Newbie needs to verify info for getting new micro SD card, please

SanDisk MP3 players Sansa® Fuze™
1

I need to get a new micro SD for my Fuze: 4G, ver 01.002.31A

  1. From a couple thrreads here (highly amusing btw), it appears that my old Fuze will handle up to a 32G card, right?

  2. No matter what the card capacity, there is a limit to the number of files that the database in the Fuze firmware(?) can handle; seems to be around 5000 files. However, that number is dependant in part on things like how much tag info the files have: fatter tags = fewer files. More or less. Correct?

  3. Card Class: From what I’ve read, the higher the class (2, 4, 6, etc.) the faster the card. I don’t think that the Fuze will make much use of the extra speed, will it?

  4. Since some of the slower cards are getting harder to find, will the Fuze have trouble with faster cards, or will it be OK with, say, a class 4, which seems to be common these days.

2

Right on all counts.

I have no problems with Class 4.

As long as you don’t go crazy trying to overstuff the card, and your tags are lean and mean, you should be fine. 

If you do run into the limits, there’s always Rockbox at www.rockbox.org . 

I just got a couple of very cheap SanDisk cards from Amazon, sellers Kefers and Everything But Stromboli–quick shipping, all good. Both checked out as genuine and working with h2testw , the memory tester.

http://www.softpedia.com/progDownload/H2testw-Download-149366.html

3

Many Thanks, Black Rectangle.

I have no need to stuff a card. I can just as easily split my stash of files onto a couple cards by genre, and be perfectly happy.

Thanks also for the Amazon tip. I’m pretty sure that at least one of those sellers was among the many I looked at yesterday, which prompted this request for guidance.

I picked up that utility yesterday during my reading of this forum. Now I will be able to try it out.

Regards,

4

I don’t know what size your Sansa Fuze is, but I have an 8gb.  If you plan to stick with the Sansa Fuze firmware, like your own playlists and plan on trying to fill up a 32 Gb card with songs, DO NOT BUY a 32 GB card. 

Stick with a 16 GB card.  Yes, technically, the Sansa Fuze will support a 32 GB card, but an internal 8 Gb Sansa Fuze will only let you fully use about 2/3ds of the entire memory if you combine that with a 32Gb card. To tweak out more you will have to start doing things like editing the tags in the songs and moving stuff around. 

If you go with the 32gb card what will happen is after you start loading up your playlists and things, when you get to a certain point, the playlists on the external memory will disappear. 

I had to resort to tagging artists like 00 Springsteen under artist (this way the artist names you do this with will appear at the top of the Artist column; you can do this with Genre types, too, i.e., 00 Zydeco). 

Then, at about 30 Gb of space being used up, your PC will allow you to copy additional songs on the Sansa Fuze, but they won’t appear.  Not only that, you can see them with a program like Media Monkey, but they won’t show up on your Sansa Fuze player.  (My song total topped out at 6090). 

So in other words, if you want a device that will go up above about 30 Gb of data/songs, DO NOT use the Sansa Fuze with a 32 GB external card. 

(Ps…I tried Rockbox but had problems with that being unstable and crashing on me).

5

That’s the first mention I have seen here of Rockbox crashing.

You might ask a question on its forum–they are serious programmers and can probably help you make it work.