topic Re: SDXC cards? in M Series

SDXC cards?

Cam-S — Fri, 30 Oct 2015 22:34:01 GMT

Got a new M4 Aqua. Apparently you can use 64GB and 128Gb micro SD cards in it. In fact, the latest online manual says you can use 200Gb cards.

Any such card will have to be an SDXC card, because SDHC cards don't go beyond 32Gb. But SDXC cards are somewhat troublesome, and I have seen reports that to get them to work in Sony smartphones you have to reformat them from exFAT to FAT32 (which is not straightforward, and can cause its own trouble).

Has anyone actually tested an SDXC card in the M4? Does it just work with it straight off, or do you have to reformat it? The manual says nothing about this.

Re: SDXC cards?

Uliwooly — Fri, 30 Oct 2015 22:48:37 GMT

@Cam-S

You will have to reformat Fat32

Re: SDXC cards?

Cam-S — Fri, 30 Oct 2015 22:56:52 GMT

Do you know that for sure?

Re: SDXC cards?

Uliwooly — Fri, 30 Oct 2015 23:00:58 GMT

@Cam-S

Not 100% but you could confirm with your Local support

Re: SDXC cards?

zyxxyz — Sat, 31 Oct 2015 07:19:37 GMT

I gave 64GB exFAT. With FAT32 I had problems.

Phone default formats exFAT

Re: SDXC cards?

Cam-S — Sun, 01 Nov 2015 20:58:29 GMT

Thanks.

I'm trying to understand what exactly is going on with SDXC cards and Sony's mobiles. In this thread, someone reports Sony telling them this:

--------------------
Thank you for contacting the Sony Xperia support centre.

In regards of the Xperia M4 Aqua and the class of Micro SD card.

We would advise the device can use up to a 128GB, class 10 SD card.

Please avoid a UHS SD card as these are not compatible with the M4 Aqua.

Other then that you should face no issues with Micro SD cards.

We hope this helps

--------------------

Not being an expert on SD cards, I'm not sure about this.The whole thing seems very confusing. For one thing, it's almost impossible to find SDXC cards that aren't UHS (either UHS-I or UHS-II), espeically with higher amounts of storage. You can get SDXC cards that are marked as both UHS and speed Class 10, though. Would that be okay? I thought non-UHS SD cards were phased out years ago? All the web research I've done seems to support this, but none of it is very clear. Do they just mean that the card has to be speed Class 10?

(Or do Sony mean just avoid UHS-II cards? But according to Wikipedia any SDXC slot can read any type of SDXC card.)

Re: SDXC cards?

Cam-S — Mon, 02 Nov 2015 08:56:20 GMT

Finally got this reply from Sony:

--------------------------------

Thank you for contacting the Sony Xperia support centre.

In regards of the Xperia M4 aqua and using a Micro SD card in the device.

We can confirm that FAT.32 is the correct formatting for a Micro SD card to be used within a android device.

When you insert a new Micro SD card into a Xperia handset it should ask you if you would like to format the SD card to the correct formatting.

Or you could follow the steps below providing you have whats needed.

Micro SD card to FAT.32 which can be done by:

1) Insert the Micro SD card into a PC (may need adapter)
2) Go to "My computer" and wait for the card to show
3) Right click the Micro SD card and press "preferences"
4) Press the formatting tap and format to FAT.32

When you format the card anything on it will be deleted so be sure to back it up before trying this.

We hope this helps.

--------------------------------

Given that some people have reported trouble using both types of formatting, and the fact that there is so much uncertainty about this issue (and what service centres say isn't always reliable), the lack of any manual information about this, plus the uncertainty about what sort of SDXC cards work, I'm going to skip using a SDXC card for now.

Re: SDXC cards?

fucinas — Sun, 03 Jan 2016 12:11:39 GMT

I am using LEXAR microSDXC 64gb and it works fine. Just nead to restart PHONE after inserting a new card