Look for guidance on the SD card issue?

I've had mine working with everything from 256MB up to 1GB without any problems. Only problem I had was in loading the files onto the SD card but as far as the unit it will accept all of the ones you mentioned.

3audiman said:

Or will they also accept 1GB and 512MB? Appreciate the input!

Click to expand...

I'm using a 1GB SD card and a 128MB SD card - no problems with either.

Make sure you only use the Hi-Speed cards and NOT the Multi-Level ones.

thanks......as I thought this seemed odd

I have a 1G PNY SD card (non-high speed) and a 1G Sandisk Ultra II high speed SD. Loaded them both with about 900+ MB of songs and they both work fine. The only thing is it takes a little time to load SD disk and surprisingly they both load in the same amount of time. Makes me wonder wether it's worth it to get the high speed disk. Anyone else have thoughts on high speed vs regular speed SD cards?

Paul

High speed is best for when you're writing to the card, such as when using it in a camera and it has to put the image on as quickly as possible, and then be ready for the next one. If you're just playing music, like we're doing, the unit is reading from the card, and having a high speed card doesn't make a difference. I tested high speed and regular speed SD cards using a tool on my Pocket PC, and when it comes to reading, sometimes the high speed cards were actually slower. Save $$ and stick with the regular speed for playing music.

Amazon give exactly the OPPOSITE advice - because the multi-level cards are designed to store pictures where some errors may not be noticed they do not guarntee to store data 100% accurately.

Hi-Speed cards cost more because they use "traditional" 1 bit per cell memory technology, the "Hi Speed" is a side effect.

My advice as a professional electronics engineer is to only use the MLC cards for pictures - and I do follow my own advice.

Small world, I was an EECS major but ventured on to other things. I was just citiing real-world experience. I've been playing music off my Lexar 1Gb card for the past year (on my MP3 player) with no problems, the Lexar Pro 16X high-speed would have cost $40 more, so I thought why spend more when the normal speed one works fine? (If it's not high-speed, does that mean it's multi-level?). Anyway, I'm sure Amazon knows their stuff (but sometimes I question a retailer's recommendations, higher revenue is their bottom line, no?) , but I had a level of comfort of my own after testing some myself and reading those publications like Max PC or many on-line sites that tell you that "the cards which are promoted as high performance tend not to perform any differently than many 'standard' cards". This is what I've experienced first-hand and have read, so it's okay for me and thought why not pass that experience along to others.

i started with a old 64MB card and it worked fine.. i am now using a 1GB with some sucess..

seems as though my biggest problem is loading the 1GB.. for some reason i often get corrupted files and folders and such.. they appear to copy onto the card fine, but then i go back to see if everything is set up they way i want it and there is wing-ding font and grayed out folders and fileds and all sorts of wierd things??.. not sure if it is a problem with my PC, USB cable, card reader or SD card -- i have not been able to narrow it down yet..

any suggestions??..

I have also noticed this, gettin gth eweird names and characters.
And in my the solution was not to try to put to many files on the card. All the times I had the weird names and characters I had received an error because the capacity of the card was insufficient.
When trying to put just the right amount of data on the card there is no issue anymore.

it seems like when i do anything 'fancy' it gets screwed up.. like if i create a new folder on the card or erase mp3s from the card after i already copied them, or copy multiple times to the card it gets screwed up..

if i 'assemble' the folders with mp3s the way i want it on my harddrive 1st, then copy everything at once it works ok.. kinda weird.. a bit of a pain, but not that bad..

i need to test that theory more.. and figure out why it is happening..

Look at the id3 tags on your mp3s and make sure there's not junk characters in there that the Nav unit is trying to display and get confused. I use MusicMatch Juke box to download the id3 tags for my mp3s and write them to the mp3 so it displays the correct songs on the nav display.

I use the Microsoft Media Player 10. It has a sync feature that you can make a playlist say 1G big and sync it to the card. Make sure you don't have it do a conversion option but just transfer the file on the card. It makes a directory for the mp3s in the card.

So format your SD card and try the Media Player sync function. Under the menu Tools>Options>Devices>(click on your SD card device) Properties>Quality> Uncheck Convert files as required by the device. Make a playlist. Then click on the Sync tab then click on the Sync list and select the playlist. Then sync.

I've had no troubles other than a little slow reading the cards initially (10 seconds or so for ~900MB of 1G SD).

Good luck

fritzner said:

.. for some reason i often get corrupted files and folders and such.. they appear to copy onto the card fine, but then i go back to see if everything is set up they way i want it and there is wing-ding font and grayed out folders and fileds and all sorts of wierd things??..

Click to expand...

This is an unwanted side effect of MLC type cards. Since several bits of, apparently unrelated, data are stored in one cell as a multi-level voltage (hence the name) the more times you change 1 bit of data the greater the risk of another bit of data becoming corrupted when the multi-level voltage is read and written back as not quite the same value.

It's storing digital data using analog voltages - prone to error and noise.

I use a 1GB (non-MLC) card attached to 3 different PCs via 2 different USB-to-SD adapters, on both USB1.1 and USB2.0. And I move and rename files and folders, in-place edit ID3 tags - treat it just like a disk drive - without any problems at all.