Micro SD card - Roku Ultra

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Smike wrote:

Okay, after reading this entire thread and other info thoroughly, I purchased 2 of these SanDisk 32GB Micro SD cards for $10 each from Amazon, and straight out of the package I carefully clicked one into my Roku Ultra 4660X (labeled as SKU# 4661R on the box), and the second card into my dad's identical Roku Ultra, and both Rokus formatted them correctly within a few minutes, and both cards work very well.

Note that the cards must be installed upside-down into the Roku.  The decorated top of the card should be facing down, while the metal contacts should be facing up towards the HDMI port, and towards the top of the Roku. To be clear, I started with the power and all other cables unplugged, I correctly inserted the cards, fresh and new from their package, and fully clicked them into place, then attached the HDMI cables, and finally plugged the Rokus back in.

I specifically avoided the cheap PNY cards after reading this thread.  Micro SD cards are finicky little bastards, and having had lots of experience with them, I don't think fooling around with quality is a good idea.

I do think that you should limit the size of the card you purchase to 32GB, as I've read several credible reports that 32GB is the max size that Rokus handle by default.  Still, that's vastly more space than a Roku will ever use for app storage anyway, so that's plenty fine.

However, there's a lot of talk in this thread about a theoretical and practical 2GB limit, and sadly Roku's official help info and comments have done nothing to correct this fallacy.  The fact is, both of my Roku Ultra 4660Xs actually display the full 31.4 GB of usable space on each card, and correctly calculate the percentage of storage used.

Further, I personally tested the notion that the Roku improperly utilizes this space, maxing-out its usable space at 2GB.  This may have been true at one time, or with some models, but as of now, with this series of Roku Ultra, this is not correct.  On the first day, I got one card to utilize nearly 3GBs of space.  I further checked every application, and none required reloading.  The Roku was properly loading each app onto the card.  Rewriting was never done, and was totally unnecessary given the relatively massive amount of free space available.

Bottom line, if you have a Roku Ultra in the 4660 series or later, and it can use a Micro SD card, just get the card I linked above, and it should work well, and fully.  There are plenty of other worse cards available, but none better at 32GB and anywhere near $10.  Samsung makes a solid 32GB card as well, but it's much slower.  I wouldn't bother with any other card.

I hope this has been helpful, and that I've finally and fully answered all of the questions posed by and within this thread.

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Thank you all for the helpful information in this thread and especially to you, Smike, for your final post above.  I followed your approach, including the SanDisk micro SD units (as I historically prefer SanDisk anyway).  My 2019 Roku model 4661 series required two attempts in order to recognize the inserted micro SD and format it; however, it worked flawlessly on the second attempt.  Now it appears that all channels, which formerly were consuming most of the available memory, now are stored on the micro SD card (1.7 GB or 5% of the available space).  This should permanently prevent my Roku from offloading channels as needed.  Thank you again.

EdS, have you tried inserting the card after the Roku is fully booted and sitting at the Home Screen?

32 GB is probably significant overkill.  Everything I've read says the Roku will only use 2 GB of the card to store channel info, but I haven't seen anything in a long time on this, so possibly it has expanded since then.

Some people have reported success by  formatting the card in their computer, if it has a card reader that can handle SD cards.   After formatting, see if the Roku will detect and reformat the card successfully.

Windows instructions, don't know what would differ on other systems:

Do a slow (i.e. not "fast") format of the card via your computer. Select FAT32 and select it to use the default allocation size.

Also, see if this old post helps: https://community.roku.com/t5/Remotes-Accessories/Added-SD-Card-Remote-no-longer-works/m-p/646676#M15900

I decided to try Sandisk in my 4660x as per the success stories above.  For immediate gratification I went to Best Buy and bought a 32GB sandisk ultra plus micro sdhc UHS-1 card.  My 4660x still does not recognize that a micro sd card is installed.  Maybe it was a mistake to try a card that was not the exact one used in the previous success stories even though it is sandisk.  This card was preformatted as FAT32 and is recognized by my computer card reader as were the PNY cards I wrote about previously.  

My procedure is to disconnect power, hdmi, and ethernet from the roku box, install the sdhc card, plug the cables in and wait for something to show up on my tv to indicate that roku is or wants to format the micro sd.  Upon seeing that the roku is fully powered up and booted with no indications of card recognition, I go into settings --> about and the last item says "no micro sd card installed".

I'm going to try the sandisk in a different roku box this weekend to see if that makes a difference.

No, I have not tried inserting the card while the roku box is powered up.  Does micro SD support live insertion?  I never really considered that possibility.

Thank you for the reply.  Yes, I understand 32GB is overkill.  My understanding is that unless you go down to 2GB to get a micro SD card as opposed to an SDHC card which go up to 32GB the formatting will be the same (FAT32).  The 2GB cards aren't much use to me other than for the roku box and from what I could find are actually more expensive these days.  I can repurpose some number of the 32GB sdhc cards so when they aren't working in the roku I do have some use for them at least.

I have not tried formatting the card on the computer because it already shows up as being formatted using FAT32.  I guess trying to reformat the card is a good next step.  I thought the previous poster got the 32GB card to work out of the box (no reformatting) so I was encouraged.

I tried my sandisk micro sdhc cards in a second roku box this weekend.  It is a roku 4 (4400X).  Results were the same in that unit as my roku ultra; the sdhc card was not recognized as being present.

I just tried reformatting both the sandisk and pny 32GB micro SD cards on my computer.  I selected FAT32.  Both cards were empty so I did a quick reformat.  Both cards formatted successfully.  I tried each in my roku ultra and neither card is recognized.  This is frustrating!

I tried doing a full format (as opposed to a quick format) on the sandisk sdhc card per your suggestion.  Same result.  Card is not recognized as installed. 

I've worked with a number of micro sdhc cards and sdhc cards in various devices from camcorders to raspberry pi's and never encountered a problem.  My impression is that roku is broke on this issue.  I can't explain why some people seem to be able to get it to work but there also seems to be a number of us that can't.  Is there someone from roku out there that can help with this issue?  For the time invested in this I think I could have bought a new roku box which I'm not inclined to do if I can't get this to work.

Look around and find some OLD 2GB or 4GB cards.

It's not the type, or the format or file type.

The system DOES NOT RECOGNIZE cards with large memories.

I wasted money and time,  then I dug up some old 4GB cards. These worked perfectly.

SAVE YOUR MONEY, old 4GB cards are everywhere & cheap.

Arthur66  2 GB cards appear to be the only perfect solution on Roku Ultra devices.  My only Roku device as of currently is an Express+ 3910 (with analog outputs), plus I’d rather use a larger GB card for a console like my Nintendo Wii-U. (this forum is not a discussion forum for helping Nintendo users by the way, so I do apologize if you get confused)

~ Jordan

4GB is an interesting size.  It's big enough that it puts you in the SDHC range (4GB to 32GB) for which the default format is FAT32.  If you go down to 2GB, the card would be an SD card for which the default format as I understand is FAT16.  I would think that the roku boxes could either handle an SDHC card with FAT32 or not.  If they can, then whether it's 4GB or 32GB shouldn't matter.  If they can only handle SD cards then 2GB or less with FAT16 formatting would be the only solutions.  Yet, some people seem to get them working with 32GB cards and as you point out, yours works with a 4GB sdhc card.  Others, such as myself, can't seem to get it to work with a name brand card like sandisk.  What a mess.

I looked on amazon for 2GB cards.  $13 to $15 seems to be the going rate.  I wish I had some old ones laying around to try but I don't.  These cost as much or more than the 32GB cards.  I looked at the microcenter website and the smallest they had in stock was 16GB.  2 GB and 4GB cards seem to be on the way out.

I guess another factor could be the version of the firmware in a particular roku box.  Mine are set up for automatic updates so should always have the latest software installed.  I've looked at the update dates and mine do seem to get updates when they come out.  Has the firmware been modified to provide an incentive to purchase a new roku?  Getting a microsd card to work should not be this difficult.

 I was hoping someone from roku might provide some insight.  

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EdS wrote:

I tried doing a full format (as opposed to a quick format) on the sandisk sdhc card per your suggestion.  Same result.  Card is not recognized as installed. 

I've worked with a number of micro sdhc cards and sdhc cards in various devices from camcorders to raspberry pi's and never encountered a problem.  My impression is that roku is broke on this issue.  I can't explain why some people seem to be able to get it to work but there also seems to be a number of us that can't.  Is there someone from roku out there that can help with this issue?  For the time invested in this I think I could have bought a new roku box which I'm not inclined to do if I can't get this to work.

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I suggest trying a few times, which is what I had to do with my second Roku unit.  My 4660RW unit quickly recognized the SanDisk micro SD and asked whether to format.  However, my 4660X unit required several attempts before it recognized and offered the formatting prompt/question.  I unplugged a few times and ejected/reinserted the card into the 4660X before it successfully formatted.

I know that some electronics can be "finicky" when it comes to these memory cards.  I suspect that the Roku card slot lacked some quality control somewhere along the way due to all of the issues that people have had.  Even so, my several attempts were worth the effort because now both Roku 4660 series units indicate that only 5% of the available 32 GB micro SD card is being used, which means that the channels presumably were occupying most of the original 2 GB of memory in each.  They both seem to function perfectly again, with no annoying reloads of channels due to insufficient memory.  I hope that this helps to resolve your continuing issues.

I think the suggestion to insert/release the micro sdhc card a few times sounds like a good idea.  Since my roku is several years old and a card had not ever been inserted until recently, it seems like some corrosion or dust might inhibit good contact.  I just inserted and released the card between 15 and 20 times.  The spring loaded card lock seems to grab the card nicely and releases easily by  pushing the card inward.  Unfortunately I still get the same result.  

Absolutely.

I am perplexed by the unending dialog about format types, etc.

Several months ago, while addressing this issue, I discovered (outside this forum) that indeed, the ROKU devices have an endemic issue: They cannot see memory space beyond a specific size. (as of this writing, I do not recall the size limit).

That's when I dug around and found some older 2GB & 4GB micro-SD cards, and viola! Issue resolved.
I have noted this repeatedly, but I believe people get stuck on ONE THREAD or ONE PATH and overlook a sound solution.

2 GB and 4GB cards for the win.

I decided to try renojim  suggestion to insert the micro sd card while the roku box was powered up and at the home screen.  I was hesitant to do this initially because I have never live inserted micro sd cards in the past.  One release and insert and the format screen popped up.  I formatted the 32GB card and all seems good.  As expected, only a small portion of the card is used.  I had previously tried doing restarts from the menus and power cycles by pulling the cord but that didn't help.  Releasing and inserting the memory card while roku is powered seems to be the answer.  If true then I think there is a software issue for card recognition at power-up that should be addressed in a future update. 

I may learn more when I try the same trick on my roku4 box next weekend.  I will try a factory formatted card first to see what happens.   I'm not going to take this working one out and experiment out of fear that my success might just be luck.  If live insertion of the microsd works in the second unit my confidence that this is truely the solution will increase.

Thank you to all who chimed in on this issue.   I'm not sure I would have ever thought of inserting the card while the unit was powered, especially with the way that the hdmi cable is located so close to the micro sd card slot.  Thanks again.

I'm not sure why the smaller memory size might be recognized more easily.  Maybe a 2GB card being micro SD rather than SDHC gets caught by the card recognition code somehow.  That wouldn't explain why 4GB would work since I think that would be SDHC.  I can tell you what motivated me to keep trying even with a larger memory size like 32GB is that many people seemed to get it to work.   There seems to be speculation about memory size, manufacturer, etc that might be contributing factors to the problem but I'm not sure what's really going on since there seems to be lots of things that work and don't work.  Even after trying a number of things, I can't identify a definite cause at this point.  Hoping roku is tracking this forum and maybe will fix something in the firmware as that is where my suspicion lies.

For a final update I thought I would post my good luck in getting 32Gb micro SDHC cards to work in my roku 3 and roku 4 boxes.  Both cards were 32GB PNY, one was factory formatted and one was computer formatted.  Both were recognized immediately upon being live inserted into the respective roku boxes.  They then formatted and were  listed as 32 GB with 1.7 GB used in the system "about" menu.

My conclusion from all of this is that neither the size of the memory or the manufacturer of the memory were causing my problems.  I would have thought that the roku boxes would recognize the micro SD cards upon power up if they were inserted while the power was off.  This does not seem to be the case.  It appears the cards need to be inserted while the roku box is powered up for them to be recognized and then subsequently formatted.  If this is in the roku documentation, my apologies for missing it.

Again, thanks to all who helped me with this issue.

Smike, thank you for the excellent post on this frustrating topic.  I also have the Roku Ultra 4660X model, and I called Roku Technical Support on the phone twice about this question.  The first person was clueless, telling me I should use a "4 gee bee" or "6 gee bee" card.  When I asked the maximum size that was supported, she claimed 8 GB.  She also said that current Roku Ultra models no longer have the micro SD card slot and have 2 GB of internal memory now instead.  I happened to have a 32 GB micro SDHC card lying around, and I asked her if micro SDHC is supported.  She said no, it has to be micro SD only.

After I got off the phone and did some research online, I learned that the micro SD standard has a maximum size of 2 GB, and larger cards up to 32 GB are always micro SDHC, then other later standards for cards larger than 32 GB.  I called back and reached someone who actually had some computer literacy and understood what he was talking about.  He asked me for the serial number of my Roku Ultra, and said that for THIS model (the 4660X), it does support micro SDHC cards up to a maximum of 32 GB.  This makes sense, because larger cards use a later standard that wouldn't be supported by a device designed to use micro SDHC.  Perhaps they can be fooled into using a larger card if you format it as FAT32 on a computer (micro SDHC uses FAT32), but the best bet is simply to avoid larger cards and use a 32 GB micro SDHC card or smaller.

When I tried my 32 GB micro SDHC card in my Roku Ultra, I initially had trouble getting it to work.  First it wouldn't stay in the slot, I finally figured out that I had to use a fingernail or screwdriver or something to push the card in deeper than simply flush with the outside of the case, until it clicks, then it stays in and recognizes the card.  It offered to format the card, but that failed.  The rep suggested to try formatting it on a PC and then try again.  He specifically suggested turning OFF the Quick Format, but that takes forever and I'm not convinced there's any need to do that.  At any rate, after I hung up the phone, I tried several more ways to format the card on my PC and ultimately concluded that the card was defective since any attempt to write to it timed out and failed, including from DISKPART.

As for the differing claims as to what cards are supported, I think this entirely depends on which specific model Roku device you're using, and you might need to call their technical support to verify.  The second rep did tell me that there have been SIX different versions of the Roku Ultra, and that the older models had the micro SD slot but newer models no longer have the slot.  The first rep was right about that part, but he said that the newest model now comes with 4 GB internal memory -- the one with 2 GB of internal memory was apparently a previous model.

Roku makes it very difficult to find this information online, but by researching various snapshots on archive.org of Roku's model comparison page over the years, I was able to get a pretty good idea of the models in the series along with rough approximations of when each model was being sold...

There are actually several earlier models before the Roku Ultra which DO have micro SD slots:

Roku 3 (4200 series) (approx. September 2013 - April 2015)
Roku 2 (4210 series)  (approx. June 2015 - September 2016)
Roku 3 (4230 series)  (approx. June 2015 - September 2016)
Roku 4 4400X (approx. December 2015 - September 2016)

(There appears to be no product link for the 4400X.)

Given that some people seem to believe that 2 GB is the largest size of micro SD card that actually works in a Roku device, my guess would be that all of the models above probably only support the original micro SD standard for cards up to 2 GB. If that's the case, these models might work best with 2 GB micro SD cards, but that's just a guess!

The first four Roku Ultra models DO have micro SD slots:

Roku Ultra (4640 series)  (~December 2016 - ~December 2017)
Roku Ultra 4660X (~October 2017 - ~September 2018)
Roku Ultra 4661X (~September 2018 - ~July 2019)
Roku Ultra (4670 series)  (~December 2019 - ~April 2020)

There is also one Roku Ultra LT model which has a micro SD slot:

Roku Ultra LT 4662X (~December 2019 - ~September 2021)

I didn't use the product links for the 4660X, 4661X and 4662X because they're all lumped together:

Roku Ultra (4660, 4661, 4662 series) 

The second rep I talked to told me definitively that my 4660X model supports micro SDHC cards up to 32 GB, and Smike's experience seems to confirm that information as well. It's reasonable to assume that all of the models introduced after the 4660X would also support at least 32 GB as well. It's possible that micro SDXC support up to 2 TB could have been added later, but I think that's a long shot. (It seems that 32 GB is plenty of space for this, so why bother?) Still, if it did happen, the 4670X seems like the most likely model to support cards over 32 GB if any do.

As for the original Roku Ultra 4640X, it could go either way. Perhaps it only supported micro SD cards up to 2 GB. On the other hand, the branding change to the "Ultra" name seems like the obvious time to add the micro SDHC support for cards up to 32 GB since that would make the features more "ultra" than the earlier models. (Or maybe my guess about the older models is wrong and they've always supported micro SDHC?) My best guess would be 2 GB for the old Roku models and 32 GB for all the Roku Ultra models and the Roku Ultra LT 4662X, but the only way to be sure would be to test them or find out from Roku.

As for the newest models, the last two Roku Ultra models and the current Roku LT model do NOT have micro SD slots:

Roku Ultra (4800 series) (~November 2020 - ~December 2021)
Roku Ultra 4802X (~July 2022 - March 2023+)
Roku Ultra LT 4801X (~October 2021 - March 2023+)

(There appear to be no product links for the 4801X or 4802X either.)

Presumably the 4800X would be the model with 2 GB internal flash memory and the 4802X would be the newer model with 4 GB internal flash memory, according to what the second rep told me. The 4801X is probably either 2 GB or 4 GB also. (I'm guessing 4 GB but it could go either way.)

I hope this additional information proves useful to someone... I've wasted way too much time on this!