Hacking 4GB micro SDHC questions

wifi1

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A little background before the questions, I had a CycloDS and a MIJ Kingston 2GB microSD, this combo thanks to all the topics and research on GBATemp at the time, for almost a year now and I never had a single problem except for the occasional freeze, most likely due to a fragmenting card. Anyway, I was surprised to see how cheap SDHC cards have gotten lately and looking at how I've been recently deleting a lot of stuff to add new games and music often, I figure it's time I upgrade to 4GB and again when 8GB comes down to that magic $20. As usual, I've been doing some research using GBATemp and I have a few concerns:

(1) How big of an impact have you noticed on battery life when comparing an SDHC to a regular microSD card? When playing games? When listening to music? I ask the music part since I have it on sleep mode, and I have seen data where the SDHC takes up 6X power in sleep mode compared to a regular microsd. Battery life is will be a big factor in my decision actually so I'd love to hear as many first-hand experience as possible. I have my DS on the go a lot, usually for the day, so it's pretty important, hopefully at least 12 hours on sleep mode playing music.

(2) How big is the lagtime in opening up the enhanced in-game menu with the A-data SDHC? Any other lag time besides this? Does this affect the Kingston SDHC? Any crashes with either card? I ask this since if the Kingston is better, I won't mind spending the extra cash for it.

(3) Which leads me to my next question, how does each of the SDHC card brand compare? It seems that the general consensus was that A-Data and Transcend are very good brands, with no problem with Castlevania and TWEWY, but I haven't heard much about Kingston. I ask Kingston since the one I have now has been very good for me, but I'm not sure if the jump to SDHC can be said the same.

I could have easily went with the info in the topics and post that I ran across instead of asking these questions, but some of them were old and outdated and I felt that with the constant developments it's best to have fresh input from users and in the process help out those who are in a similar position as mine. Also, if there's anything else that I should know regarding SDHC cards, please let me know. Thanks a lot!
 

Sticks

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Something to watch out for. http://www.teamcyclops.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6931
Adata cards (i'd imagine transcend too, a few people had problems with transcend cards) have a slight delay when opening up the enhanced menu. If you're planning on using RTS a lot, i'd go for another card. Grab either the 4GB Kingston MiJ (which is what i'm using ATM, no problems whatsoever, for 8 months) or the Sandisk 8GB microSDHC which hasn't had any problems reported by anyone, slowdowns or otherwise. (i've heard it did freeze castlevania, but very rarely), I would just shell out the extra $20 or so for the 8GB, it's probably not going to get any cheaper anytime soon, well not to ~$20 at least. Also since you'll be using it for music as well, why not just get more space? Also the adata and transcend have no problems with castlevania AFAIK. I'm pretty sure NO microSD has problems with TWEWY.

Battery life with my 4GB Kingston is very good, I haven't done any extensive testing but there was really no difference between my 4GB and 2GB Kingstons, you should be able to get a good 12 hours playing music, depending on how old your battery is.

Keep in mind choice of microSD cards for the cycloDS and other flashcarts are slightly different, you'd probably want to ask around in the official cycloDS forums.
 

wifi1

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Thanks for the reply. I'm puzzled as to why the A-data takes a while to load up since it has like the shortest random access time. Anyway, I'll look into the 8GB Sandisk, which I'm surprised barely has any problems given their track record. Hopefully, the newer batches are still good. Is this only made in China, or should I watch out like with the whole Taiwan/Japan thing with Kingston? If I can't find the Sandisk, I'll probably go with the 4GB Kingston, which doesn't have any freezing issues on Castlevania correct? Again, the Japanese version is the one to look for yes?
 

Sticks

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My Japanese Kingston 4GB has the occasional freeze, RTS helps quite a bit there. I never play it nowadays anyway.

As for the Sandisk, i'm pretty sure they're only manufactured in Taiwan (or China?).
 

wilddenim

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I use Sandisk SDHC 8GB and very happy with it. No lags or freezing. My fiance have played both Castlevania and no freezes or slow down. I use Class 4 Sandisk.
 

Dsparil

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I use a Transcend Class 6 4g; It works flawlessly with the enhanced menu, and I've never crashed in any game.

I can't help you on battery life, but I've heard the difference was between 30min to 1 hour. I'm sure someone around here who is more knowlegable will let you know if this is true.
 

DespizingU

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I just got my A-Data 4gb Class 6 today, and it works fine in the Evo. I'm coming from a 2gb Kingston(J), and the Enhance Menu may pop up a second slower with the A-Data then it did with my Kingston. Maybe.

Windows wouldn't format the clusters to 64k. So would that SD Formatter format it to 64k for me?

Thanks.
 

uberusmaximus

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my friend got an A-Data 4gb Class 6 last week. the build quality is terrible. it snapped in half when he plugged it into his card reader.
wacko.gif


thankfully newegg has a nice return policy...
 

gratefulbuddy

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uberusmaximus said:
my friend got an A-Data 4gb Class 6 last week. the build quality is terrible. it snapped in half when he plugged it into his card reader.
wacko.gif


thankfully newegg has a nice return policy...

Sounds like someone needs to use a little more care when handling delicate electronics.
 

DespizingU

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^ For real. As far as I can tell, the build quality with my A-Data is just the same as all my other microsd's(not terrible).
 

weebwobb

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I'm also seeing abysmal battery life with my 4GB Sandisk SDHC and the Cyclo v1.1 with software v1.41f. It only gets around 3-3 1/2 hours battery life compared to over 8 hours with a regular cart!

Just got a 2GB MicroSD so will do some tests and report the results back here. I'd also like to find out what is the cause of this poor battery life - I'm really hoping it's the memory card!

Any additional info from other cyclo owners is appreciated.
 

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