is always unmounting, sometimes it says blank card. I put my old 16g back in and problems are gone. This will be the second SanDisk I got that was doa. Not very happy with them.
Sent from my R800i using Tapatalk 2

I had the same problem a year ago. I found that it depends on witch class the sd card is. Class 2 cards is too slow when it comes to read/write speed. Class 4 is fater and so on. I now use a class 10 card and I haven't had any problems since.
Sent from my HTC Sensation Z710e using xda premium

Your SD card likely isn't the problem

I was going to post this in response to a couple of people in the development sections but my post count is too low so I'll post it here instead.
The SD slot in this phone seems to have an issue with corrupting SD cards, I've had to format both my old and new SD card multiple times with this phone as it becomes unusable every few days. I'm not versed enough in hardware to know if this is a bad connection between the SD slot and the "motherboard" of the phone. I've seen a number of people have their SD cards go bad with this phone and I assume that means we had a manufacturing issue. It would be really cool if a hardware hacker experiencing this issue could take a look inside and confirm whether or not the hardware is connected correctly.

Well, perhaps there's a high number of bad readers....
I've had the same card in my Q since the day I got it (mid-September), no issues.

Mine wouldn't read the day I swapped up from My Epic 4g Touch to This phone, So I popped in an sd reader backed up my data then let the Moto format it, no issues sence

Curious to know what class of card you guys are running. I've been running a Patriot class 10 but my previous was a class 4 without branding that came with my old Transform.
I'm really hoping that I just had my old SD card die at a bad time and that my newer SD card was just sent bad. Today I couldn't get the card to read from the SD slot in my computer, and it would not be cool if my phone caused it to become that way.

Solust said:
Curious to know what class of card you guys are running. I've been running a Patriot class 10 but my previous was a class 4 without branding that came with my old Transform.
I'm really hoping that I just had my old SD card die at a bad time and that my newer SD card was just sent bad. Today I couldn't get the card to read from the SD slot in my computer, and it would not be cool if my phone caused it to become that way.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Class 10 Maxell
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2074251
No issues here. I tossed the crappy class 2/4 that shipped with my Epic long ago.

Well I found an extra class 4, 2 GB SD card lying around the house when I was cleaning today. It may be that the local shipment of phones was bad, so if this SD card goes on me then I'll try exchanging the phone in another town just to be safe.
Just out of curiosity does anyone know whether Sprint orders enough phones for replacements with their original shipments? I'm not from a very large town so I'd imagine they would keep replacing with phones from the same batch.

I've got a Samsung 32GB class 10 mSD.
Nearly everytime I reboot my Photon Q it says "SD Card is damaged".
Go into settings, Mount SD Card once or twice and it works.
I've read, that other Android Devices have also problems with that size of SD Cards. (Google)
I had also problem in recovery restoring a backup, the restore process didn't went correctly
(said that everything was fine), had to use my 2GB mSD, which worked nicely and the backup also.
So I think it's an android/kernel issue than a hardware issue.

I have noticed that I get the corrupt sdcard error everytime I try to use the "mass storage" or "media device" setting with Windows.
I use Ubuntu 99% of the time and leave it connected in "camera" mode, have never had that pop up like that...
I usually just use ADB to copy everything anyway so I do not miss the "mass storage" mode at all.

Just had a 16gb class 10 microcenter branded card go belly up on me. Phone just all of a sudden said it was removed and now nothing seems to recognize the thing. The mount option is completely greyed out, and does the same on my note 10.1 if i pop it in there.
When your cards have gone did they completely disappear and refuse to read?
Sent from my XT897 using xda app-developers app

I wonder if it's the c10 cards...
You guys really shouldn't be using high class cards in a phone - there's really no benefit, as phones use SD card's very differently from camcorders or cameras...
On my ooooold phone, anything above Class6 was bad juju. I have always had class4 or lower cards, no fried cards (yet... lol)

kinda what I am feeling too. Not sure what class card I have but it was just a cheap 32gb from wallmart... Only had that error pop up once with this one though, and that was after trying to use usb storage.
Sent from my XT897 using xda premium

arrrghhh said:
I wonder if it's the c10 cards...
You guys really shouldn't be using high class cards in a phone - there's really no benefit, as phones use SD card's very differently from camcorders or cameras...
On my ooooold phone, anything above Class6 was bad juju. I have always had class4 or lower cards, no fried cards (yet... lol)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Class 10 shouldn't make a difference to a device. The class/speed only comes in to play when transferring data from/to a computer, which will be faster on Class 10 vs Class 4 or 6.
Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk 2

arrrghhh said:
I wonder if it's the c10 cards...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As best as I can tell, thats a negative. Ive been running with a 32GB class 10 since around when the phone was released, and Ive had no issues. Quite surprising on its own, seeing as I abuse the poor thing. True that class 10 arnt useful for the phone specifically, but some shops only carry class 10 cards.
@hfase
I dont seem to have any issues with mass storage, with ~1GB written a day. Im quite curious as to why some people have this issue.

ADegtyarev said:
As best as I can tell, thats a negative. Ive been running with a 32GB class 10 since around when the phone was released, and Ive had no issues. Quite surprising on its own, seeing as I abuse the poor thing. True that class 10 arnt useful for the phone specifically, but some shops only carry class 10 cards.
@hfase
I dont seem to have any issues with mass storage, with ~1GB written a day. Im quite curious as to why some people have this issue.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Maybe it's all down to the quality of the actual card itself?
Perhaps the cheaper no-name / off-name brands have a much higher failure rate....?
I'm not really sure, short of actual hardware issues on the device.

AW: Your SD card likely isn't the problem
Well here is my experience:
I am using a new san disk 32GB class10 micro sdcard. It was never format ed/ used before. The q itself formated the disk.
I have had no problems until using the twisted asanti prebuild
Version. Since then I only got problems with the qu saying the sdcard would be corrupt, after reboot. ( I expected some additional wired things, like the currents widget, which I deleted before reboot reappeared). So I would suggest it is an error in un mounting the sdcard before shutdown, which causes this failure.
Since I usually do not reboot the phone expect for flashing new roms, I had no trouble since then.
Hope this might help to further circle the problem, and maybe find a solution for this.
Sent from my awesome XT897

Since CM10 I haven't noticed any SD-Card issues, but I have the feeling, that there are some issues, which aren't detected.
In the last few days my CM10 was acting weird.
1. The gallery (together with the camera app, 2in1 app) disappeared in the App Drawer (was still in /system/app) and didn't appear again after overwriting gallery2.apk again.
2. The Google Weather App had a graphical issue, so I was sure, that there was a flash issue by restoring ASA14 and flashing CM10 (from SD-Card!).
I solved this issue in copying the nandroid backup and CM10 to the phone and flash it from there.
I have tested my SD-Card in my external cardreader, it had no issues in doing so.
My guess is, that the SD-Card needs more power than the Photon Q can give and is losing some read/write commands.

arrrghhh said:
Maybe it's all down to the quality of the actual card itself?
Perhaps the cheaper no-name / off-name brands have a much higher failure rate....?
I'm not really sure, short of actual hardware issues on the device.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think This may have hit the nail on the head. I have had a couple cheap discount cards die but they really died. Cant even read in the PC and one even got really hot when plugged in. Got a good branded card from amazon and havent had a problem since.

Mordannon said:
I think This may have hit the nail on the head. I have had a couple cheap discount cards die but they really died. Cant even read in the PC and one even got really hot when plugged in. Got a good branded card from amazon and havent had a problem since.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've used better Samsung and Sandisk cards and have had this issue. It just randomly wipes all my data and creates the LOST.DIR with it all in there, but file names are all renamed and would takes years to sort through and try to figure out what is what. All my photos, music, etc.. were basically gone then. It didn't matter that the card was a name-brand or not. I've had the issue with several cards.

I constantly have this problem as well, and I've found that mounting the SD card with a reader or in another phone in a Linux environment fixes it for the most part. I think files still get lost, but you get most of what you had back.

I got a 32GB UHS1 card last week and it hasn't had a problem.

200GB MicroSD card issues?

Picked up a high-speed MicroSD card and formatted it in my moto z. My device gets hot and full charge battery only lasts about three hours. When I remove the MicroSD card everything goes back to normal.
Using custom kernel and prerooted stock rom.
Anybody having any issues like mine or can shed some light on how to fix the issue? Thanks!

happened to me in moto x force and moto z
with 128gb lexar (works flawlessly on samsung tab a)
changed to sandisk uhs-i and no problems
might be moto is picky when it comes to sd cards

Yep this is a lexar card. Was on sale for $100. I guess I'll have to return it. Thanks for letting me know.

I went back to stock encrypted and it seemed to fix the issue.

don't count on it

Just FYI...
I've a 128 GB 1000x Lexar on my Moto Z with stock kernel and no issues with it... :fingers-crossed:

So another update, turns out Android sucks at indexing and it was constantly scanning my 5800 FLAC files all the time. 100% battery would go to 10% in just under three hours, it had nothing to do with it being a lexar card!
Solution? I put a .nomedia file in my music folder and enabled my music player to ignore that and it scans my whole library with ease. I went to work at 8:30 am today and just got home (6:18 pm) and my battery is still at 85%.

Turbojugend said:
So another update, turns out Android sucks at indexing and it was constantly scanning my 5800 FLAC files all the time. 100% battery would go to 10% in just under three hours, it had nothing to do with it being a lexar card!
Solution? I put a .nomedia file in my music folder and enabled my music player to ignore that and it scans my whole library with ease. I went to work at 8:30 am today and just got home (6:18 pm) and my battery is still at 85%.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Really a weird issue...
I've my MP3 and videos on my SD card and I've noted no issue with them...

I've tried multiple high speed UHS-I cards, and formatted as internal, but all of them were either flagged by the phone as "too slow and might affect performance" or gave me heat and battery life issues.
And it would take five minutes after a reboot to show all app icons, or apps would lose login passwords, games lost saves and other annoying issues.
Formatting it as external storage, and just setting the camera to record directly to it works fine though.
Someone from Xiaomi actually said they're not adding or supporting MicroSD as internal due to them always having issues apparently. And it seems to be true.

Shadowdancer123 said:
...
Formatting it as external storage, and just setting the camera to record directly to it works fine though.
....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is in fact my actual situation... no issues with Lexar 128GB 1000x.

enetec said:
Really a weird issue...
I've my MP3 and videos on my SD card and I've noted no issue with them...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Maybe because I am using FLAC and have 5900 of them on it hahaha.

Turbojugend said:
Maybe because I am using FLAC and have 5900 of them on it hahaha.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Probably! :laugh:

Btw, another reason to not use it formatted as internal storage, is the immense power requirements MicroSD can spend at max write speed.
According to Wikipedia, as much as 100mA, which really explains why the phone heats up when it's formatted that way. And that doesn't include the consumption of the sd card controller.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Digital

Shadowdancer123 said:
Btw, another reason to not use it formatted as internal storage, is the immense power requirements MicroSD can spend at max write speed.
According to Wikipedia, as much as 100mA, which really explains why the phone heats up when it's formatted that way. And that doesn't include the consumption of the sd card controller.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Digital
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It didn't matter how I had it formatted before it was still getting super hot. Now that I haven't been using it, the issue must have been Android trying to index all the files as it's been running fine all week now that I have that .nomedia file in my music folder.

Does anyone know of a 128 card that can handle is phone?? Im gonn try the Samsung Pro+ 128

masterjay21 said:
Does anyone know of a 128 card that can handle is phone?? Im gonn try the Samsung Pro+ 128
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Using Lexar 1000x with no issues at all here...

enetec said:
Using Lexar 1000x with no issues at all here...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
And at last... I had issues too!
On sdcard I store TWRP backups (no issues...), Titanium backups (no issues...), Maps (no issues...) and.... Pics & videos... and here I begin to see some weird behaviour...
First I saw Gallery had difficulties on showing pics thumbnials if I go fast between them... then it begins to show some "damaged" pics... at last I saw Camera app begins to crash just after taking a pic... (set to save on sdcard...)
So, I removed sdcard, connected to a PC and copied all files... The copy requested A LOT of time since of read difficulties, BUT all files was ok at last. :highfive:
Then I formatted sdcard and extensively tested with h2testw with no issues and constant speed.
So I formatted again and copied all files back in.
Then I've found a way to have it working fine with Moto Z... (I think... :fingers-crossed
Problem is that Moto Z is set to use a too small cache size for modern sdcards (128 KB) and this probably generate sync issues (and when this happens I saw CPU go wild and phone become warm... in a very similar way with Windows when it is having issues with USB keys... )
So I installed "SD-booster" app from Play Store (yes, it requires root...) and used it to resize cache to a more suitable value of 2048 KB and I haven't had any issue since then... more, my gallery has never been so fast scrolling and taking a LOT of pics in seconds or slow motion video isn't an issue at all now...

masterjay21 said:
Does anyone know of a 128 card that can handle is phone?? Im gonn try the Samsung Pro+ 128
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm using a Samsung Evo 128go and I have no issue

So, I currently only use my 128gb Samsung UHS1 card for external storage only because of the issues other have experienced using it as internal. Not sure if it's on anyone's radar but Sandisk just announced a new micro sd card made specifically to be able to handle the read/write requirements.
http://www.droid-life.com/2017/01/05/sandisks-new-256gb-a1-microsd-card-wants-apps/

Mate 9 & Toshiba Exceria Class 10 Micro sd card Lag !?

Starting to have doubts about the Mate 9 now, among other software bugs I've noticed I've just found out today after using a micro sd card in this phone after an hour or 2 the phone starts to lag badly and slowdown ! card is fine in pc, Toshiba exceria class 10 128gb card, when I remove the sd card everything speeds up when I reboot, scrolling and performance lag like hell with an sd card, anyone confirm this is the case ? just wasted £40 on a card I can't use !

Does it have a lot of files on it? Could be it's still indexing all you files. Can take a long time before it's finished. I used to get that on other phones as well.

No it's a brand new card. incidently the card was formatted in exFat in windows, I tried a few times formatting by default and the phone would lag badly after an hour or 2 so I tried formatting the card in NTFS and fingers crossed it's lagging anymore, card been in all night with no slow downs, I have no idea if this is the case, but from my findings Android OS has problems with either large sd cards or the exFat file system choking it.

Ady1976 said:
No it's a brand new card. incidently the card was formatted in exFat in windows, I tried a few times formatting by default and the phone would lag badly after an hour or 2 so I tried formatting the card in NTFS and fingers crossed it's lagging anymore, card been in all night with no slow downs, I have no idea if this is the case, but from my findings Android OS has problems with either large sd cards or the exFat file system choking it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Why don't you do the format inside the phone and let the phone decide which file system to use.

I did try after the 2nd lag time and it still started to lag after a while, only when i formatted the card on my pc to NTFS and it's still not lagging.

When I use a new or used microsd card on my phone, I firstly format it using the phones storage manager. This usually fixes any problems with the card

I had the 200gb sd card in the phone with about 10gb of mp3 files and never notice any lag or slow down on the phone. Perhaps try another sd card to see if same problem.

In
gm007 said:
Why don't you do the format inside the phone and let the phone decide which file system to use.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've tried formatting with the phone's utility but that didn't work, it's been fine for a day now since formatting into ntfs.

Ady1976 said:
I've tried formatting with the phone's utility but that didn't work, it's been fine for a day now since formatting into ntfs.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Spoke too soon, I give up, it started to lag and slow down again after a couple of days, I don't know what's wrong but this is the 1st time I've tried an sd card with a phone and it will be my last, even when it did work the phone was pathetically slow at unlocking with a micro sd card in, thought I was using my N6p again ! now got a £40 128gb paperweight (and not a good one at that !)