Will the Clip+ support the 64GB Micro SD cards?

I found out that Sandisk will release a Mobile Ultra 64GB Micro SD XC Card at the end of October.

Will this work in the Clip+ or if not will it work in the Clip Zip? I’m guessing a firmware update might be needed.

Thanks

I saw one post  in which someone claimed that he got a full size 64GB SDXC card to work with a Sandisk player using an adapter when the card was formatted as FAT32. Of course this was sloppy, with the card hanging outside the player connected by a cord. The full sized SDXC card is the same as the micro card except for size. First of all, Sandisk warns against using FAT32 for SDXC and micro SDXC cards(i am not sure why). Sandisk is selling 64GB micro SDXC cards now, however they are $220 each. since 32GB micro SDHC cards are now only around $40-45, most people will think paying $220 for a 64GB is ridiculous.

The Sandisk Fuze, Clip+ and Zip have a song limit listed as 8,000 songs, although those with embedded album art, or long tags or finenames and folder names might hit the limit much sooner. So unless you are using 320 kbps or lossless or have very long songs, as a practical matter you will probably not be able to make full use of a 64GB card. If you have so much music, then you should buy an extra Clip+ or Clip Zip, and put a 32GB  card in it.

Carrying two Clip players is easy. It will also give you more battery life than just carrying one player. A Clip+ or Clip Zip and two 32GB micro SDHC cards is  much cheaper than a 64GB micro SDXC card. Perhaps in a year or two the 64GB micro SDXC cards will be under $100. Then there probably will be players that officially support these.

If its fat32 formatted it should. 

It does. Perfectly. I just took a very deep breath and forked out around 90 GBP for one, on the off chance that it might work in the Clip+ or Fuze. You do have (like many others have suggested) to format the card with Fat32. It’s pure nonsense that Fat32 will only format up to 32GB and not beyond, but you need to use a little trickery.

First I had to obtain a card reader compatible with SDXC (initially I thought that I had been sold a fake as the card consistently showed up as  -  essentially  -  a 32GB card, until I realised the fault lay with the my old card reader: only the very latest readers are compatible). Then I used HDGuru to give it a complete low level format. Finally I used Fat32Format, in its command line version, and prayed.

It worked just fine and dandy. When I inserted it into the Clip+, and after that had gone through its “refreshing media” nonsense, I went into Settings and then Info, where lo and behold I had a 59GB (approximately) external card. Which is about the true size I hoped it would be. I have gradually been filling it up and now have about 42GB’s-worth of audio on it. It doesn’t complain at all, and I haven’t encountered any file-numbers problems (but then that could be because, since I listen almost exclusively to classical music, my file numbers are always pretty low because each one is an entire act of an opera, or whatever).

I haven’t tried it yet with a Rockbox installation, mainly because I infinitely prefer the sound signature of the original Sansa firmware. But I don’t see why it shouldn’t work.

I strongly suspect that the industry has been very cagey about the whole thing, and that SDXC cards will prove, with a bit of juggling, to be workable with just about anything and everything with a suitable slot. 

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Congratulations, and great to hear!  Thanks for the report.

Although, I can only imagine the refresh time with the filled card.   :wink:

@tristanklingsor wrote:

I haven’t tried it yet with a Rockbox installation, mainly because I infinitely prefer the sound signature of the original Sansa firmware. But I don’t see why it shouldn’t work.

 

The only difference in sound, with no EQ engaged, is that playback speed is a little more accurate with Rockbox installed. And that difference is not very big…a lot of people don’t even hear it.

With a card that size, I would think Rockbox would be mandatory, just to avoid the database refresh.

Marvin_Martian wrote:

 

 

With a card that size, I would think Rockbox would be mandatory, just to avoid the database refresh.

 

Or the 8,000 ( +/- ) track limit. But then isn’t Rockbox’s limit 10,000? If so, one could exceed that number too with that much memory space.

@tapeworm wrote:


@marvin_martian wrote:

 

 

With a card that size, I would think Rockbox would be mandatory, just to avoid the database refresh.

 


Or the 8,000 ( +/- ) track limit. But then isn’t Rockbox’s limit 10,000? If so, one could exceed that number too with that much memory space.

With low-bitrate files, I guess…I have less than 7,000 on my 64GB player.  I just looked and the file browser limit does appear to be 10,000.

Both original and Rockbox sound the same to me.

Rockbox hopefully will support more songs in the future. Seriously, why not just make the song amount INFINITE? All you have to do is set the value right? Just make 0 infinite and set it there. No point in making limits. 

@trantalocked wrote:

Both original and Rockbox sound the same to me.

 

Rockbox hopefully will support more songs in the future. Seriously, why not just make the song amount INFINITE? All you have to do is set the value right? Just make 0 infinite and set it there. No point in making limits. 

Turns out the Rockbox limit was not 10,000 files, it was 10,000 folders.

However, even with a 64GB card, assuming you get one to work, how many files do plan on cramming into it? lol.

@trantalocked wrote:

Both original and Rockbox sound the same to me.

 

Rockbox hopefully will support more songs in the future. Seriously, why not just make the song amount INFINITE? All you have to do is set the value right? Just make 0 infinite and set it there. No point in making limits. 

Rockbox already supports infinitely many songs, although I think the fat32 file system will limit you to something like a few billion files per volume. So beyond that you might have to partition your SD card.

Actually wikipedia says FAT32 is limited to 268,173,300 files. So if you want more then 268 million files, you’d need to partition your disk into multiple FAT32 file systems :slight_smile:

My music library is 38.4GB at the moment. I guess I would get by just fine with a 32GB card, but I think the main reason I wouldn’t actually buy a 64GB card is because of how expensive they are. $35 for 32GB vs $100 for 64GB. The choice is obvious.

Amazing, though, that the price is down to $100 (I remember not all that long ago when 32GB cards were more than $60). Now, if someone just would make a 64GB player (actually, I would like a 128GB solid-state player), and with a card slot . . . . But sigh, I’ve been saying this for years. :frowning:

@miikerman wrote:
Amazing, though, that the price is down to $100 (I remember not all that long ago when 32GB cards were more than $60). Now, if someone just would make a 64GB player (actually, I would like a 128GB solid-state player), and with a card slot. . . . But sigh, I’ve been saying this for years. :frowning:

Your prayers are answered! http://www.ibasso.com/en/products/show.asp?ID=78 :stuck_out_tongue:

@marvin_martian wrote:

Your prayers are answered! http://www.ibasso.com/en/products/show.asp?ID=78 :stuck_out_tongue:

 

Holy Moley! $829.00??? :dizzy_face:

And it doesn’t even do gapless?

@tapeworm wrote:


@marvin_martian wrote:

Your prayers are answered! http://www.ibasso.com/en/products/show.asp?ID=78 :stuck_out_tongue:

 


Holy Moley! $829.00??? :dizzy_face:

 

 

And it doesn’t even do gapless?

It will…the website is a little dated now, but the 40-odd people that got the first models released into the wild have been asked to send them back for an update that all the players are getting, so that they will indeed do gapless. And of course you could have downloaded an app from the Android Marketplace that did gapless, if you could live without the silly 24-bit 192khz sampling BS “audiophile quality” files that some of the snake-oil drinking customers seem to favor.

The HifiMan wildly overpriced players don’t do gapless, as I understand…:laughing:

Thanks for the info. And well, the price now is down to *only* $765 . . . . :wink: Sigh, a bit too rich for my taste, when I figure the price should be, real world, no more than half that (with all due respect to iBasso–I know that a large company like SanDisk can affect a multitude of cost efficiencies). And, of course, with all due respect to the Apple iPod Touch, overlooked in my earlier post and which goes up to 64GB (but without a card slot–sigh, and shame on you, Apple). The elusive wait for a 128GB solid-state player continues on . . . .

@miikerman wrote:
Thanks for the info. And well, the price now is down to *only* $765 . . . . :wink: Sigh, a bit too rich for my taste, when I figure the price should be, real world, no more than half that (with all due respect to iBasso--I know that a large company like SanDisk can affect a multitude of cost efficiencies). And, of course, with all due respect to the Apple iPod Touch, overlooked in my earlier post and which goes up to 64GB (but without a card slot–sigh, and shame on you, Apple). The elusive wait for a 128GB solid-state player continues on . . . .

I know what you’re saying about it being too rich for your taste…it’s too rich for mine as well, until I join the ranks of the 1%.:wink: 

But I think you may be mistaken as far as how much it should cost.  The people with them are comparing its sound quality to reference desktop DAC’s, and also saying it has enough power to run some of the most power-hungry full sized headphones out there. A 64GB iPod Touch retails typically about $375-$400, and as nice of a unit as it is (despite what the haters  say) , it is in a different class than the iBasso.

Im having problems with my new 64GB card in my Sansa Clip. i can load about 5GB worth of music on it and it starts to fail. Files dont copy over properly at all. The Clip itself is fine - and I work on mac - done all the reformatting do daa but still it persists. I may be wrong but does anyone know if its due to it being a standard Micro SDHC card. Should I have got a Micro SDXC?