M-E (and M9?) can use SDXC cards

[lemalk]

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So in the middle of my quarantine YouTube binge, I watched a video of a photographer who picked up an M9-P because he missed the CCD color of the files.
When he went to put in an ‘“old” card, he used a 64GB card - and it didn’t work. I thought to myself “the M9 series only supports up to 32GBs...” and then he reformatted the card as FAT32 and all of a sudden the card worked.

I had bought a cache of 32GB cards for the M-E that I own because I believed that’s as far as the camera could go.

Tonight, I tested with a 128GB card formatted as FAT32 and... it worked!

My M-E had its sensor changed and firmware updated, so maybe that’s the reason it can read these larger cards now?

i know, it’s not good to have all your images on one card because of risk of failure - but it has been a long time since I have seen one fail. 
Just figured I would pass this on.

[Robert M Poole]

Wasn't there a problem of banding being caused by using certain cards? I remember a discussion on here a while back when I bought my m9. 

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[Archiver]

You mean that if you format a 128GB card as FAT32, the ME will be able to use the full capacity of the card? This is intriguing. I have a few 64GB cards lying around, I might give this a go with the M9. If it fails, I can just reformat it.

[ianman]

Yes it works. This was discussed a few years ago.

Edit: here for example:

 

Edited May 26, 2020 by ianman

[lemalk]

On 5/26/2020 at 3:40 AM, ianman said:

Yes it works. This was discussed a few years ago.

Edit: here for example:

 

Thank you so much for confirming - I had searched the forums and for whatever reason, did not find that page in the thread. I had stocked up on 32GB cards just in case. I guess the hunt now will be batteries for this and the Digilux 2

[Einst_Stein]

On 5/16/2020 at 10:14 PM, lemalk said:

So in the middle of my quarantine YouTube binge, I watched a video of a photographer who picked up an M9-P because he missed the CCD color of the files.
When he went to put in an ‘“old” card, he used a 64GB card - and it didn’t work. I thought to myself “the M9 series only supports up to 32GBs...” and then he reformatted the card as FAT32 and all of a sudden the card worked.

I had bought a cache of 32GB cards for the M-E that I own because I believed that’s as far as the camera could go.

Tonight, I tested with a 128GB card formatted as FAT32 and... it worked!

My M-E had its sensor changed and firmware updated, so maybe that’s the reason it can read these larger cards now?

i know, it’s not good to have all your images on one card because of risk of failure - but it has been a long time since I have seen one fail. 
Just figured I would pass this on.

This does not prove it works yet. A typically problem might be it works up to 32GB, but not further.

The worst problem I had when using an over sized memory card was it corrupts the files on the memory when it crosses the capacity limit. No warning. But this was back to Lumix FZ20, not M9.  

I think many here will tell you don't go over 32GB even if the camera clearly supports it. The point is not putting too many files on a single memory.

[Marco Diaz]

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For what it is worth I have owned an M-E since 2015.  I have for several years now used a Lexar Pro 32gb, 150mbs SDHC [1] II card.  I have tried to use SDXC (extended capacity higher than 32gb) and that did not work.  Bummer.  I also tried to use an Eye-Fi card which were awesome to glean location data but that also did not work.  Sad b/c I used to use it in a Sony RX1 and it was great.  Now if I want location data I have to take an iPhone shot and pull that across in Lightroom.  But all of this is to say as long as you stick with SDHC (high capacity) meaning 32gb and below you are going to be fine.  They now have cards that are SDHC 32gb but with write speeds of 300mbs and Bus Class III.  But I'm not sure the Leica can write any faster than it does with that card in there.  

[jaapv]

I’m sure it cannot.