A popular offering by a United Kingdom-based charitable foundation, Raspberry Pi computers are a hit around the world. It was originally founded to get young people interested in computing and to allow them to develop their skills in programming and computer science. The Raspberry Pi Foundation has provided low-cost, high-performance single-board computers and free software since 2011. Today, many enthusiasts are replacing their PCs, setting up retro gaming machines, or even controlling robots using the Raspberry Pi computers.
However, no matter how educational or empowering these computers are, they don’t come included with a key component that most other regular computers have. They have no internal storage.
All Raspberry Pi units come with an SD or microSD card slot to help users get around this issue. The original Raspberry Pi Model A and Raspberry Pi Model B take SD cards. From the Model B+ (2014) onwards, a microSD card is needed.
The minimum capacity required is 8GB to 32GB, which is Raspberry Pi’s largest supported size by default, though higher capacities can be formatted to work with the units. Keep in mind, to install the official Raspbian OS you’ll need at least an 8GB microSD card whereas Raspbian Lite you’ll need a minimum 4GB. Raspbian is the recommended OS by the Raspberry Pi Foundation although you can run many different operating systems including various Linux distributions.
When looking at the optimal SD or microSD card, look for high endurance cards that can handle a lot of the cycle times since you will be running your operating system from it. Additionally, cards that can reach Class 10 UHS-I speeds of 95MB/s allow for easy storage and quick transfers.
Since most Raspberry Pi computers have multiple USB ports, USB drives are a great option for use with these units. They are small enough to carry in your pocket, and they provide on-the-go file storage for personal photos, music, videos, and documents.
USB ports on most Raspberry Pi models are limited to USB 2.0 but USB 3.0 devices can still be used---they'll just be limited to USB 2.0 speeds. As of June 2019, Raspberry Pi 4 B includes 2 USB 3.0 ports for faster transfer speeds and better performance. With the addition of USB 3.0, another storage option is using an external hard drive enclosure. Make sure the drive has its own external power as a Raspberry Pi will not be able to supply enough power for such a drive.
In addition to their portability, USB flash drives offer Raspberry Pi users the same key features provided by SD and microSD cards in terms of capacity sizes and read/write speeds.
Raspberry Pi 4 is a low-powered mini-computer capable of performing several computing tasks such as creating web servers, DIY projects, home automation, and much more. The device has different versions having different RAM sizes of 2GB, 4GB, and 8GB. However, the disadvantage of a Raspberry Pi device is that it doesn’t have a personal storage system, and to use an operating system, you must need an internal storage device like an SD card, USB, Hard Disk, or SSD.
Using an SD card of around 64GB would be the best option in terms of speed and performance, but the question needs to be asked whether a 128GB card is supported by the Raspberry Pi 4 or not.
To answer this question, we have presented this article for you to follow up in case you want to use a 128GB SD card with your Raspberry Pi 4 model.
Can We Use a 128 GB SD Card With Raspberry Pi 4?
Yes! It is possible to use a 128 GB SD card for Raspberry Pi 4. But for a 128 GB SD card, you have to format the drive through exFAT or NTFS file system as both file system now supports Raspberry Pi 4. You can only have these two options left for an SD card storage larger than 32GB.
To learn the process of formatting an SD card, you can follow our article here.
Why a Good SD Card is required For Raspberry Pi 4
Formatting a 128GB SD card through the exFAT or NTFS file system is the only way to successfully boot the operating system on Raspberry Pi. However, having a good Raspberry Pi SD card is important too since it directly impacts the performance of your Raspberry Pi system.
To check the performance of the card you can use a speed test. Speed tests basically determine the performance by telling the data Read and Write speed. performance. To learn more about Speed Test check the article here.
Importance of SD Card For Raspberry Pi
Generally, SD cards are a more suitable solution for storage in Raspberry Pi, because SD cards are small and can be inserted into Raspberry Pi. Also, by using SD cards, more peripheral devices can be attached because all the ports remain empty if no USB or hard drive is used for storage. Further, the Raspberry Pi device provides a separate place to safely keep the SD card and it will remain there unless you remove it by yourself. While having the USB device as a storage system won’t be an ideal option since it can accidentally be removed at any time.
Which SD Cards are Best Suited for Raspberry Pi
Numerous types of SD cards available in the market, SD cards could vary in size, Speed class, and type. Some of the best SD cards are mentioned below:
- Samsung MB-ME32GA-/AM
- Samsung Pro-Endurance
- SanDisk Extreme
- PNY Premier-X
- Gigastone Gaming Plus
For details, you can check the article here.
Conclusion
Yes! A 128 GB SD card can be used with Raspberry Pi 4 if you format the SD card through the exFAT or NTFS file system. Generally, the limit of SD cards that are recommended to be used for Raspberry Pi is between 16 GB-32 GB, which can easily be formatted through the FAT file system. But those cards greater than 32GB require you to format them through the exFAT or NTFS file system. The above guidelines will help you by providing you with adequate knowledge of how you can format the 128GB SD card and you will also find the list of SD cards that you can use with your Raspberry Pi device.