sdcard tests

[Scott Lurndal]

I reformatted some old sdcards today but one seemed to be flaky.

Looking for freeware sdcard testing tools I found these recommended.
(h2testw)
(fakeflashtest)
(chipgenius)
https://www.maketecheasier.com/check-sd-card-speed-capacity/
https://rmprepusb.com/tutorials/007-all-about-fake-sd-cards-and-usb-flash-drives/

The official sites were easy to find for the first two sdcard testers
(h2testw)
h2testw https://www.heise.de/download/product/h2testw-50539

(fakeflashtest)
https://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/fakeflashtest.html

But I can't yet find the proper official home site of chipgenius.
(chipgenius)
https://www.softpedia.com/get/System/System-Info/ChipGenius.shtml
https://www.autotechint.com/chipgenius
https://www.malavida.com/en/soft/chipgenius/
https://www.bytesin.com/software/ChipGenius/

Is this the official site of ChipGenius?
http://www.usbdev.ru

Do you know the official site of this sdcard testing freeware?

[B. R. 'BeAr' Ederson]

On Tue, 4 May 2021 06:54:07 +0300, Scott Lurndal wrote:

> I reformatted some old sdcards today but one seemed to be flaky.

SD-cards are a bit tricky. They contain an internal controller. It is
(among other things) responsible for wear leveling to avoid triggering
the internal maximum write counter too early. But if you often use an
SD-card near its maximum capacity, then (especially older) cards may
become /very/ slow and usually shortly after that inaccessible even for
read operations.

The SD Association recommends to use their own tool for formatting:

https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter

> Looking for freeware sdcard testing tools I found these recommended.

[...]
> (h2testw)
> h2testw https://www.heise.de/download/product/h2testw-50539

This tool is especially useful for capacity tests on /new/ storage
devices/cards/... I wouldn't use it for read/write error checking
on an older SD card, though. It is the task of the controller on the
card to detect weak/faulty storage cells and exempt them from usage.
With a tool like h2testw you just create (unnecessary) additional wear
to your card.

> (fakeflashtest)
> https://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/fakeflashtest.html

I have never used this tool. But from its name, I'd guess the same
applies to this tool as to h2testw.

> But I can't yet find the proper official home site of chipgenius.

[...]

> Is this the official site of ChipGenius?
> http://www.usbdev.ru

Certainly not. ChipGenius was a Chinese tool written by someone calling
himself/herself hit00. The last archived link of the forum, where this
tool was released from, is:

https://web.archive.org/web/20210123022040/http://bbs.mydigit.cn/read.php?tid=1154112

BeAr
--
===========================================================================
= What do you mean with: "Perfection is always an illusion"? =
===============================================================--(Oops!)===

[B. R. 'BeAr' Ederson]

Following myself up:

>> Is this the official site of ChipGenius?
>> http://www.usbdev.ru
>
> Certainly not. ChipGenius was a Chinese tool written by someone calling
> himself/herself hit00. The last archived link of the forum, where this
> tool was released from, is:
>
> https://web.archive.org/web/20210123022040/http://bbs.mydigit.cn/read.php?tid=1154112

Wich links to:
http://dl.mydigit.net/2010/09/chipgenius.html

[Scott Lurndal]

B. R. 'BeAr' Ederson writes:

> Wich links to:
> http://dl.mydigit.net/2010/09/chipgenius.html

Thanks for the chipgenius link and the link to the sdcard site.
https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter/

"It is strongly recommended to use the SD Memory Card Formatter to format
SD/SDHC/SDXC Cards rather than using formatting tools provided with
individual operating systems."

Unfortunately that sdcard app from Tuxera can't do anything but FAT32 so
it's worthless for any modern sdcard and particularly for Android sdcards.
https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter/eula_windows/SDCardFormatterv5_WinEN.zip

I tested it hoping that sdcard formatter might allow the VSN to be set.
But it failed that too.

C:\Windows\system32> chkdsk F: /f
The type of the file system is FAT32.
Volume Serial Number is C470-5709
Windows is verifying files and folders...
File and folder verification is complete.

Windows has scanned the file system and found no problems.
No further action is required.
31,154,688 KB total disk space.
32 KB in 1 hidden files.
32 KB in 1 files.
31,154,592 KB are available.

32,768 bytes in each allocation unit.
973,584 total allocation units on disk.
973,581 allocation units available on disk.

I had to re-format the card back to exFAT where it belongs!

C:\Windows\system32> chkdsk F: /f
The type of the file system is exFAT.
Volume Serial Number is ACDA-45B2
Windows is verifying files and folders...
Volume label is SD2.
File and folder verification is complete.

Windows has scanned the file system and found no problems.
No further action is required.

31131136 KB total disk space.
8 KB in 2 files.
8 KB in 2 indexes.
0 KB in bad sectors.
960 KB in use by the system.
31130160 KB available on disk.

4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
7782784 total allocation units on disk.
7782540 allocation units available on disk.

Better to use the Windows 10 sdcard formatter which _can_ do exFAT.
If you know of a freeware exFAT VSN changer - that would be a boon!

[Flasherly]

On Wed, 5 May 2021 05:44:38 +0300, Scott Lurndal <sc...@slp53.sl.home>
wrote:

>Thanks for the chipgenius link and the link to the sdcard site.
>https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter/
>
>"It is strongly recommended to use the SD Memory Card Formatter to format
>SD/SDHC/SDXC Cards rather than using formatting tools provided with
>individual operating systems."
>
>Unfortunately that sdcard app from Tuxera can't do anything but FAT32 so
>it's worthless for any modern sdcard and particularly for Android sdcards.

Microsoft owns FAT32, as is to pay Microsoft to say, yes, format it to
FAT32.

Conditionally, I'd qualify that further for the generation of SDCard
manufacture. The latest and greatest big and fast indeed may, to be
duly suspectful, increasingly intended to use for extFAT32.

Doubleplusgood, (or not), as formatting, as it turns out in my case is
a matter of Not with a Old USB adaptor, and with no earlier than
Windows 7 (earlier Windows doesn't support extFat32). Standards
being then there's standards, I'd have to have allowed --Best Bet:
Let the firmware's format, which it has, routine to do its thing--
forgoing Windows 7, altogether, or a usual slew of named and
recognizable disk routine software, format/partitioning utilities,
perhaps at some additional option, not exclusive of -- you brick it,
pal, you bought it.

No need to be like me, gun shy after looking down into that barrel,
locked and loaded and only to recovered one of both bricked SDcards I
then most anally qualified (after they had been given free to me --
both hi-speed model 64G, newer Sandics). Best bet, without peaking
for peanuts under the cup, to say the one running is going to be
extFAT32, or pulling the card to check. Works just fine, IOW, for a
yearplus without issues;- also, shake'n'bake Droid\Dev is firmware
affiliated to interfaces into W7 MS OS, explorer only, for casual file
management (but not freeware file managers on W7. Drubadub droids,
withstanding, coming in any number of such cute quackers.)

[B. R. 'BeAr' Ederson]

On Wed, 5 May 2021 05:44:38 +0300, Scott Lurndal wrote:

> Unfortunately that sdcard app from Tuxera can't do anything but FAT32 so
> it's worthless for any modern sdcard and particularly for Android sdcards.

Android reads and writes FAT32 formatted SD cards without a hitch.
Formatting to exFAT is necessary, if single files can become larger than
4 GByte. (That's usually only the case with large HD videos.) The other
size limit restriction expanded by exFAT (maximum partition size) is
irrelevant for current SD cards. No card larger than 8 TByte exists.

> If you know of a freeware exFAT VSN changer - that would be a boon!

You should keep track of the people replying to a question only days ago.

With FAT32, you could use SysInternals VolumeID without problems, btw.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/volumeid

[Scott Lurndal]

B. R. 'BeAr' Ederson writes:

> Android reads and writes FAT32 formatted SD cards without a hitch.

I'm sure it does and I do very much appreciate your helpful advice.

> Formatting to exFAT is necessary, if single files can become larger than
> 4 GByte. (That's usually only the case with large HD videos.) The other
> size limit restriction expanded by exFAT (maximum partition size) is
> irrelevant for current SD cards. No card larger than 8 TByte exists.

All good information which I appreciate and thank you for your advice.
As you noted, video can easily be well over 4GB in size for one file.

When I asked which format to use on the Windows ng they all said "exFAT."

>> If you know of a freeware exFAT VSN changer - that would be a boon!
>
> You should keep track of the people replying to a question only days ago.
> With FAT32, you could use SysInternals VolumeID without problems, btw.
> https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/volumeid

That was the first program that I tried and I replied to the other thread.
SysInternals VolumeID doesn't work with exFAT.

Trust me that I tried EVERY suggestion in that a.c.f thread on VSN changers.
To my knowledge there is no freeware program that will change the VSN.

There are workarounds that certainly work but they require heroics.
I'm sure a freeware exFAT VSN changer exists - I just don't know of it yet.

[B. R. 'BeAr' Ederson]

On Wed, 5 May 2021 08:23:23 +0300, Scott Lurndal wrote:

> When I asked which format to use on the Windows ng they all said "exFAT."

Which would be wrong advise, if you do not record videos larger than
4 GByte and if you wish to have a method for easily changing the VSN.
Asking for format recommendations without correctly defining the
perimeters is likely to get you wrong advises.

>>> If you know of a freeware exFAT VSN changer - that would be a boon!
>>
>> You should keep track of the people replying to a question only days ago.
>> With FAT32, you could use SysInternals VolumeID without problems, btw.
>> https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/volumeid
>
> That was the first program that I tried and I replied to the other thread.
> SysInternals VolumeID doesn't work with exFAT.
>
> Trust me that I tried EVERY suggestion in that a.c.f thread on VSN changers.
> To my knowledge there is no freeware program that will change the VSN.

Contrary to you I /do/ read. Please take a more thorough look at what
I've written above:

| With FAT32, you could use SysInternals VolumeID without problems, btw.

^^^^^^^^^^!

[Scott Lurndal]

B. R. 'BeAr' Ederson writes:

>> When I asked which format to use on the Windows ng they all said "exFAT."
>
> Which would be wrong advise, if you do not record videos larger than
> 4 GByte and if you wish to have a method for easily changing the VSN.

I admit I was shocked there wasn't any freeware for exFAT VSN changes
but after learning how to run the python script that can be overcome.

Still it would be nicer if exFAT changing of VSN freeware existed.

> Asking for format recommendations without correctly defining the
> perimeters is likely to get you wrong advises.

This is correct and good advice where speed considerations matter also in
that exFAT is always faster than FAT32 according to most of what I read.
https://www.digitalcitizen.life/fat32-or-ntfs-how-format-sd-cards-memory-sticks-and-hard-drives/

That article also implies "lack of data protection in case of power loss"
for FAT32 which was news to me (I had known a little about the speed issue).

> Contrary to you I /do/ read. Please take a more thorough look at what
> I've written above:
>
>| With FAT32, you could use SysInternals VolumeID without problems, btw.
> ^^^^^^^^^^

I wouldn't choose FAT32 just because I would like to change the VSN.
But it was surprising there isn't (yet) a known freeware exFAT VSN changer.

[B. R. 'BeAr' Ederson]

On Wed, 5 May 2021 21:56:25 +0300, Scott Lurndal wrote:

>> Asking for format recommendations without correctly defining the
>> perimeters is likely to get you wrong advises.
>
> This is correct and good advice where speed considerations matter also in
> that exFAT is always faster than FAT32 according to most of what I read.
> https://www.digitalcitizen.life/fat32-or-ntfs-how-format-sd-cards-memory-sticks-and-hard-drives/

Speed differences between FAT32 and exFAT are nothing but driver dependent.
One implementation can result in FAT32 being faster, the other may see
exFAT (marginally) in front. Both formats are too similar to make any
/real/ difference.

> That article also implies "lack of data protection in case of power loss"
> for FAT32 which was news to me (I had known a little about the speed issue).

Applies to exFAT as well. No difference at all, here. The last sentence
in the exFAT paragraph on the website you linked to, is written in a
mistakable way. Replace "makes" with "would make" to get the intended
meaning.