Problems with SD cards 64GB or bigger?

Hi there.

My 32GB SD card is full.  However, I have a slower class 64GB card (class 6 Sandisk Ultra--20 MB/s, it says), and if I understand correctly, being slower isn't going to matter as the 3DS can only support up to a certain speed (like class 4?).  I also understand I need to format it as FAT32 to use it.

Given all that, are there any other problems I might run into?  I've heard rumors that people using SD cards 64GB or bigger in this manner have gotten slower speeds, read/write errors and data loss.  I don't know if this is because of using larger cards or if it would have happened to them with a smaller card anyway.

Anyone use a larger card?  If so, have you had problems?  I want to swap and be able to keep everything on the card but not if using an SDXC card is going to cause issues.

Thanks!

Jesse_Dylan said:

Hi there.

My 32GB SD card is full. However, I have a slower class 64GB card (class 6 Sandisk Ultra--20 MB/s, it says), and if I understand correctly, being slower isn't going to matter as the 3DS can only support up to a certain speed (like class 4?). I also understand I need to format it as FAT32 to use it.

Given all that, are there any other problems I might run into? I've heard rumors that people using SD cards 64GB or bigger in this manner have gotten slower speeds, read/write errors and data loss. I don't know if this is because of using larger cards or if it would have happened to them with a smaller card anyway.

Anyone use a larger card? If so, have you had problems? I want to swap and be able to keep everything on the card but not if using an SDXC card is going to cause issues.

Thanks!

Click to expand...

Nintendo 3DS, Nintendo 3DS XL, and Nintendo 2DS systems support SD memory cards of up to 2GB and SDHC memory cards with capacities of 4GB to 32GB.

According to the Nintendo Support website the 3DS only support SDHC cards up to 32GB...

That's what they say and support, yep, but lots of folks have formatted larger cards in FAT32, and they work (apparently fine).

Looks like it can, http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=488934

I haven't tried as my 32 GB should still be good for a while longer.

I just did this on my Mac:

- copied over data from card that was in 3DS to my Mac

- formatted a 64GB SDXC card (Master Boot Record / FAT32)

- copied the data back from the Mac to the 64GB card

- popped it back into my 3DS

No issues.

I think Windows has some silly limit on how large a partition that it will format to be FAT32 but it's a limit imposed by the OS, not the file system - I don't know why.

On Windows I would always use the Panasonic SD formatter anyways instead of the default.

I have a 128 GB micro SD card and it works just fine.

Just an update, I am now using a Sandisk Ultra (48 mb/s claimed read time) microSD with SD adapter, 64GB.  I figured this way, I can use it in a New 3DS as well.

Anyway, I didn't realize Panasonic had a formatter.  I tried various formatters and finally found one that allowed me to format it for FAT32.  After that, the 3DS read it fine, initialized it, and I took it back out and copied everything over on to it.  Even with the adapter, it works totally fine.

One problem I had was getting the SD card into the 3DS.  It works fine in everything else I tried it in, but it wouldn't "click" into place in my 3DS XL.  Meanwhile, my previous SD clicked into place just fine.  I don't know what the deal was, but I found that if I pressed toward the system while pressing down and in (harder than it sounds), it works.  I think this is due to the 3DS XL having kind of a loose casing on bottom.  Not sure why they designed it this way.

Long story sort of short, it is working fine for me, and I'm happy to be able to download all my stuff without having to have anything deleted.  Some of those retail games are enormous.