jeremyzone
Member
For those who have the 436HP, has anyone tried microSD cards larger than 32 GB? I know that the manual says that the scanner "supports up to 32 GB" but I was just curious if that's truly the max.
Thanks
Thanks
BCD436HP/BCD536HP: Max MicroSD capacity?
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There have been a post or two where folks have claimed to use 64 GB cards.
About the only reason for using/needing a large capacity card is if one is storing a great number of recordings. As best as I can estimate, one minute of recording takes up 1 MB of space on the card. Figuring that there is 29GB of recording space on a 32 GB card, there is some 29,000 minutes of recording time.
About the only reason for using/needing a large capacity card is if one is storing a great number of recordings. As best as I can estimate, one minute of recording takes up 1 MB of space on the card. Figuring that there is 29GB of recording space on a 32 GB card, there is some 29,000 minutes of recording time.
The issue has to do with how cards larger than 32GB are formatted. The device may want to see a card formatted as FAT32. However, Windows will not format 64GB cards as FAT32, but as exFAT. Thus, the radio may not recognize the larger card. There are utilities available that will format cards larger than 32GB as FAT32. I've had to do this with a portable music player. Google FAT32 formatter to find these utilities. A 64GB card will hold much more data than I can conceive of using with a scanner. Even if you're recording audio it's a huge amount, but, hey, go for it if you want to.
Windows will not format much of anything FAT32. You have to use a dedicated FAT formatter. Even all of those won't work. I had to try two of them before I found one that worked (the one that would not work is SDFormatter, I think). I'm using a 64GB card and so far it works fine. I cannot say yet if it will write the entire capacity of the card, but no errors so far. I should have checked the used capacity yesterday when I had it connected to the PC. Specifically, I have the SanDisk Ultra (gray and red).
jeremyzone
Member
Thanks for the help everyone. My scanner should be arriving today so I wanted to be ready for it.
Wow didn't realize how efficient the recordings are. I'll probably go with a speedier 32GB card rather than buying a 64GB card that's slow. Based on what I've read, the scanner is faster at loading if you have a fast card
Wow didn't realize how efficient the recordings are. I'll probably go with a speedier 32GB card rather than buying a 64GB card that's slow. Based on what I've read, the scanner is faster at loading if you have a fast card
troymail
Silent Key
I've never been able to get more than about 4Gb (usually less) of recordings on any card (8, 16, or 32 Gb) in the x36 radios before the radio starts choking on the card and rebooting. I'm really starting to believe this isn't a card problem but more likely something in the way the radio writes to the card since I can re-enable recording after the reboots and it keeps on recording without problems - at least for a a day or more.
Point being is that you can get alot on a smaller card. Size of the card isn't important - speed is. In fact, larger cards can cause longer boot times.
Point being is that you can get alot on a smaller card. Size of the card isn't important - speed is. In fact, larger cards can cause longer boot times.
My 64 GB card loads in virtually the same time as the stock 4 GB card, so I've never seen the speed delta that some say exists. If anything, the 64GB card might be slightly faster, but the difference is withing 10% so it's not a dramatic difference.
jeremyzone
Member
Quick follow up on this thread re: scanner loading speed with a faster microSD card. Yesterday, I got a 32 GB Samsung Pro card and tested it out. I had the scanner load the full, nationwide database plus my favorites lists.
The 32GB Samsung Pro (one of the fastest cards out there) loaded in about 30 seconds
The stock 4GB Sandisk card loaded in about 31 seconds.
Tests were averaged over several runs with my trusty stopwatch
Not a significant difference between the two.
The point is that if you want the scanner to load fast, don't worry about your microSD card slowing you down. Just don't load the full database. Use favorites lists and turn on the Nationwide database only when you need it. It takes less than 10 seconds for my scanner to boot up and start scanning.
As far as microSD cards, get something reliable and don't worry as much about it's speed, IMO.
The 32GB Samsung Pro (one of the fastest cards out there) loaded in about 30 seconds
The stock 4GB Sandisk card loaded in about 31 seconds.
Tests were averaged over several runs with my trusty stopwatch
Not a significant difference between the two.
The point is that if you want the scanner to load fast, don't worry about your microSD card slowing you down. Just don't load the full database. Use favorites lists and turn on the Nationwide database only when you need it. It takes less than 10 seconds for my scanner to boot up and start scanning.
As far as microSD cards, get something reliable and don't worry as much about it's speed, IMO.
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