SD Card Experience Requested - Fastest 128 GB Card

[BuZz]

@drake999 https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/wiki/Running-ROMs-from-a-USB-drive

[drake999]

@backstander The instability issues you mention may be why I have been having issues updating RetroPie. I will keep that in mind the next time I try, thanks. I have not experienced any stability issues otherwise on my main Pi3 which I use for retro gaming, it runs like a dream with the overclocks I've put in place. You can see my benchmarks above. I back it up fairly frequently, so if I do have to re-flash its not a huge deal, just time consuming. But yes I am rapidly warming up to the SD card, USB Flash combo idea. Tired of wasting money on under-performing SD cards.

[drake999]

@BuZz Thanks, I will check that out.

[suprjami]

@drake999 That's an older method, all you need to use now is dtparam=sd_overclock=100 in config.txt

That sdbench.sh script is good, I would trust its READ and WRITE results.

You're right that the sdcard speed must adhere to some clock divisor, it just scales down. So if you set 100 then you get 100MHz, but if you set 99 then you get the next lower clock divisor, usually 83MHz on Pi 3 iirc. Saves you having to bother remembering the clock speeds :P

[flop]

Wait compatibilty in rpi for this ;D (UHS-II):

Or this:

Anyway, USB. 2.0 it´s much faster (like 480 mbs) than SD uhs-I (100 mb), so, USB gets limited by the speed of the SD? maybe running games or ES + games from usb...? I´m not much knowledged at this...

[drake999]

@suprjami said in SD Card Experience Requested - Fastest 128 GB Card:

83

Thanks for the tip. I'm doing some experimentation today and your advice may prove useful. I will try several different clocks, starting with the 83 MHz clock you mention. Thanks again.

[edmaul69]

@JoseyWales i have 750gb of games that are playable and arent duplicates on my pi. I dont even have every system on my pi. Everybody's mileage is different.

@drake999 i have a 64gb samsung evo card. You do have to be careful online with buying them. I had gotten a bootleg 128gb samsung evo though. It wouldnt take more than about 10gb of data.

[drake999]

Basically what started this whole thing for me is games that would stream data from the disk, such as music or an FMV would periodically pause for up to 3 seconds, then resume. This would happen frequently and make games of this nature almost unplayable. This is minimized greatly with my one very well performing 64GB SD card, however I don't believe it resolved the core issue, just went around it, as it still happens but is greatly reduced with the high performance card. Even without an overclock with a read speed between 17 and 20 MB per second, the transfer rate is at least 10 times the speed of the optical drive of the system being emulated so I doubt transfer rate is the issue. What I think is happening is the OS is monopolizing the card at key times and interrupting the data stream to the emulator. I don't know if it is writing to the swap file or if it is some other background process causing this. Does anyone out there (probably a Linux guru) know what might be happening and if I can resolve the issue with tweaks to the OS? Is there a way to identify the culprit process and eliminate it if it is not critical to the OS or RetroPie?

[drake999]

@edmaul69 Yeah I've bought more then a few SD cards trying to solve this problem, now I have a stack of under-performing cards at home and no use for them, so I learned that lesson the hard way. I tried a low profile external USB card for Roms but ran into issues with SMB once I moved the data, so thats on hold as well. Now I'm trying to determine what causes games with a constant data stream from a disk image to periodically freeze for a few seconds, as I believe that is the core issue here and if I can resolve that there will be no need for the higher speed. Just from observing the behavior I believe the OS or a background process is interrupting the data stream to the emulator causing the momentary freeze. If this behavior can be eliminated there would be no need for the greater speed as the read speeds are already many times great than the original hardware being emulated.

[obsidianspider]

@edmaul69 Any tips on not getting a bootleg? For something like an SD card I would think you'd only want to buy from a "known" seller like Amazon, Micro Center, Best Buy, etc., not some random reseller.

[drake999]

@obsidianspider I always get my SD cards from Amazon, and ensure that I'm purchasing from the manufacturer as the re-seller. For example, if you buy a Sandisk Extreme card, ensure the re-seller is Sandisk. This should prevent you from getting a bootleg. I recently purchased a Sandisk Extreme 128GB (Faster than the Ultra series and apparently has a better integrated controller). This will be the last SD card I try, if this one produces sub-par results I officially give up on high capacity cards lol. I will inform the community of the results.

[edmaul69]

@obsidianspider @drake999 ive been told if you order directly from amazon and not a reseller that they are legit as well. I dont use amazon so i cant verify that. If it is 16gb or less i go to walmart cause they are cheap. I have a 64gb samsung evo but i got it from a friend who i modded a couple intellivision flashbacks to raspberry pi's for so i am not sure where he got it from.

[backstander]

@obsidianspider
I got burned once ordering from a reseller on Amazon. Got a really good price on a 64GB microSD card and it turned out to be too good to be true because it was a cheap knock off and won't hold data for very long before needing to be reformated.

The rest I've gotten from Walmart, Best Buy, Amazon (non resellers) and most coming from sales on Newegg! Most of them being either Sandisk or Samsung and one of them is a Kingston. I haven't had any issues with the others I've purchased!

[drake999]

I am very happy to report that preliminary results with the Sandisk Extreme 128 GB card are very positive. The model is SDSQXVF-128G-GN6MA, or at least that is what is indicated by the reseller. Below are my results before and after the SD card reader overclock.

Before:

After:

I should mention that the card was a little difficult to jam in the reader on the Pi3 because of a slight protrusion on the card itself. I'm just guessing but I believe it is extra space taken by the flash controller. If you do get this card, don't plan on removing and reinserting it on a regular basis, as it will probably be harder on this card than most. Also, be prepared to pay a premium for this one.