[Official announcement] Supporting larger microSD cards in the Jolla Tablet - Your input is needed!

asked 2014-12-03 15:15:42 +0200

eric
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https://twitter.com/erkki...

updated 2014-12-05 22:21:43 +0200

pulsar
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Dear Jolla Community,

After introducing the stretch goals to the Jolla Tablet's Indiegogo campaign last week, there’s been some lively community discussion about the microSD stretch goal, i.e. supporting memory cards up to 128GB when/if the campaign hits 1.5M USD.

We want to assure you that your voice is heard!
For those of you who really seek to have an option, we ask for your input at the end of this post. Otherwise we feel that we owe a bit of explaining to you on the matter – so let’s start from the basics.

Note: This post is largely based on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Digital so you can verify our claims yourself through there.

Have you ever noticed that in many product specifications, the SD card slot seems to only support cards with less than 32GB capacity? Especially since those particular devices ought to be capable of supporting them, since 32+GB cards were introduced already in 2009?

You may know this already, but SD stands for SecureDigital and it is an industry standard. SDHC is the variant of this standard supporting cards from 2GB to 32GB. These cards are shipped pre-formatted with the FAT32 file system. The SD association (SDA) uses several trademarked logos to enforce compliance with its specifications and to assure users of compatibility. Compatiblity means that when they plug in a SD card to the device, it'll just work right away. In 2009, SDA announced a new standard, SDXC, that enabled SD card sizes of 32GB to 2 TB cards. But along with that standard, they mandated the use of Microsoft's exFAT file system. Like in SDHC, this then means that the cards are shipped preformatted with exFAT.

It is very likely that the hardware in the Jolla Tablet is capable of supporting cards of higher size than 32GB. But that doesn't automatically make it "SDXC". Because of that trademark, even using the term "SD" requires that you are compatible. And the SD logo also assures users of compatibly. So, this means we need to support exFAT as a file system.

Here's the catch though.

SDXC cards are pre-formatted with Microsoft's proprietary exFAT file system. Microsoft does not publish the specifications of exFAT and using it requires the purchase of a license. This leads to many alternative or older operating systems not supporting exFAT, even if they support the SDXC card reader hardware. This also means that SDXC cards using exFAT are not universal exchange medium to all SDXC host devices. This is why we have added this as a stretch goal. Yes, it requires the purchase of licenses to support exFAT and through that, Jolla tablet can claim SDXC compatibility. Simply put, this is a compability expected by consumers, especially for a tablet which is principally a media consumption device. You can't do tricks or workarounds like re-format with another filesystem on device. It has to work the moment you insert the SD card.

The suggestion comes here:

We understand that many of you would not want to support a proprietary file system for good reasons. So here's a suggestion especially for you:
We have put up a specific poll here on TJC about better supporting open source file systems on microSD cards in Sailfish OS.
This is mainly for taking in suggestions from you on what we should practically do here. We don't claim to know all the answers so this is an opportunity for you to tell us what we lack or should do differently. As examples these can include formatting options for open file systems or encrypted microSD card (LUKS).
What this practically means: we want you to tell us which type of alternative open solutions we should include in the Jolla Tablet.
Together in the Community you can also figure out what needs the most work within Sailfish OS in this specific field.

Jolla Tablet Team