Secure Digital Allocation Reading?

[LateNightHakker]

Hello,
I was just wondering if anyone else has popped a Secure Digital Card into their Axim yet? I have the advanced model(400xscale, ect.) Anyway.. I just bought a Sandisk 128mb SD card, and when I hooked it into my Axim, I got only a reading of 120.03 MB. Now I know that these cards put aside some memory for security purposes, but Is a whole 8 mb's normal? Can anybody offer me some insite into what is going on? thanks... :huh:

[Radwags]

That does sound like an awful lot. However you are not alone. I just checked mine and it also is reading 120.03 MB of available room. :angry:

Hopefully some one can fill us in on what is being done with the remaining memory on the card. :wub:

[Dreadnought]

Havn't you ever looked at how much memory you have on your PC hard drive?

You only have that much space on your card because the Memory manufacturers came up with the crazy idea of using their own system of math to calculate space.

One megabyte = 1,024 Kilobytes

However the big companies decided they wanted to falsely advertise their harware as having more space than they actually do so they decided to make their own rules and calculate 1 mb as 1000kb

So when they say 128mb in actuality they mean 128,000kb instead of the REAL 131,072kb

[RommelS]

Another reason why you only have about 120 MB to your SD card because card has to be formatted for use.

[Starscream]

Originally posted by RommelS@Jan 31 2003, 09:16 AM
Another reason why you only have about 120 MB to your SD card because card has to be formatted for use.

that would be my guess... but it seems alot just for the FAT. Might be something to do with flash ROM

[Elyod]

Mine shows 120.03 too. RommelS, how do you other PPCs show the capacity on the SD cards? I wonder if this is peculiar to AXIMs or all of them show the same because of the manufacturer's measurements.

Also, are the cards self-formatting? Just wondering because I just slapped mine in and 'bang' there it was and I started copying files to it right away.

Thanks for everyone's input -- this site is great.

[AMCMoe]

My 128mb CF card I had for my old E-100 never showed the full 128mb either, but I can't remember exactly what it was..

[RommelS]

Originally posted by Elyod@Jan 31 2003, 08:49 PM
Mine shows 120.03 too. *RommelS, how do you other PPCs show the capacity on the SD cards? *I wonder if this is peculiar to AXIMs or all of them show the same because of the manufacturer's measurements.

Also, are the cards self-formatting? *Just wondering because I just slapped mine in and 'bang' there it was and I started copying files to it right away.

Thanks for everyone's input -- *this site is great.

Upon further review ...

Based on a 256 MB Sandisk SD card, all of my devices (Axim X5, T-Mobile PPC PE, iPaq 3955, HP iPaq5455) showed 238.53 MB.

The cause of the mis-reading, if you want to call it that way, as I posted a while back; is due to the fact the the card is formated. I would speculate that the cards are pre-formatted out of the factory.

Here is a list of the advertised and estimated actual (formatted) for card capacity (MB):

Advertised / Estimated Actual
8 / 7.5
16 / 15
32 / 30
64 / 61
128 / 122
256 / 244
512 / 488
1 GB / 977

Click here for more information and explanation

The card can be formatted within the Windows Operation System, as long that you have a card reader. I do have a software in one of the PPC that I can use to re-format a CF or SD card, called Flash Format.

I hope this helps.

[Starscream]

if you reformat from the original factory format, say with your "flash format", does this program do a better job at leaving you more memory? IE a software issue?

[RommelS]

I knew someone will ask me that question, and that's why before I made my previous post, I've tested the application.

Basically it stayed the same after I formatted the card...no changed at all. I use the application for fixing any problems with the SD or CF card.