SD card specs?

[blaggers]

Has anyone found out what SD Cards are supported? Sound on sound review states 32GB SDXC is max size, but can’t find any Allen and Heath sources for this info.

[Nicola A&H]

SDHC, 32 GB max, UHS-I Speed class 10 for best performance / max channel count.

[blaggers]

Thanks.

So to summarise recording capability-

SDCard = Multitrack – SDHC, 32 GB max, UHS-I Speed class 10 – (On CQ-18T) – max 24 user selectable channels/Auxs/Main Outs)
USB Stick = Stereo – Can record mains out only – 48k 24 bit Signed Stereo WAVS

To convert tracks to use for playback convert mp3s.etc to 24 bit stereo WAVfiles? and store in USB Stick \AHCQ\USBPLAY directory?

Can I request a feature to record Out 1/2 mixes or similar as an option?

[Lee7]

@Blaggers

I have had conflicting info re: SD card max size. Have been talking to Keith who told me that “There is no capacity stated, but for best performance UHS-I and Class 10 is recommended.”

Another user posted on FB that he was quite happily using a 128gb SD card.

In 96k mode you can only record 16 channels, but if you lower to 48 you can record 24.

[Nicola A&H]

As we only support SDHC, 64GB and higher cards are technically unsupported. SD cards are often file system aware, and using FAT32 on cards that expect to be exFAT may result in lower performance.

[juniorcdb]

How much recording time would fit in a 32gb sa card?

multitrack @96k and @48k (if possible the loadsize / track, as there can be multiple combinations)
in stereo as well

[Lee7]

@juniorcdb

Around 155 mins.

[Kevin]

So the 512GB won’t work that I just bought? I just recorded live to it using 11 channels but it won’t play back on unit. Was going to try and download it to my DAW tonight.

[blaggers]

@Kevin – To do audio playback you have to set the relevant channels “Input Source” on the Config page to the USB/SD Card icon – and then that channel will play back the audio from the channels recording – Have you tried that?
Remember to set it back to Analogue to use the mic inputs afterwards!

[Jke]

@Nicola A&H

I use a SDXC 64Gb and that works fine. Cq18 finds the whole memory.
makes me curious as to what the SDHC 32Gb limit means, apart from the fact that it’s the max size for a SDHC card.
Seems to me larger SDXC cards are supported as well?

[Anonymous]

I am using USB stick and SD card, both at 64 gB with no issue at all.

[bullmoon]

A 32 GB card holds quite a “bit”. 😉 I filled up a 64GB card – took a while, like 8 hours for 16 tracks *48/16. No issues.

bits SR channels Min MB GB
16 48 1 240 1318.36 1.32
16 48 16 240 21093.75 21.09
16 48 24 240 31640.63 31.64
24 96 1 240 3955.08 3.96
24 96 16 120 31640.63 31.64

[fluidmindorg]

@nicola wrote:

As we only support FAT32, 64GB and higher cards are technically unsupported.

Hi, Nicola. Why do you say that they are technically unsupported? There is no 32GB limit on FAT32 partitions. The FAT32 partition size limitation is 2 terabytes, so it doesn’t put any technical limitation on the CQ mixer’s operating system that would keep it from supporting SD cards larger than 32GB. The only thing out there that doesn’t format FAT32 partitions larger than 32GB is the Windows disk manager. That’s an arbitrary limitation that’s easily overcome by simply using a different disk partitioner. The CQ’s OS obviously uses a different partitioner, because last week I put a new Lexar 128GB card into mine, and the mixer formatted just fine. (I presume the OS is some variety of embedded Linux, just as the QSC TouchMix.) I then successfully recorded five tracks during a live performance onto the 128GB card. So, I’m wondering why A&H is even saying that only 32GB cards are supported.

Thanks
–Dan

[CParmerlee]

“I’m wondering why A&H is even saying that only 32GB cards are supported.”

I can’t speak for A&H, but I have seen similar things from other companies. My understanding is that there are big licensing fees if they represent their product as supporting SDXC. I have been using a 128 GB SDXC card, formatted by the mixer as FAT32 with no issues at all.

[Bassman74]

I guess the topic regarding SD Cards is the standards given by the SD Association https://www.sdcard.org

They define SD Cards as follows:

SD Standard SDHC Standard SDXC Standard SDUC Standard
Capacity up to 2GB more than 2GB up to 32GB more than 32GB up to 2TB more than 2TB up to 128TB
File System FAT 12, 16 FAT 32 exFAT exFAT

Only SDHC Cards are defined to use FAT32 and they are defined to have more than 2GB up to 32 GB.
You meight format a 64 GB SD Card with FAT32, but this is non standard then.

The other topics is speed:
The physical interface of the CQ card slot seems to be UHS-I, therefore the highest archiable transfer speed of the interface is 104 MB/s.
By selecting a SD Card you have to be carfull, as there are many cards on the market wich have around 90 MB/s read speed, but only about a quarter of that as write speed.
The write speed is crucial for our application of reccording multichannel audio.

To be on the safe side I have choosen a SanDisk Extreme PRO SDHC UHS-I Cards with 32 GB which is rated to have a read speed of 100 MB/s and a write speed of 90 MB/s.
This is absolute overkill, as 16 channels of 96 kHz / 24 bit audio is 4,608 MB/s audio stream. Even if we add some overhead 10 MB/s should be pleanty, but as audio reccording is real time the storrage must be availble all the time. otherwise the write buffer might run over.

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