Help Samsung S9 and 128GB micro SD query

[spark001uk]

Hi all

Quick question - just collected my 128GB S9+ today from the store, and it came with an additional 128GB micro SD too, which the guy installed for me. On hooking up to PC to transfer some stuff, I notice this card seems to be pre-formatted to "generic hierarchical" format, the same format used for the internal memory in fact. So should I leave it on that? Or reformat it to exFAT or something? Not sure as biggest card I've had up to now is a 64GB SDXC.

EDIT: I've done a bit more digging and I did find a hint from somewhere that this "generic hierarchical" just shows up in Windows when the media is being accessed through the MTP or similar protocol, ie connected via the phone USB. If that sounds correct?

 

[svim]

You can of course reformat the card in your PC but you'll be better off reformatting it in your phone. That way you're assured it's going to set it up as optimized for your phone as opposed to optimized for Windows, or MacOS (there are aspects besides the file system such as block size). Also, just so you're aware, your phone's internal storage is using ext4 as its file system, a common Unix-based file system. Your microSD card will be a FAT variant, either FAT32 or exFAT, a dated, Microsoft-licensed file system commonly used because it has cross-platform compatibility.

 

[spark001uk]

You can of course reformat the card in your PC but you'll be better off reformatting it in your phone. That way you're assured it's going to set it up as optimized for your phone as opposed to optimized for Windows, or MacOS (there are aspects besides the file system such as block size). Also, just so you're aware, your phone's internal storage is using ext4 as its file system, a common Unix-based file system. Your microSD card will be a FAT variant, either FAT32 or exFAT, a dated, Microsoft-licensed file system commonly used because it has cross-platform compatibility.

I think I just edited my post just as you did yours! Am I right then in that this "hierarchical" label is not actually a filesystem, but is attributed to an MTP connection?

 

[svim]

Not to be dismissive but when it comes to Microsoft's support for other platforms, even under Nadella's complete contrast to the previous Gates/Ballmer era, I just don't know or care too much about how Windows does or doesn't label things.