Topic: Ecowitt Device Tip: Expanding SD Card Capacity

[olicat]

From the Ecowitt Discord forum:

Our gateways (HP2550, HP2560, HP3500, HP3000, WS6006, WS6210) support SD cards larger than 32GB.
Just follow these steps:

1. Download the Rufus Tool:
Visit the Rufus official website and download the appropriate version for your operating system.

2. Format the SD Card:
Use the Rufus tool to format your SD card to the FAT32 format.
  -Open the Rufus tool
  -Select your SD card under "Device"
  -In the “Boot selection” dropdown, choose “Non bootable”
  -In the “File System” dropdown, choose “Large FAT32 (Default)”
  Click “Start” to begin formatting

3. Insert the SD Card:
Once formatting is complete, insert the SD card into your Ecowitt device.
Following these steps will allow your device to support SD cards more significantly than 32GB, providing more storage space to meet your needs.

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[mcrossley]

Why not just right click the drive in Explorer, select Format, then FAT32?

[olicat]

Hi!

For memory sizes > 32GB, the Windows-internal formatting programme will not format FAT32. It is therefore necessary to use third-party software.

Oliver

[Gyvate]

I am wondering about two things
a) why would I need a SD card > 32 GB - mine is 32 GB, has about 20 backups (16 MB each - bigger backups do not exist), and for 5+ years now about 30+ observations every 5 minutes - and the card is far from being full

b) as far as I know the card reader in the HP2550 console only supports the SDHC SD card type - which by design is limited to 32 GB. Problems have always occurred with the SDXC type of SD cards. They often came with sizes 64, 128, 256 GB, pre-formatted in FAT32 - and still failed to be read. The 32 GB limit was never a limit of disk size but of hardware type SDHC.

If Ecowitt meanwhile have built in disk readers which can manage SDXC cards, then this works of course. Maybe the newer hadware editions have not only a new WiFi modem and a new RF antenna but also a new card reader ....

Rufus is one of many tools to create bootable disks, USB sticks etc. and as a side-effect can also format them to FAT32 partitions > 32 GB by increasing the cluster size. Like this up to 2 TB can be formatted to FAT32 as long as the file size remains <= 4 GB. Once a file grows bigger, the FAT32 can no longer create it (respectively completely store it) even if the disk size is larger.

[mcrossley]

Hi!

For memory sizes > 32GB, the Windows-internal formatting programme will not format FAT32. It is therefore necessary to use third-party software.

Oliver

Ah yes, I'd forgotten that. Cmd line then: > format /FS:FAT32 /Q X:
Which I believe does format > 32 GB?

[Gyvate]

Hi!

For memory sizes > 32GB, the Windows-internal formatting programme will not format FAT32. It is therefore necessary to use third-party software.

Oliver

Ah yes, I'd forgotten that. Cmd line then: > format /FS:FAT32 /Q X:
Which I believe does format > 32 GB?

the Windows format tool simply doesn't create FAT32 partitions > 32 GB.
The arbitrary limit was introduced by MS to make people move to exFAT or NTFS as a safer file system.
When you create a partition > 32 GB with e.g. diskpart, the format tool only offers exFAT or NTFS as formatting options.
meaning your above command won't work.
depending on sector size and the proper formatting tool, you can create FAT32 partitions between 2 TB (sector size = 512 bytes) and 16 TB (sector size = 4096 bytes). 2^32 x 512 bytes = 2 TB.

[mcrossley]

I tried it, and though the cmd line utility does look like it is working on 64 GB drive, it goes through all the sector checks etc, then right at the end announces the drive is too big! Come on MS, do that check at the start rather than 10 minutes in!   

[Gyvate]

I tried it, and though the cmd line utility does look like it is working on 64 GB drive, it goes through all the sector checks etc, then right at the end announces the drive is too big! Come on MS, do that check at the start rather than 10 minutes in!   

it's an old even ancient story - that was implemented when Windows95 was published.
Nothing changed with that tool ever since ...

[Gyvate]

I have now checked with Ecowitt engineering - the new HP25x0 consoles with the new hardware components (to be recognized by using EasyWatherPro as WiFi firmware) also have a card reader which can read SDXC cards which can have even Terabyte size (not more than 2 TB in one partition though).
But the question remains who produces that many data with a HP25x0 console which would not fit on a 32 GB SD card (of whichever type) for years even with the maximum of possible sensors connected ???  (Unless you make a 16 MB memory backup once or two a day  ) - the max sensor data per day are around 140 K. Some quiz question - how many days 32 GB can hold ...

[Rover1822]

I deleted my post here, as I was wrong about a full card, I was looking at the system storage , not the card.

[Gyvate]

look at the "worst case" scenario:
per sensor value max 6 bytes plus a comma: 7 bytes, rain, wind, gust, outdoor T, outdoor RH, dewpoint, wind dir, solar, UVI, indoor emp, in T/RH, pressure, 8 x WH31, 4 x PM2.5 (x2 avg), 4 x leak, 3 x WH57, 8x WH45, 8 x WN34, 8 x WN35 = 52 x7 ~ 365 bytes x 288 (5 minutes) = 105,000 bytes = 103 K per day
32 GB = 33,554,432 K => 33,554,432 / 103 = 325,771 per day / 365 = 892
A 16 GB card should have taken 446 - one full back up is 16 MB - the main memory gets overwritten FIFO
do the maths ...
result even on a 16 GB SD card, unless you did many backups => space for many, many years
even if I miscalculatd the sensor number and the bytes per write - let's say 1 K per write (3 times of what I calculated before) => 288 K per day or  105,120 K or 103 MB  per year
32 GB = 32,768 MB => 32,768 / 103 = 318 years
if you did 100 backups, you have 1.6 GB less: 30.4 GB or 31,130 MB or ~300 years
wondering how your 16 GB SD card got full .... by writing to it from the console only ...

Or did I make a calculation mistake ...?

[Rover1822]

I had deleted my answer, stating I was looking at the wrong thing

[Gyvate]

never mind - the inbuilt memory is 16 MB ... and basic sensors only
independent of that - still good to see how useless it is to use high capacity SD cards for storing sensor data with a HP25x0 console .... - already 16 GB are multiple overkill.

[zoomx]

never mind - the inbuilt memory is 16 MB ... and basic sensors only
independent of that - still good to see how useless it is to use high capacity SD cards for storing sensor data with a HP25x0 console .... - already 16 GB are multiple overkill.

The reason is that in the future you will not easily find SD with small amount of data.

[Gyvate]

in the future there may be hopefully consoles which save data into their internal storage, which could but need not be be a microSD card as e.g. done with the new MeteobridgePro2 and whose internal storage can be read via the network...
And in the presence (=today) you can still buy microSDs of 2 or 4 GB size ...