Which Micro SD card to buy?

Drdave79

I've been using the Samsung 512 Evo Select Micro SD card for awhile now and have no problems. Takes about 2.5 hours to backup from it, or a whopping 7 hours to write to it. The card that I've been using for the past 1.5 years is no longer available, and reviews for the latest version aren't great (in the 512 model).

I'm looking for recommendations for my RP4 for the "best and fastest" 512 micro sd card please (p.s.: That's using a USB 3 port).

Thank you!

Floob

Here are some that have been tested if that helps
https://www.tomshardware.com/uk/best-picks/raspberry-pi-microsd-cards

https://pibenchmarks.com/fastsd/

Drdave79

@Floob That's very helpful, thank you! @Floob have you had any experience with 1tb micro sd cards with the RP4?

Floob

@Drdave79 I dont even have a Pi4 yet :)
I'll get one as soon as they get back in stock.

quicksilver

Because I was having the same issues as you with large sd card images (though I only got up to a 128gb). I switched to using a small SD card and using a USB 3.0 flash drive for my roms, bios, and saves. Now I only have to back up a small SD card image and if I ever update/upgrade to a newer RetroPie image I easily can migrate over without having to start over completely from scratch.

Drdave79

@quicksilver My image is close to filling up a 512 card, so that's not an option to me. So much good stuff out there to show off :)

Kingston 512GB microSDXC Canvas Go Plus 170MB/s Read UHS-I, C10, U3, V30, A2/A1 Memory Card + Adapter (SDCG3/512GB) is $107 on Amazon. I think I'm going to give a try.

quicksilver

@Drdave79 said in Which Micro SD card to buy?:

@quicksilver My image is close to filling up a 512 card, so that's not an option to me. So much good stuff out there to show off :)

Why is that not an option? Why not get a large flash drive and transfer over your roms to it and run your roms off of it? You can get 512 gb flash drives. This would allow you to have a much smaller SD card image for backing up. To each their own I suppose...

Drdave79

@quicksilver I wasn't even aware that was an option! I can use a smaller Micro SD card for the system and move the roms to a flash drive? I'm assuming that just means you have to edit the .cfg file path to another drive letter? Are there slow downs of the flash drive over the micro sd card?

Darksavior

@quicksilver Yea, that's what I do. It's saved me so much time whenever I start over. I only migrate my configs and scraped stuff and then edit fstab to point to the usb drive.

I also converted my cd games to chd to save around 50% of space. I have a 256GB stick but I roughly use a bit over 128GB. I'm trying to reduce that to under 128GB so I can use that 256 for something else.

Drdave79

@Darksavior That's very interesting! I'm going to have to try this. I found the following link to help me set this up. Going to pick up a new flash drive and give it a try.

https://retropie.org.uk/docs/Running-ROMs-from-a-USB-drive/

What method do you use to convert your cd games to .chd?

quicksilver

@Drdave79 https://retropie.org.uk/docs/CHD-files/

Chdman has worked great for me

steptoe

@Drdave79 said in Which Micro SD card to buy?:

@Darksavior That's very interesting! I'm going to have to try this. I found the following link to help me set this up. Going to pick up a new flash drive and give it a try.

https://retropie.org.uk/docs/Running-ROMs-from-a-USB-drive/

What method do you use to convert your cd games to .chd?

Assuming your on Windows OS, try this very simple BAT file. You NEED the CHDMan.exe in the same folder your converting as well as the BAT script. Double-click it and it will convert all files matching the extension to CHD and won't delete the original. Just change th extension to whatever your converting. You should save at least 40%-60% space

Create a .bat file or simple text file then rename it as .bat. For example 'ConvertToCHD.bat'

for /r %%i in (*.cue) do chdman createcd -i "%%i" -o "%%~ni.chd"

Its not pretty and won't do sub-folders, but works. Copy and paste EXACTLY as above

steptoe

@Drdave79 said in Which Micro SD card to buy?:

@quicksilver I wasn't even aware that was an option! I can use a smaller Micro SD card for the system and move the roms to a flash drive? I'm assuming that just means you have to edit the .cfg file path to another drive letter? Are there slow downs of the flash drive over the micro sd card?

Try this. Its what I used and transfered everything to an external USB3 1TB hard drive. The PI can easily power a modern portable USB drive as they take so little power compared to a few years ago when you needed a USB splitter to provide extra power from another USB port

If you use a cheap compatible PSU it might struggle, but genuine PI PSU doesn't have any problems

https://retropie.org.uk/docs/Running-ROMs-from-a-USB-drive/

Lolonois

For SD cards here is another test: https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2019/raspberry-pi-microsd-card-performance-comparison-2019

TL;DR: Samsung Pro+ (not to be confused with Samsung Pro Plus).

If you have space to have an external SSD next to the Rpi4 go for an UASP compliant USB 3.0 to SATA 3.0 Adapter (~15 USD). I only use the vfat partition on the SD card (which is mounted at /boot later on), the remainder (ie. everything below /) is on the SSD. (I know I can completly boot a Rpi4 from USB, but for my use cases this setup is more convenient.)

https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2020/uasp-makes-raspberry-pi-4-disk-io-50-faster

Drdave79

@quicksilver @steptoe ah yes, I'm very familiar with it. I've used it in the past to convert .cue or .gdi to .chd. That being said, I have an abundance of .CD1, .CD2, etc. files in my PSX folder. But this method doesn't seem to convert them?

mitu

@Drdave79 the .CD1/.CD2 are not standard extensions, they're probably renamed .cue or .chd files, just to hide them from the list in EmulationStation. If they're really small files, they're certainly .cue files.