SD Card Size (256gb)

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I have used Samsung Select EVO 128gb SD cards for a couple of years. (The Samsung Select EVO is 90mb/sec write, appears to work OK with 4K videos, although I have seen some blocking (not investigates further) when rotating the view rapidly across trees. That model SD card is apparently labeled for Amazon, although it does not have Amazon branding on it.)

The DJI documentation says that the max SD card size is 128gb, and I am not sure why there is that limitation.

Recently I installed a 256gb SD card (same brand, model family) and it appears to work OK, however on the DJI app there is a persistent recommendation to format the card. This is after I formatted the card in the aircraft.

I have not verified that I can write on that SD card to full capacity.

Does anyone else have experience with this size SD card?
 
I did speak with DJI tech support last night, and they indicated that the max size supported was 128gb.

I guess, unless someone else has, I will have to test and see if I can go beyond 128gb and still have things work.
 
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Similar to @White Shadow, I’ve been leaning towards smaller cards and forcing myself to offload to computer after each flight and reformat before each flight. That way my risk of loss of content is minimized. Truthfully I like to use a 32 gig card which is probably twice one battery’s worth. This provides me a buffer if I forget the reformatting step at the start of the flight. Otherwise I can run out of space halfway through a shoot. Chances of me forgetting to reformat more than once on back to back flights are slim now that I’ve added a reminder label to my controller. ;)
 
Similar to @White Shadow, I’ve been leaning towards smaller cards and forcing myself to offload to computer after each flight and reformat before each flight. That way my risk of loss of content is minimized. Truthfully I like to use a 32 gig card which is probably twice one battery’s worth. This provides me a buffer if I forget the reformatting step at the start of the flight. Otherwise I can run out of space halfway through a shoot. Chances of me forgetting to reformat more than once on back to back flights are slim now that I’ve added a reminder label to my controller. ;)

I understand that people want to manage their space and swap out memory. That however was not the question. I am trying to find if there are others who have broken the 128gb published size limit.

To address the storage. Sometimes, I just grab my bird and run. I don't want to bring a case of SD cards. I charge my batteries in my vehicle, and quite often I don't shoot for the better part of a battery.

So my interest is lots of memory...enough for a weekend away. I can read it into my server when I get home and have a chance. I don't want to be putzing with SD cards in a windy hilltop or on a rocky shoreline. Slap in another battery, preflight, and go.

So the question remains, "Does anyone have experience with a 256gb or larger sd card on a P4A/P4P?"
 
I understand that people want to manage their space and swap out memory. That however was not the question. I am trying to find if there are others who have broken the 128gb published size limit.

To address the storage. Sometimes, I just grab my bird and run. I don't want to bring a case of SD cards. I charge my batteries in my vehicle, and quite often I don't shoot for the better part of a battery.

So my interest is lots of memory...enough for a weekend away. I can read it into my server when I get home and have a chance. I don't want to be putzing with SD cards in a windy hilltop or on a rocky shoreline. Slap in another battery, preflight, and go.

So the question remains, "Does anyone have experience with a 256gb or larger sd card on a P4A/P4P?"
Fair enough. I didn’t mean to lecture you or question your motives. And I do understand that some people don’t like their thread taken off topic. But others find a dialogue even with related tangents to be useful as one never knows when am interesting or as yet thought of angle may be thrown out there. And there are others reading the thread.

Having said that, I respect your wanting to have your question answered. So I’m sorry for the distraction.
 
Here is a thread you may find useful if you haven’t seen it. Ignore all the noise about best practices and all that. I think the two takeaways seem to be:

1) Someone got it to work and

2) You may need to format with EXFAT

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Hope I redeemed myself. :))
 
Fair enough. I didn’t mean to lecture you or question your motives. And I do understand that some people don’t like their thread taken off topic. But others find a dialogue even with related tangents to be useful as one never knows when am interesting or as yet thought of angle may be thrown out there. And there are others reading the thread.

Having said that, I respect your wanting to have your question answered. So I’m sorry for the distraction.

I am sorry, I did not intend to be gruff, but re-reading my post it could certainly be taken that way.

You and White Shadow both commented on sd card usage, and I understand why, and that the intention was to be helpful, not steal a thread or anything like that. Sometimes I get a little focused on the content and ignore the human side. Both of you were being helpful. And I was trying to get the size portion of the question answered. I could have been nicer.

One more point, both of your comments were not distractions, as for many people the management of sd cards, and not losing images already captured is a big deal. Both your concepts are well thought out, logical and reasonable, and they will probably help someone else who stumbles upon the thread. So thank you both.
 
Here is a thread you may find useful if you haven’t seen it. Ignore all the noise about best practices and all that. I think the two takeaways seem to be:

1) Someone got it to work and

2) You may need to format with EXFAT

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Hope I redeemed myself. :))

That is a good find! I have it working, although I have not verified that it fills the card with 256gb, or at least more than 128gb, yet. ExFAT is a given, even with the 128gb sd card. Since my processing machines are Linux, I had to dig out the ExFAT drivers (as I recall one for reading and one for writing) a couple of years ago.

I am trying to verify that the larger sd card is fully functional. If I can't find someone who has verified that, I will go about doing it myself, and post the findings. Fully functional to me means that it has been demonstrated to work, at least under some common circumstances, at full capacity of the sd card, and that it doesn't flag errors (I am seeing a warning right now).

The warning I am seeing is a persistent recommendation on go 4 to reformat the sd card. This happens whether I format the card on the P4A or on my Linux box.

However, I can certainly capture 4k video at 60 fps, I just haven't checked that out completely, like with worst case images, etc.
 
One thing to check on is whether or not The new DJI machines write files bigger than 4gb on an exfat formatted card. They don’t on the Phantom 3 4K. At the 4g boundary they drop 3or 4 frames, which pretty much spoil the shot. It necessitates shooting shots shorter than the file size boundary, and the possibility of long takes, making large cards useless for that purpose. That is on the list to test on my brand new P4 adv when the snow finally leaves.
 
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One thing to check on is whether or not The new DJI machines write files bigger than 4gb on an exfat formatted card. They don’t on the Phantom 3 4K. At the 4g boundary they drop 3or 4 frames, which pretty much spoil the shot. It necessitates shooting shots shorter than the file size boundary, and the possibility of long takes, making large cards useless for that purpose. That is on the list to test on my brand new P4 adv when the snow finally leaves.
Are you using H.265 or 264? I had problems with brief freezes at the beginning of each file which I tracked down to H.265. I changed to H.264 and problem went away. Wasn’t exactly dropping frames but holding them. But it’s something to consider and at least try if you’re using 265
 
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It happens with both, always on the fat, ot exfat byte count. It behaves as if DJI never rewrote their disk drivers properly for the new expanded disk format.
 
Related, David, I am concerned that they made their drivers size specific in limiting the sd card to 128gb. The product has been out several years (P4A at least) and it only makes sense that sd cards will grow in size. On the other hand, if it is just a driver, one would think that a release updating the product would be doable.
 
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Yes, I agree, although the Microsoft standards file structure change only exists between fat and exfat files. There is no equivalent change at the 128 gb boundary. My guess as to what happened is that when they were testing the code, there were no cards bigger than 128. When the bigger cards came out, they didn’t want to go back and redo all the tests, and instead stated that greater than 128 wasn’t supported. There is no obvious technical reason that greater than 128 won’t work, but if for some reason there is a recording problem you are going to be on your own.
 
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This past weekend I let my P4A sit on the shelf and video my daily life at 4K 60fps. Eventually I filled the 256gb sd card past 128gb. Almost up to 256gb.

Putting the sd into my linux box, I can see the files, and play them, so at first blush everything works OK. EXCEPT that there is a persistent recommendation to reformat the sd card, which of course has been reformatted several times.

The reformat recommendation does not appear with the same make/model sd card with 128gb.

So if one is willing to put up with a seemingly unnecessary recommendation to reformat the sd card, and if someone is willing to risk that there might be a problem which I did not find, I believe it is reasonable to use the 256gb sd card for routine work. For me, it will just be the card I leave in the aircraft when i am not doing a specific job or project.

The card I used is Samsung Select EVO, which for 256gb was under $40 at Amazon. I have two different cards, which both appear to work.

Case closed, but if anyone else has tried the same or other 256gb cards, it would be great to hear about it.
 
This past weekend I let my P4A sit on the shelf and video my daily life at 4K 60fps. Eventually I filled the 256gb sd card past 128gb. Almost up to 256gb.

Putting the sd into my linux box, I can see the files, and play them, so at first blush everything works OK. EXCEPT that there is a persistent recommendation to reformat the sd card, which of course has been reformatted several times.

The reformat recommendation does not appear with the same make/model sd card with 128gb.

So if one is willing to put up with a seemingly unnecessary recommendation to reformat the sd card, and if someone is willing to risk that there might be a problem which I did not find, I believe it is reasonable to use the 256gb sd card for routine work. For me, it will just be the card I leave in the aircraft when i am not doing a specific job or project.

The card I used is Samsung Select EVO, which for 256gb was under $40 at Amazon. I have two different cards, which both appear to work.

Case closed, but if anyone else has tried the same or other 256gb cards, it would be great to hear about it.
Thx for the closure.
 
Shot a bunch when on a trip, and the video recovers just fine. Have about 200 gb of 4k video.
 
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Has anyone with a 256GB card tried formatting with exFat with allocation unit size set to: 128kb and then checking if it still gives you a format message?
 
I have manually formatted the SD card on a separate computer, and the message persists. Note that with my limited testing, the card still works OK. I have not filled it to the max, but have filled and read (testing visually) 200gb 4k video data.
 
Ok, reporting back! Today I have purchased a Samsung Evo+ 256GB card from Best Buy. Formatted it using exFAT @ 128kb. I then powered on the drone and inserted the card into the drone and got the recommendation to format the card. At this point, I went into camera settings menu, scrolled all the way down and selected "Format SD card". The drone then formatted the SD card and no more recommendation to format the card! It works! Also, one more thing I noticed, if you format it on your PC @ 128kb, you'll get the format message on the drone. If you format it @256kb, you will NOT get the format message and everything will work ok!
 
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