SD Card Compatibility


I'm unaware of any reason why that card - or any currently on the market - wouldn't work. :)


That said, it's my sworn duty to advise you to avoid eBay and third-party sellers, because there are a LOT of fake-capacity cards (SD Cards with their controller chip hacked so that a false size is reported, which are really only 64MB to 2GB in size) out there. Only buy from a known-genuine retailer (either online or offline - yes, offline has a markup, but sometimes it's worth it for the peace of mind and the fact that you can talk to a real person to resolve any problems), and you should have no problems.
 
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I'm unaware of any reason why that card - or any currently on the market - wouldn't work. :)


That said, it's my sworn duty to advise you to avoid eBay and third-party sellers, because there are a LOT of fake-capacity cards (SD Cards with their controller chip hacked so that a false size is reported, which are really only 64MB to 2GB in size) out there. Only buy from a known-genuine retailer (either online or offline - yes, offline has a markup, but sometimes it's worth it for the peace of mind and the fact that you can talk to a real person to resolve any problems), and you should have no problems.

Thank you for your reply... I rarely buy things from auction-sites. And after a miss-hap with an online-store which sold me a Nokia phone that was region-coded for France, Spain, Belgium, Portugal... while I live in Sweden(so I had to hack the phone, edit the region-code and then reflash and update software in order to get the Phone in my language) I'm nowadays careful about what companies I buy from. I herd about the Pandora project over a year ago, but held off ordering one until I saw videos on youtube where actual users was showcasing it. And when it comes to the company that sells these SDHC cards I'm looking to buy, they seem legit and serious according to pricerunner(and have offices and support-lines in Sweden).


Back on topic... the SD card is 32 gb and both the manufacturer webpage and the online-store say it is Class 10(10 mb/s), and they are going for £51,36 / €57,97 / $80,66. So my next question is, how does this compare to other stores(online/offline) in your countries?
 
The prices you quote seem fairly similar to online prices for Class 6 cards here in the UK (offline prices are a bit higher). To my knowledge, that's a realistic price. :)
 
That DealExtreme price does look legitimate if this listing at Newegg is anything to go by (Newegg are good seller AFAIK, but sadly they don't ship outside the US).


However, I wouldn't buy flash memory from DealExtreme. They sell a lot of cloned products complete with very well reproduced 'official' packaging. This is great if you're after a cheap Xbox360 hard drive or transfer cable ;) but I wouldn't trust them with SD cards.
 
Ok, but I order two or three - all SD cards selling here (my city) is the same or even more bad products but x5 or x10 prices, so DX is a good solution for me - I order (micro)SD cards several times in the past and was satisfied with results.


Only thing I wanted to ask is - this card is full compatible with Pandora or not? now i see is compatible :)


Thank you!
 
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In preparation for my Pandora I was looking for SD Cards on-line(since stores around here has such a mark-up price), and the most affordable one I've found while still being 32 Gb and also being advertised as class 10 was this one.


http://www.transcendusa.com/Products/ModDetail.asp?ModNo=286&LangNo=0&Func1No=1&Func2No=13


Will this work with the pandora?


Both experience and/or speculations are appreciated.

I've got two of those 8GB Class 10 Trascend SD cards, no problems reported thus far. Partitioned one of them as EXT2 and I could boot with no problems. I've had some problems with corruption, but that's probably because of some impromptu shutdowns not cleanly dismounting the partition, I've also heard from a few sources that the EXT2 driver isn't mature yet.
 
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I've also heard from a few sources that the EXT2 driver isn't mature yet.
That's in the boot loader on the processor itself, if you intend to format an EXT2 SD card and boot off of it. If you're just using it as storage and booting off of NAND, the driver is as mature as on any other Linux system.
 
That's in the boot loader on the processor itself, if you intend to format an EXT2 SD card and boot off of it. If you're just using it as storage and booting off of NAND, the driver is as mature as on any other Linux system.

I stand corrected, interesting to know, thanks.
 
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Hi all, first post here, more & more interested by this great device =)


Please note that this is a sdxc card (sd3.0), not sdhc... unless I'm wrong I highly doubt the panda already support those, which are pretty recents.

Hi and welcome to the boards lastnikita, according to this post on the unofficial boards SDXC cards work fine with Pandora.
 
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Please note that this is a sdxc card (sd3.0), not sdhc... unless I'm wrong I highly doubt the panda already support those, which are pretty recents.
SDXC cards based on SD3.0 do work on the Pandora; SD3.0 is basically SD2.0 with the artificial cap removed (and a few extra optional features like faster speeds). SD4.0 cards may not work on the Pandora immediately, but could be as simple to get working as a firmware update, but I haven't seen the spec so I won't say for certain (just near certain ;) )
 
Wow, great ! Sorry for spreading the doubt then ;)


Tried to find some bit of info about backward compatibility few days ago, couldn't find anything quickly..


Do you think it could be the same for other recent devices too, like latest android smartphones ?


Btw, toshiba should be soon coming up with the fastest sdxc cards with 90/40 mb/s read/write speeds !


edit: just spotted this from the topic you pointed out Mr_Loon, apparently quoted from wikipedia:


"SDHC devices will only support the SDXC cards which use UHS104 speeds; SDHC devices will not recognize the SDXC cards which use the faster (SD 4.0), final specification of SDXC."


shall we face some speed limits regarding to the controller ? (I mean, within UHS104 specs which are already really high !)


I wonder about the differences between a computer controller, a handheld controller from pandora and another one from a mobile :-/


edit: forget it, just saw the bus is limited to 20mb/s :'(
 
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Are USB drives fully plug and play? If so, how much battery life does the Pandora have with a USB drive attached?
 
Are USB drives fully plug and play? If so, how much battery life does the Pandora have with a USB drive attached?


Depends probably on the usb drive, but I didnt notice the extra battery drain (it probably will last 10min shorter or something)


(to give some perspective on the pandora's battery, I charged my phone with it and only lost about 1 hour playing time)
 
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That DealExtreme price does look legitimate if this listing at Newegg is anything to go by (Newegg are good seller AFAIK, but sadly they don't ship outside the US).


However, I wouldn't buy flash memory from DealExtreme. They sell a lot of cloned products complete with very well reproduced 'official' packaging. This is great if you're after a cheap Xbox360 hard drive or transfer cable ;) but I wouldn't trust them with SD cards.

The Kingston 8GB SD card is sold out on NewEgg. http://shop.01media.com is pretty reputable, although not many people know about it. It is an electronics shop based in Poland that sells Sandisk and Kingston memory and other items. I live in the US and it takes probably 2-3 weeks to make it here on the slowest shipping, no longer than any other shop. I order from them every so often, but in order to view the proper prices for your area, you have to select the proper location and currency on the left-hand side. Also, if you have a problem with your card payment not going through, fill out the contact form and they will send you an alternate payment link.


NewEgg and Tiger Direct would probably be your best choice for memory if you live in the United States, although I'm all for giving smaller shops like Shop 101 Media a chance to thrive.
 
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Are USB drives fully plug and play? If so, how much battery life does the Pandora have with a USB drive attached?
what kind of USB drive? All drives will "work" (provided they are USB-HS, but I don't think they make non-HS drives), it just depends on power requirements.


The USB thumb drives you will probably notice some extra drain.


External hard drives with a separate power source will probably have no noticeable drain.


External hard drives that are powered right off USB will suck your battery dry, if they work at all. Some of them exceed the specified 500amps, so be very careful with these ones.
 
Are USB drives fully plug and play?
They need to be USB 2.0 High Speed if you wish to connect them to the full-sized port, as that's what it actually supports. If they aren't, you'll need to connect them via a USB 2.0 High Speed hub.
 
They need to be USB 2.0 High Speed if you wish to connect them to the full-sized port, as that's what it actually supports. If they aren't, you'll need to connect them via a USB 2.0 High Speed hub.

I noticed the USB ports, I just recall a speech that Michael Mrozek (ED) gave regarding open source handhelds and the Pandora, mentioning that he wasn't sure if the Pandora was capable or not. I did read something on these boards that most drives are able to be used, I thought that I would double-check. Not many devices use the USB 1.1 standard these days, so I'm not worrying whether a drive is USB 2.0 compatible, since I buy most of my memory in stores. I'm a Mike as well ;)
 
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