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WARNING: I'm very long winded*
Hi, guys. I recently bought a
Sandisk 64GB MicroSDXC Class 10 ($65) card off Newegg to see what it would function in and, hopefully, to use it in my eDGe. After a bit of fiddling, I got it working 100%. I'm getting 8-10MB/s writes and 15-20MB/s reads off it. Faster than the internal 3GB of storage!
Sandisk 64GB MicroSDXC Card
**My eDGe is a Pocket eDGe running the Golden Allmine update. I'll be wiping it and installing the Allmine Universal pretty soon, but I do not think this difference will matter for this to work.**
When you get the card I think it has an exFAT partition on it. The eDGe will tell you the card needs to be formatted, format it, then crash and reboot while trying to mount it. If you leave the card in, it will boot to desktop, try mounting the card, then crash and burn again. The eDGe wants a generic, standard FAT32 partition to function. Windows, by default, will only partition volumes of up to 32GB to FAT32. Larger than that and it will only show NTFS as a FS option when you go to format. I got around this by grabbing
fat32format by Ridgecrop Consultants, LTD. I ran it under Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit* without trouble. Just select the drive and tell it to format. I left all the default settings as they were. Popped the card back in the eDGe, booted it up and it saw it and mounted it without issue.
*If you are running Linux or Mac OSX, you should just be able to use their various tools to create a proper 64gb partition.
TL,DR version:
- Buy Sandisk 64GB MicroSDXC Card from Newegg
- Pop it in your PC and format to a proper FAT32 partition using fat32format by Ridgecrop Consultants, LTD (or use your favorite OS's various tools)
- Slap newly formatted card in eDGe
- Party because you now have ~64GB (ok, more like 60GB) of usable storage space
Leger Calibre and Dropsync Pro
The whole reason for me getting the 64GB card was to, A. see if it would work, and, B. try out a syncing idea I was hoping would work. I have been using Calibre for a few years now and like it a lot. I HATED having to sync books to my eDGe, though. Seemed a giant PITA and waste of time.
Enter
Leger Calibre.
Leger Calibre is free (author will gladly accept a $2 donation, though). The minimum Android OS requirement is v2.2. And it runs beautifully on the eDGe. Leger Calibre lets you copy over an entire Calibre Library to an SD card and open it. It doesn't let you make changes, it is just a viewer.
Now that that part was covered and working well, I also wanted to be able to remotely sync changes I made to Calibre's Library on my PC and not have to manually move over files.
Enter
Dropsync Pro.
Dropsync Pro allows full 2-way Dropbox folder synchronization. The Official Dropbox program is pitiful and about useless. You will need to use Dropsync Pro as the free version has a very small folder size limit and other limitations. It is just $5 and completely worth it. Its minimum Android OS requirement is v2.0.
I tossed together a relatively large Calibre Library to test out and see how well everything worked together.
I made a folder in my desktop's Dropbox folder called "ebooks" and set it as the library location in Calibre.
I fired up Dropsync Pro and specified a folder on my SD card (calibre_test) and chose to sync my Dropbox folder, "ebooks", with it.
Here is Dropsync Pro syncing the contents to the SD card.
This was taking forever, so I popped the SD card back in my PC and just directly copied the Library over.
Anyways, after that was finished, I launched Leger Calibre. It defaults to a blank screen with a single "Add Library" button. I clicked on it and told it to just automatically find Calibre Libraries loaded on the SD card. It took a minute or two to scan my card. It found the Library and I was greeted with this screen:
Tapping on "calibre_test" loads up the Library (may take a few seconds to load depending on book volume) with a default view that is just the books listed in any of the following views - Recently Read, Author Last Name Asc/Desc, Book Title Asc/Desc.
If you open the apps menu and choose 'Sorts', you can select from the view options 'Tags', 'Authors', and 'Series'.
Tags
Authors
Series
And that is about the extent of the programs options. If you click on a tag, author, or series, it will pop up and give you the option of displaying just the book(s) that meet that criteria -
Just the chosen authors books -
Clicking on a book will bring up a little information dialogue box showing the books cover, author(s), publisher, format(s),tag(s), and comments.
Clicking on the books cover image will bring up the default options that you will be familiar with after using an edge -
JUST choose "open" unless you really want to put the file in your eDGe's default Library program.
That is about it. Leger Calibre has worked flawlessly, so far, for me. I plan on getting a Pro Dropbox account so I can add multiple Calibre Libraries (I wouldn't suggest having a massive single library and, instead, recommend breaking it into more specific individual ones just for speed-sake on the eDGe).
For anyone wondering "why? why would you want gigs and gigs of ebooks on your ereader?"; my future profession I am currently going to school for will require lots and lots of traveling and I do not want to lug around a laptop all the time. My eDGe and phone will suffice for basically everything. Having this ability will be fantastic when I am away from home for 2-6 weeks at a pop.
I hope this has been helpful to someone. These few apps and the memory card will extend the lifespan of my edge for a very long time. I'm hoping that by the time I have to move off it, for whatever reasons, another similar device will be out. As of right now, it is still the most useful and versatile ebook reader, IMO.
p.s.
There is also an app called
Calibre Library by HumanoidApps that is a dedicated viewer for Calibre's book server if you host your own or are curious about that/
*UPDATE 10/31/2013 - 128GB SDXC*
TL, DL version:
SUCCESS!, as of update time, on just the 10.1 eDGe.
Materials:
Komputerbay 128GB SDXC UHS-1 Card - $79 (I risked a no-name. Works awesome)
Brandless MicroSD to SD extender - $30
I bought these to use in my Galaxy Note II since I was putting a
Zero Lemon 9300mAh extended battery + rubberized case on it. Which, btw, is /amaaazing/ if you have a GNII. I had planned on doing this for awhile but just now got around to it.
After my earlier failure, I decided to try again. If you use fat32format and set it to use either 16kb, 32kb, or 64kb sectors, the EE will read and use the 128GB card just fine! I'm not entirely sure why it wasn't working before. I suggest using either 32 or 64kb sectors as 16kb is the slowest for the EE. When set to 64kb, the EE checks and mounts the card in just a few seconds. 32kb is a bit slower and 16kb is quite a bit slower. Anything under 16kb and the EE will reset itself.
I'm going to use my EE and see how stable it is, but so far so good!
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-- Galaxy Note II stuffs --
I installed the adapter in my GNII, wrapped it around to the top of the extended battery, put a dab of superglue on it to hold it in place, popped the card in (after formatting it on my PC) and slapped the rubberized casing back around the phone. I did trim the stiffening ribs on the inside edge of the case where the card is sitting to give a little extra room. It is a very tight fit (bulges a little), but works perfectly and no worries on the adapter sliding around or anything.
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And now I have 120GB of usable storage in my Galaxy Note II plus an epic battery. I plan on buying a 256GB card when the prices drop to something reasonable