LBA mode MicroSD problems - no LBA: +14MB/s on Patriot LX 16GB

[geejay2]

Summary:
I bought a Patriot 16GB LX Series Class10 MicroSD and had huge problems with it. Freezes etc.

After partitioning with FAT32 without LBA the Patriot Class10 is superfast, 14MB/s write speed under Android Froyo. LBA mode was the culprit.

I have not tested this over several days, but so far things seem to be fine.

Problem description:
Phone: Motorola Defy on Froyo Orange. Problem also exists with LG P500

The Patriot 16GB LX Series Class10 MicroSD seemed to lock up, apps were freezing. Speed tests with SD Tools from the Market also locked up.

The Patriot worked however fine when put into a card reader with a PC. Write speeds are consistently over 12MB/sec. I tested also with Check Flash, google for "chkflsh misha"

I reformatted with the official SDFormatter Tool V.2.0. from the SD Association. No go, same problem.

How to solve:
1. Remove existing partition on MicroSD and make a new partition with FAT32 without LBA mode.

I used the Check Flash low level initialization function for partitioning, google for "chkflsh misha"

2. Format MicroSD under windows, command line with:

format X: /fs:fat32 /a:32K

(DO NOT use SDFormatter from the SD Association to format as the program repartitions the MicroSD in FAT32 LBA Mode!)

With FAT32 no LBA 32k allocation size the Motorola defy blazes away with the Patriot 16GB LX. Write speeds + 14MB/s are shown by SD Tools.

Thoughts:
My humble guess is that the Motorola Defy accesses the MicroSD in non-LBA mode and that leads to problems if the partition is LBA. This is either caused by the MicroSD controller or the Defy.

I also suspect that various MicroSD problems of other phone/card combinations are caused by LBA partitions.

As far as I can see LBA is anyway superfluous as Android can only access 32GB SD Cards currently.

Cheers

Geejay

 

[zarathustrax]

Usually class 2 and 4 cards are better for use with phones and for running OS's or apps off of. Class 10 cards are designed to have fast sequential write speeds, but sacrifice their random read/write speeds and access times to achieve their fast sequential speeds. It's because they they initialize the section of the card that they are about to write to, which gives great speeds in sequential writes, but will cause delays and freezes when doing things that need quick access to different parts of the card or tasks that will read/write small bits of data from different parts of card.
Many people assume that higher class cards are better, but it really depends on what you're using the card for. For digital cameras, higher class is better, but for cell phones, where you will running apps or parts of the OS are store and accessed from the card, you want a lower class with better access times and random read/write speeds.
Different cards are better for different tasks.

 

[geejay2]

Thanks for your comments. I bought the card because it was the cheaper than Kingston, the only other alternative in that shop.

Here is an interesting article, with detailed info of what you mentioned.
Google for "Working Groups Kernel Consolidation Projects FlashCardSurvey", I cannot post links.

It seems that these Patriot cards are indeed linear write. The author mentions a superior SanDisk algorithm for access.

Interesting benchmark which seem to confirm this: google for "MicroSD card performance test results"

Looking at the table Kingston seems to be slower than Patriot.

In any case there seems to be an LBA problem with the Froyo/Patriot combo.

 

[zarathustrax]

Yeah, Kingstons are terrible for access speed and random read/write from the tests I've done. I'll never buy a kingston again. I usually stick with Sandisk... it's usually worth any extra money they cost to know you're getting a quality card. I have 8 different sandisk cards now... 2 32gb, 2 16gb, 2 8gb, 1 6gb and 1 4gb, and haven't had a problem with any of them and all except one has worked flawlessly with WP7 and all have worked great running android off of on my HD2.

 

[light_n_roses]

I was interested in buying this patriot memroy card, is there anyone who can tell me whish access time ? ( you can use hd tune 2.55 to check it ! )

 

[crypticc]

please delete

 

[thehumble1]

HD2 with cLK and clockworkmod recovery on Patriot 16gb class 10

Summary:

2. Format MicroSD under windows, command line with:

With FAT32 no LBA 32k allocation size the Motorola defy blazes away with the Patriot 16GB LX. Write speeds + 14MB/s are shown by SD Tools.

Thanks so much for the idea. Seems to have fixed the problems I was having with the card. My problem is that the ext3 partition is automatically formatted by the recovery program I'm running (clockworkmod 4.0.0.0), so I can't do the same for that partition.

I'm still not getting great write times, but read times are good for sequential:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
CrystalDiskMark 3.0.1 (C) 2007-2010 hiyohiyo
Crystal Dew World : http://crystalmark.info/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
* MB/s = 1,000,000 byte/s [SATA/300 = 300,000,000 byte/s]

Sequential Read : 12.588 MB/s
Sequential Write : 3.915 MB/s
Random Read 512KB : 16.033 MB/s
Random Write 512KB : 1.103 MB/s
Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 1.782 MB/s [ 435.1 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 0.129 MB/s [ 31.4 IOPS]
Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 2.024 MB/s [ 494.2 IOPS]
Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 0.111 MB/s [ 27.1 IOPS]

Test : 100 MB [H: 11.5% (1.6/13.9 GB)] (x9)
Date : 2011/09/20 14:23:51
OS : Windows XP Professional SP3 [5.1 Build 2600] (x86)

 

[Spetacolo]

Thanks!

Just singned up to say thanks.
Just followed your instructions for an 8 GB Verbatim Class 10 card. Seems to work. It was laggy and buggy before that.
Thanks

 

[loyukfai]

Wow! This LBA thing seems complicated, is it really needed...? Heard that formatting in different cluster sizes can solve the problem already, maybe this LBA thing is not needed...?

BTW, Chkflsh doesn't seem to have a partition function at all...?

Cheers.

 

[florin20032003]

And how do we format in non LBA mode? I cannot find any instructions anywhere...
Please, help!

 

[za_sly]

And how do we format in non LBA mode? I cannot find any instructions anywhere...
Please, help!

My thoughts/problem as well...

 

[Scudderb]

Mac option for non-LBA formatting??

Hello everyone...

Was wondering if anyone knew of a Mac option to format in non-LBA mode. Does the internet formatting utility is the Mac OS ("Disk Utility") use LBA or no??

THANKS!!