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The speed is actually 985 MB/s not 985 Mb/s. The article was wrong. See https://www.sdcard.org/press/T...

microSD Express format supports up to 985 MB/s not 985 Mb/s.

MB/s is megabytes (1,000,000 bytes) per second.
Mb/s is megabits (1,000,000 bits) per second.

References:
https://www.sdcard.org/press/T...

I don't know why FAT is even used on SD cards in the first place.

Because the SD Card Association has made a business decision to require exFAT in all SDXC certified devices. According to this page, reformatting a card to any other file system makes it no longer SDXC compliant.

The SD Association has a special formatter which avoids this problem.

Interesting that the special formatter is only available for Microsoft Windows and Apple Macintosh, and apparently only in binary form. Even if I had such a computer I would not be comfortable formatting my disk with non-free software. Who knows, it might be putting an encrypted child porn picture on a hidden part of the disk, exposing me to the risk of prosecution. No thanks.

Same here. I bought two 128GB cards on eBay for $23 each. Only one showed up, and when I tested it with:

# dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdc

it gives I/O error at about 8.2GB. Definitely not worth the aggravation.

No, no, don't do it that way. If you overwrite an SD card starting from the beginning, you will overwrite the Protected Area of the card. Also happens if you use the "format disk" function of an operating system on the card.

The SD Association has a special formatter which avoids this problem.

Maybe try reading the card instead of writing, to test for those cards which have missing flash. Or carefully skip the Protected Area with dd when writing.

The SD Association offers a formatter for SD/SDHC/SDXC cards but only for Windows and MAC. It may format a card in such a way that some devices can't use it.

Do you know if the source code is available under a free and open source license?

But it has never been standardised by any commitee.

That's true only as long as you are willing to totally ignore the SD Association.
This is one of those cases where the industry is way ahead of the so called "standards" organizations.

The SD Association offers a formatter for SD/SDHC/SDXC cards but only for Windows and MAC. It may format a card in such a way that some devices can't use it.

The appropriate reference page.

Most of the Android licensing deals have been based around FAT32, which has been around since Win95. What sort of credible value of that technology remains in 2013? Absolutely none.

Much but not all.

Microsoft bought/brewed up MTP because FAT32 was expiring. Many smartphones use MTP to avoid having to put a true samba server or ftp server in the phones. There are also a few patents dealing with trivial user interface functionality.

With bigger MicroSD cards the phones also run afoul of the SD Association of which Microsoft is a member, and many other members are merely Microsoft sock puppets since Microsoft managed to get their proprietary file system declared the standard for MicroSD cards throughout the entire line:
SD card is formatted with MBR and the following file system:
For SDSC cards: FAT16 (patent expired)
For SDHC cards: FAT32 (still under patent)
For SDXC cards: exFAT (still under patent)

Why device manufacturers insist on using VFAT and FAT64 boggles my mind.

This whole situation is just pure laziness, and a reason why people should point and laugh at Nikon for paying danegeld.

I guess you don't realize that devices like my TV, Blu-Ray player, projectors, etc. all read FAT-formatted SD cards. So you're asking Nikon to lose compatibility with all those devices. They would also have support calls about cards not working, etc.

Oh yeah - FAT is part of the SD standard.
https://www.sdcard.org/developers/overview/capacity/

too late, that battle is lost already
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zh8gLKrGeBE

Sorry couldn't you summarize the hour long video especially when you have a valid point. Which as I see it is the https://www.sdcard.org/ SD Association and includes [Canon Inc., Cardwave Services Limited, Giesecke & Devrient, Hewlett Packard, Kingston Technology, Lexar, Motorola Mobility, Panasonic, Phison, Samsung Electronics, SanDisk Corporation, Silicon Motion, Inc. and Toshiba...yeah] everybody who makes a SD Cards , as a successor to SDHC cards SDXC have chosen to use exFAT as replacement for FAT...and anyone who used those cards has to pay Microsoft royalties.

Sorry, but once the SD association adopted Fat32 and exFat, its a standard by any useful definition.

https://www.sdcard.org/consumers/sdxc_capabilities/using_sdxc

The exFAT file system used for SDXC is available on Microsoft Windows 7, Windows Vista and Windows XP (SP1 or later) with exFAT file system update (KB955704) available from the Microsoft Download Center.

Any SD card / MicroSD card over 32gig requires SDXC, which is exFat. So an entire line of hardware is tied to a Microsoft Patent. An ENTIRE LINE OF STORAGE DEVICES!!!

The latest version of SD cards (XC) also have the capacity to scale to 2TB.

"SDXC, the latest SD memory card standard, dramatically improves consumers’ digital lifestyles by increasing storage capacity from more than 32 GB up to 2 TB." Source: https://www.sdcard.org/developers/tech/sdxc

Move along, nothing to see here.

Actually the issue is that they used Cmd 42 (SD Lock/Unlock) card; this basically disables the card unless you have the password -- you cannot reformat the card w/o the password. Basically only a few commands work while the card is locked; and until you unlock it; your stuck. You can unlock it on ANY device so it isn't locked to the device so much as the password...

See: http://www.sdcard.org/developers/tech/sdcard/pls/Simplified_Physical_Layer_Spec.pdf for the full details.

Now a good question is if the WM7 uses the same password for all roms; or if it uses a hash based on the model/serial number or if it generates a password that it stores somewhere...

It's not possible. Any modification that is done to the card can always be reversed with a simple format. You can get an SD card formatter directly from the SD Association.

The changes that Windows Phone makes to the SD card look like they are necessary for the device to be able to integrate the external memory with the internal, as opposed to having two separate memory locations.

Too bad the SD specifications are not open. If you follow the link to http://www.sdcard.org/, you will see that it takes a non-disclosure agreement to read the specifications. According to the before mentioned site, it is up to the manufacturer of the drive. So it may be handled by the hardware, or by the software or not at all if it is a sloppily manufactured drive. I wouldn't count on it to be safe.

My first thought: WTF? Archival storage implementing DRM?

This thing is useless anyway since copyright terms now last longer than 100 years (depending on the age of the author).

Yes, all "SD cards" include CPRM; that technology never introduced into hard-disks because of a consumer backlash.

Heh, I actually did RTFM when I first had the problem...

SD Formatter Manual (PDF)

FULL (Erase ON):
This option initializes the file system parameters and completely deletes all user data area by
overwriting meaningless data into the card. Furthermore, this option erases all user data area in the
card.
The erase operation is available if the "SD Secure API" function is implemented in your SD interface
device, otherwise the erase operation will be skipped during formatting.
This option may take long period for formatting depending on the capacity of card.

It's that erase cycle support I'm looking for in a USB flash card reader. The card itself was killed by accidentally turning off my camera, a Panasonic DMC-ZS3K, during a write cycle. The weird thing is it still works fine in USB 1.0 mode. It just will not work at high speed so the camera won't recognize it. Given how it got that way, I thought maybe a full erase cycle would clear out some bad data that got written when it was powered off unexpectedly.

-l

Indeed, I was looking for something that supported this:

SD Formatter manual (PDF)

FULL (Erase ON):
This option initializes the file system parameters and completely deletes all user data area by
overwriting meaningless data into the card. Furthermore, this option erases all user data area in the
card.
The erase operation is available if the "SD Secure API" function is implemented in your SD interface
device, otherwise the erase operation will be skipped during formatting.
This option may take long period for formatting depending on the capacity of card.

Since the failure was due to turning off the camera (Panasonic DMC-ZS3K) during a write cycle, I thought a software fix might work -- with the appropriate hardware. It's either that or RMA'ing it (again) or throwing it away.

-l

Basically, I was looking for a USB card reader that supports this:

SD Formatter manual (PDF)

FULL (Erase ON):
This option initializes the file system parameters and completely deletes all user data area by
overwriting meaningless data into the card. Furthermore, this option erases all user data area in the
card.
The erase operation is available if the "SD Secure API" function is implemented in your SD interface
device, otherwise the erase operation will be skipped during formatting.
This option may take long period for formatting depending on the capacity of card.

I totally agree with you that it would have been nice to have had time to research the card in the first place. I have RMA'd it once already. At the time I bought it, I was in a hurry because our baby was on the way and I wanted space for a ton of pictures and video and didn't have time to do the proper research.

My Panasonic DMC-ZS3K camera nuked it... probably turned off the power to the flash card before the write cycle completed. You'd think this would be similar to a buffer underrun in CD burning, perhaps fixable by doing a full erase on the entire device and putting a fresh filesystem on it.

Thoughts?
-l

If the onboard USB hardware supports the Erase cycle, you might be able to make it fast again. But, you need something to tell it to do that. I doubt this tool will work for you, but if it's really bad it might be worth a stab...

-l

According the the SD Association PDF manual for SD Formatter, this is what Full (Erase ON) means:

FULL (Erase ON):
This option initializes the file system parameters and completely deletes all user data area by
overwriting meaningless data into the card. Furthermore, this option erases all user data area in the
card.
The erase operation is available if the "SD Secure API" function is implemented in your SD interface
device, otherwise the erase operation will be skipped during formatting.
This option may take long period for formatting depending on the capacity of card.

Sounds like the flash card version of "low level formatting" if ever there was one. Here's the back story on why I was hoping for a software solution (rather than a second round of RMA'ing).

-l

There is definitely a special 'erase' command for SD-cards. See page 33 for the simplified specification. The problem is that unless you have direct access to the SD controller - perhaps on a mobile phone like the N900, the USB mass storage abstraction hides completely this feature. Formatting using this command is usually very fast compared to writing to all existing blocks.

The reason for that is that the card uses a translation layer to mask the physical deficiencies of the flash memory. Bad blocks in NAND flash are even a bigger problem than on a magnetic disk, but using an error-correction mechanism implemented with a Hamming code and 'spare bits' for each block, the translation layer hides all of this to the user, presenting a 'perfect' storage area. If you send an erase command, the translation layer only needs to take care of bad blocks and clear all others, instead of trying to write 'formatting' data it does not recognize.

In a way, this command is equivalent to the TRIM command for SSD drives: it is useful in the long term and improves performance, but not obviously missing in day-to-day use. But when SSD users pay a premium to use them in a very efficient way, the absence of consideration for performance of SD-Memory cards users led to the current situation, where the command exists but cannot be accessed easily.

http://www.sdcard.org/consumers/formatter_3/

The SDXC spec is designed to handle up to 2TB on a card. That means a whole lot of transistors to fit 2TB on a micro-SD card.

I have no idea what you are talking about. My guess is 'WP' refers to "Washington Post." To use the 'SD' logo, the cards must implement the DRM:

Having a proven record in DVD, this (CPRM) is enhanced in SD memory cards through the use of "key revocation" technology built into each card.

The card's control circuitry allows data to be read and written (in its protection area) only when appropriate external devices are detected. A check-out (copying) from a PC to the SD memory card is restricted to three copies in compliance with the SDMI specification. All SD-Audio products comply with SDMI.

The SD card copyright protection function has the following features:

• Access to an SD memory card must be enabled by authentication between devices
• random number is generated each time there is mutual authentication and exchange of security information

- http://www.sdcard.org/developers/tech/

I don't find DRM'd cards trustworthy because they are designed to fail in sometimes unpredictable ways. My storage devices have no knowledge of copyright laws, so should not try to enforce them when I am trying to boot from a "known good" filesystem!

I just hope the upcoming Universal Flash Storage (UFS) is a viable floppy replacement. I am not optimistic, as if I had read the proposed standard, I would not be allowed to provide you with that link.

Trojans are easy enough to get rid of with: # dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda
Where /dev/sda is your flash device.

Servers probably still use floppy drives because there is still no viable floppy replacement.

• USB keys don't have write-protect tabs, so you have to be careful plugging into a compromised box.
• SD Cards use a form of DRM called Copy Protection for Recordable Media. This means that you can not create a "kown good" filesystem image because your Card may refuse to talk to the card reader (you filthy pirate!).
• CD-ROM disks are either Write-once or not write-protected. This makes making small changes to the boot image difficult (requiring a new disk).

Yes, I do use a floppy: my home router is running from a write-protected floppy disk. I am not sure if I can keep using a floppy disk in the transition to IPv6. The 2.6.x Linux kernel doesn't really fit on a floppy disk.

Everything that wants to SDXC will have to use exFAT. It's part of that standard.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't SDXC defined by SD Association, not by Microsoft. Microsoft is one member of the association, I give you that, but there are several others as well. Unless Microsoft somehow coerced the association to select exFAT, I consider this to be a bad move by the association rather than Microsoft.

Does SD have open patent licensing, does Memmory stick?

It costs a few thousand dollars to license Memory Stick, much like for SD.

And what does DRM have to do with open vs proprietary?

It was an aside.

I found the footnote where they invoke the name of the W3C to justify patents interesting:

Software interoperability standards such as those promulgated by the World Wide Web Consortium (w3c) and the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) are necessary to enable the important uses of software, supra at 18-23, which require acquisition and assimilation of data from numerous heterogeneous sources. With the advent of patent protection for software, firms are able to selectively license innovations on favorable terms to the community of standards users, thus encouraging other firms to participate in and adopt standards.

Emphasis in original (page 29, 42 in pdf). I don't think that is the purpose of the W3C's patent policy, which states that any patented methods described in w3c standards must be freely licensed. The W3C makes recommendations based on common industry practice. IBM's interpretation implies that Patents must be used to rigorously impose standards as is done by: 3D-3C, LLC, DVD Format/Logo Licensing Corporation, 4C Entity, Digital Content Protection LLC, and Digital Transmission Licensing Administrator.

The main point of the Brief seems to be that the test for patentability should not rely on an arbitrary method of implementation. The Brief explicitly states that it relies on the US constitution that says that advances in the "useful arts" (technology) are patentable. As such, many of the claims may not apply in other jurisdictions such as my own. From the brief:

Patenting technological inventions promotes innovation. No sound patent policy supports protection for non-technological processes, including non-technological business methods.

- Page 7.8 of Brief (pages 20,21 of pdf)

I supposed if the scope of software patents is limited enough such that entire fields of innovation are not cut-off (a patent on Morse code was used as an example), I suppose they can't do to much harm.

I want all my p0rn^w music on 165 mm^2! http://www.sdcard.org/developers/tech/sdxc

Solid State.

With SDXC released, Blu-Ray as a physical medium is already obsolete. Being able to drop your movie and still watch it after you pick it up is a HUGE benefit.

SD-Audio uses CPRM (the SD DRM), although as far as I know is only available in Japan at the moment.

You can get the Simplified SD spec, which is basically the normal spec minus the DRM and some other unimportant details.

The microSD format was originally created by SanDisk. It was originally called T-Flash, and then TransFlash, before being rechristened microSD when adopted by the SD Card Association (SDA). Other flash card formats approved by the SDA include miniSD and SD.

Why a battle royale between new media formats that scratch and need to be played on mechanics that inevitably wear out...

http://www.sdcard.org/

Putting hard copy liner notes with those little cards might be a royal pain, tho.

Perhaps some SD and other memory card-tricks will follow.

Secure Digital cards support the SDMI copy-protection spec (secure from you, not for you), thus opening "a Pandora's box of new marketing possibilities".

Stick to MMC (MultiMediaCard), which is essentially SD minus the copy-crippling mechanism.

I don't see how this can work, unless the only choice for a playback device is one with DRM. If a non-DRM playback solution exists, there's motivation to rip to a non-DRM format and share.

The only way I see that the DRM Cartel can eliminate the non-DRM elements is through force of law. Expect the Cartel to purchase legislation making it illegal to even think about a non-DRM'd device. They'll surround themselves with a defensive battery of copyrights and patents. Oh, and to dodge the anti-trust laws in the US, expect the DRM Cartel to license the DRM technology to anyone willing to pay the extortion fee and accept the draconian usage license. Just like the SD Card Association.

The SDA is a cartel, plain and simple. The Host/Anciliary License Agreement (pdf) is truely draconian. In addition to paying the annual extortion fee, you have to agree to license any new developments back into the cartel. You're also prohibited from disclosing any details about SD cards. So once you're a member of the cartel, you pretty much can't work on any open-source SD-related projects. There are even "antitrust guidelines" published by SDA because they're dangerously close to crossing the line.

The SDA is a cartel, plain and simple. The Host/Anciliary License Agreement (pdf) is truely draconian. In addition to paying the annual extortion fee, you have to agree to license any new developments back into the cartel. You're also prohibited from disclosing any details about SD cards. So once you're a member of the cartel, you pretty much can't work on any open-source SD-related projects. There are even "antitrust guidelines" published by SDA because they're dangerously close to crossing the line.

I think you are confusing a couple of issues.

First, Sony has nothing to do with the "Secure Digital" format of memory cards. They compete with it (with MemoryStick and MagicGate) and are not even a member of the SD Association.

Second, the "Secure Digital" part of the SD card is an optional layer of DRM that allows an application writing to the card to specify what can be done with it. While this is DRM, and thus icky, it is not some magic tech that identifies what file types are written to it and decides what do do from there. The vast majority of SD devices do not implement any sort of DRM on the cards.

The limitation the OP is talking about is a software limitation either in the PalmOS itself or in the implenation of external interfaces to copy files to/from the device. As others have pointed out this can be solved with a number of 3rd party or opensource programs, but the fact remains that the published interfaces into the PalmOS and it's filesystem are lacking for handling files that live outside of it's native database filesystem.

The problem being nothing else I have uses memory stick. I use USB and SD formats. Why? Cheaper...

The CFA provides the CompactFlash Specification as a free download from the CFA web site. The CompactFlash and CF(logo) trademarks are licensed at no charge and no royalty to CFA members. This has encouraged industry to quickly adopt the CF form factor into as many new devices as possible.

Application for membership requires the applicant to read, understand, and agree to fully support and abide by, all of the principles, policies and procedures as set forth in the SD Card Association's By-laws, Antitrust Guidelines and Intellectual Property Policy.

Comparing SD & MMC, you might want to consider that an SD card has a write protect switch which MMC & CF do not (but I expect I'll be corrected on that), and is much faster than MMC (up to 10Mbps vs 300kbs or 1Mbps). Ignore MMC.

If you go with CF, a useful real-world speed comparison is at Rob Galbraith's site.

SD, MMC

You need to look up what Secure Digital cards really are before assuming that they're automatically a DRM thing. Secure Digital is a card format that has the ability of doing DRM, but not required. It's a follow on to the MMC cards. Happens to be the same card as the Palm units. See SanDisk for more info.

I have Bonzai USB Mini-Drive that uses SD cards and I am not restricted in what I can cart on it. Works great as a bit-bucket to carry stuff around and I'm not stuck at a fixed capacity like the more popular Disk-On-Key Flash memory USB things.

Also, don't forget that this is a reference design. If an OEM wants to built in CF or Bluetooth, there is nothing stopping them except for some engineering.

• PalmOS5 will be out soon and that's the only truth this guy included in his post. However, this fact is pretty overrated. PDA's are not bought for their upgradability (or if they are, they are by stupid people); in fact, although most PDA's are upgradable today very few people actually upgrade them. The only PDA so far that has had a major upgrade released for it is the Compaq Ipaq, and there have been many problems with it. When you buy your PDA, buy it for what it can do out of the box, not what it can do in the future.
• ALL apps support Sony's 320x320 resolution. If there's some bad programming in the app you can reset the Clie to work as if it were 160x160 resolution. If you mean few apps are built especially for Sony's 320x320 resolution, you're wrong again. It took a few months, but most popular apps are made especially for Sony's hi-res, including even many games. Even though the NR-series has only been out in the US for days, there are already programs popping up for the 480x320 resolution (which can still run any program ever fine).
• It has approximately the same battery life as PPC devices. If you're waiting for PalmOS5 devices, you'll see around the same battery life, if not less.
• The Memory Stick is the smallest flash media device available except for the extremely expensive Secure Digital format. Memory Sticks used to be expensive, but they're now about the same as Compact Flash. Note that Palm and PPC devices use the much more expensive SD (Secure Digital) format. Memory Stick and Secure Digital both have 128mb limits at the moment, so you're "does not hold too much data" argument is moot. Memory Stick is also not any more proprietary than the main competitor, Secure Digital. Sony was the developer of Memory Stick and pushes it, just like Panasonic (along with Toshiba) developed Secure Digital and pushes that. Both formats charge fairly large license fees. Non-Sony products are popping up all over that use Memory Sticks (especially in Japan). Portable and set-top DVD players, car stereos, and even Sony's next-gen WEGA Tv's have memory stick slots.
• Sony has pretty much dropped MagicGate and ATRAC3 outside of asia. You don't need to touch either of these to get everything out of a clie.
• Um, yes there are Stowaway keyboards for your Sony, and GPS devices for your clie, including one made by Sony themselves. There are plenty of accessories for Clies, which is the third biggest seller of PDA's in the United States. Handspring is dropping market share fast, so it won't be long until Sony is #2.
• 
  Sony makes the best Palm-based PDA's. The only downside to the NR-series, in my opinion, is the size (which isn't as big as Pocket PC's or even some PalmOS units, but is bigger than, say, Sony's T-series).

Secure Digital

. . . . This security technology has been designed to comply with current and future Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI) portable device requirements, making it an excellent medium for the distribution of digital content, including digital music.

The advantage to this kind of slot is that it also reads Multi Media Cards which are pretty much like a 1/4 size version of Smart Media Cards and don't have any "content protection" schemes involved. The gain here is that you can stick a MMC in the SD slot and have a bunch of extra storage space for your MP3s and maps and stuff and still have the CF slot open for a modem or network adapter without the extra bulk of a second CF slot.

You are absolutely right there. This is the consortium which is responsible for those SD Cards. Thanks for correcting me.