512GB microSD in Galaxy S8

[martyp78]

Hi all,

I know Samsung states the max capacity card for the S8 is 256GB but with the prices falling I'm strongly considering a 512GB card.
My current one is a Samsung Evo Plus 256GB card (red and grey version).

The new 512GB Evo Plus (grey one) looks to be faster and has A2 support and under £40 now. Mymemory also suggests it is compatible but unsure if they have actually tested it themselves.

As the S8 supports SDXC and exfat and believed to be UHS-1 bus it looks like the new Samsung Evo Plus 512GB might be good?

I did consider a newer model but not a fan that newer phones don't tend to support storage expansion and it's all cloud now. I like the files on the phone as I back them up at home.

Just wanted to post that out to see whether the 512gb samsung evo may be a good idea?

Many thanks

 

[blackhawk]

Not sure if that will work or not. I've read about people using larger than speced memory and it working on other phones.

I use the Sandisk Extreme .5 and 1tb V30 rated cards with my N10+'s. Zero issues. Get write speeds of [email protected] going from internal to card.
Consider upgrading to a N10+, these are fast, capable phones with one one the best displays out there. After this flagship Samsung starts losing it.

 

[martyp78]

Not sure if that will work or not. I've read about people using larger than speced memory and it working on other phones.

I use the Sandisk Extreme .5 and 1tb V30 rated cards with my N10+'s. Zero issues. Get write speeds of [email protected] going from internal to card.
Consider upgrading to a N10+, these are fast, capable phones with one one the best displays out there. After this flagship Samsung starts losing it.

Thanks blackhawk, I was thinking that their limitation on size was based on what was available for them to test with at the time so maybe couldn't test 512gb at the time of manufacture (2017 or so). I know at some point I'll definitely need to move on when the OS becomes really obsolete, the battery isn't holding charge for long, I have to take power banks with me to get through a day!
I'll check out the N10+ as I think if I wanted a Galaxy with micro SD support the best I'd be looking at is an A53?

 

[WoKoschekk]

Thanks blackhawk, I was thinking that their limitation on size was based on what was available for them to test with at the time so maybe couldn't test 512gb at the time of manufacture (2017 or so).

I assume it depends on the default cluster size for exFAT:

7 MB-256 MB	4 KB
256 MB-32 GB	32 KB
32 GB-256 TB	128 KB

https://support.microsoft.com/topic...nd-exfat-9772e6f1-e31a-00d7-e18f-73169155af95

I think for that reason Android formats sd cards up to 32GB in FAT32 while sd cards 64GB+ are formatted in exFAT. So - in theory - every Android should accept sd cards up to 256TB (cluster size 128KB) as long as min. 64GB is compatible according to the manufacturer.

 

[martyp78]

Excellent thanks, I did wonder if there could be any limitations if it supports exfat and sdxc. I'll hold off from 1tb but might be intrigued if anyone does try that size.

 

[NigrumTredecim]

sd card sizes are mostly just recomendations,
i run a 400gb sandisk ultra in my s3 wich oficially supports up to 64gb, only downside is that it takes 15mins to recognize the card, after that everything works as it should, get about 12mb/s out of the card

also run a 512gb samsung card in my a5(2017) wich is specified with up to 256gb supported with no problems

 

[martyp78]

Great, thanks for confirming. Useful also as my other half has an A5(2017) and I also have an S3 and an S5.

 

[blackhawk]

Thanks blackhawk, I was thinking that their limitation on size was based on what was available for them to test with at the time so maybe couldn't test 512gb at the time of manufacture (2017 or so). I know at some point I'll definitely need to move on when the OS becomes really obsolete, the battery isn't holding charge for long, I have to take power banks with me to get through a day!
I'll check out the N10+ as I think if I wanted a Galaxy with micro SD support the best I'd be looking at is an A53?

You could replace the battery, not that big a deal.

Not sure about which of the midrange Samsung's is top of the lot.
The N10+ trumps the new midrange Samsungs except no variable refresh rate display and no 5G (probably should avoid the 5G variant). New N10+'s N975U1 (Android 10) can still be had new from a reliable vendor for $700. PM me if you want his site link. Used used ones for half that price. You may need to replace the battery but it's not a big deal.

The Snapdragon variants (N975U, N975U1) have the best hardware but can't be rooted. They run the fastest and coolest.

Most used ones will be loaded with Android 11 or 12 with the scoped storage nonsense. I prefer Android 9. I have two N10+'s; one running on 9, the newest is running on 10. Android 10 runs ok and scoped storage isn't fully implemented. I bought the second one new in part to avoid Android 11/12.

If you buy used beware of scammers. Use known good vendors only. Test the display with ScreenTest as soon as you get recieve it. The display should be perfect. Then test the cams, spen, connectivity, card slot and so on.
Use a Sandisk Extreme V30 rated card; they're fast and are very reliable.
Use a Zizo Bolt case to protect it otherwise it will get damaged; these are heavy, corner hitting phones.

 

[martyp78]

Excellent, thanks.

 

[blackhawk]

Excellent, thanks.

You're welcome. Check out the N10+ forum. There's lots of information there. Also Android 10 no rollback to 9, Android 11 no rollback to 10, however Android 12 probably can be rolled back to 11.
These work horses are just a joy to use. Once optimized they run very well stock, are extremely stable and long lived. The N10+ is exponentially faster than the N9 but the flagships that followed to N10+ don't see that leapfrog speed increase in most real time usage.

 

[martyp78]

I just wanted to report back that I have now replaced the 256GB Samsung Evo Plus in my Galaxy S8 with the 2021 newer 512GB Samsung Evo Plus which is V30.
The tests and details are attached. It seemed to have no problem at all and have recorded Ultra 4K video to it perfectly so pleased with my £32.99 purchase as I was going to pay £42 then the price suddenly dropped by £10 last week...

 

[WoKoschekk]

I just wanted to report back that I have now replaced the 256GB Samsung Evo Plus in my Galaxy S8 with the 2021 newer 512GB Samsung Evo Plus which is V30.
The tests and details are attached. It seemed to have no problem at all and have recorded Ultra 4K video to it perfectly so pleased with my £32.99 purchase as I was going to pay £42 then the price suddenly dropped by £10 last week...

Why is screenshot no 1 showing only 477,5GB for the micro SD but 64GB for internal? I've never seen that decimal and binary were mixed up. Aside from that 512GB = 476,84GiB and not 477,5GiB as shown there.

 

[martyp78]

Why is screenshot no 1 showing only 477,5GB for the micro SD but 64GB for internal? I've never seen that decimal and binary were mixed up. Aside from that 512GB = 476,84GiB and not 477,5GiB as shown there.

Must admit I'm not too sure, could be an oddity with the app there. It detected it and made it usable straight away although I formatted it in the phone anyway. Then the apps on my phone filled up 7GB of space without me doing anything.

I bought from a well known trusted supplier as I know are loads of fake cards on the market these days.

I'll do some checks and see if I can determine the size correctly.

 

[NigrumTredecim]

Why is screenshot no 1 showing only 477,5GB for the micro SD but 64GB for internal? I've never seen that decimal and binary were mixed up. Aside from that 512GB = 476,84GiB and not 477,5GiB as shown there.

samsung makes it so the internal storage always shows up with the next "full" capacity so 32gb 64gb 128gb etc

size for external media is taken from usable size so after filesystem and all so that may explain the difference there

 

[WoKoschekk]

samsung makes it so the internal storage always shows up with the next "full" capacity so 32gb 64gb 128gb etc

Every storage size on every mobile phone is a multiple of 2, e.g. 2^5 (32GB) or 2^9 (512GB). And a storage overview shows always total/free. Also non-Samsung devices.

size for external media is taken from usable size so after filesystem and all so that may explain the difference there

A GUID partition table (gpt) has a header size of 32 blocks (block size = 512). The default start block of the first partition is 2048 (0x100000). This is 1MiB (2048*512=1048576 Byte) unallocated space. No existing file system takes 34,5GB for its partition table.

 

[NigrumTredecim]

Every storage size on every mobile phone is a multiple of 2, e.g. 2^5 (32GB) or 2^9 (512GB). And a storage overview shows always total/free. Also non-Samsung devices.


A GUID partition table (gpt) has a header size of 32 blocks (block size = 512). The default start block of the first partition is 2048 (0x100000). This is 1MiB (2048*512=1048576 Byte) unallocated space. No existing file system takes 34,5GB for its partition table.

Yes the physical storage is 32GB but samsung shows 32GiB (at least on android 8)
moreso the stock data partition on my phone is only 24gib big

it will also show 512 gb while the /data partition is on an 400gb sd-card (will show 100+gb used even though that storage doesnt exist)

most other phones i had just showed the capacity of /data instead of the full flash memory (so 398gb on that 400gb sd card for example)

sd card in question https://www.amazon.de/SanDisk-Ultra-microSDXC-Speicherkarte-Adapter/dp/B074RNRM2B


conclusion: samsung appears to not read the full flash capacity but appears to just extrapolate the size of /data to the next full capacity instead just showing the missing amount as system storage.

 

[alecxs]

It seems nearly every android has that stupid bug mixing up GB with GiB in storage calculation, that's not only Samsungs failure. the discrepancy is hidden in occupied space for System, as we recently discussed here.

Why is the OS (System) size different for different storage variants of the same device model?

I have seen that the space occupied by 'System' is different for different storage sizes of the same device. My Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra shows space occupied by system as over 50 GB. Mine is the 512 GB variant (Snapdragon). While I don't...

forum.xda-developers.com

 

[WoKoschekk]

moreso the stock data partition on my phone is only 24gib big

That is correct since /data is one of many partitions on your storage chip. The size of /data in your internal storage is
32GB - (all other partitions except /data) = /data

The meta data on a sd card occupies not more than a few MB. So the system should always show 512GB of 512GB free storage.

It's quite unusual showing both, GB and GiB in one overview. Apart from that 477,5GiB ≠ 512GB. That's too much.

 

[alecxs]

depends on the person that calculates it. in the two articles in other thread former one mentioned 494 GiB the latter one 476 GiB. 2023 at it's best