How To: Format Your 64GB or 128GB SD Card (Apple Mac)Updated 9 months ago
64GB SD cards will allow you to record for the longest time possible. However using a 64GB card isn’t a case of just putting the card in like with smaller SD cards. 64GB cards require formatting to format called FAT32 before they will work in your recorder.
This is done by connecting the SD card to your Mac Computer. We’ll go through the process in this guide.
There are a couple of recommendations we have when using a 64GB card.
Double check your unit will support 64GB, as the maximum for most units is 32GB.
We recommend using Class 10 or Class 6 speed SD cards.
We recommend using a reputable brand from a reputable seller. Coincidently we sell cards that have been tested with our equipment.
Don’t use a Class 4 SD card. They’ll probably be too slow and cause corruptions of your recordings.
If the card you’ve bought seems to cheap to be true, it’s probably a fake and won’t last very long, if it works at all. This is the most common cause for issues with our SD card based units.
As mentioned at the beginning of the article we’ll now need to format the SD card in your Mac Computer.
The first step is to connect the SD card to your Mac. You can do this using the built in card reader if you have one. If you don’t have a built in card reader then in most cases you can put the card in the device you want to use it in, then connected that device to your Mac via USB. If the device you’re wanting to use the card in can’t be connected to a PC then you’ll need a dedicated card reader. There are a number of card readers available, just make sure it’s compatible with SDXC cards, otherwise it might not work with a 64GB card.
Once the SD card is connected to your Mac you’ll need to open the Disk Utility. This is easily done by clicking the spotlight icon in the top right of your screen (or by pressing the keyboard shortcut cmd + spacebar) and searching for Disk Utility.
Click on Disk Utility to launch it and you’ll get something like this;
First select the SD card from the list on the left hand side. In this example we’re formatting a 4GB card, but the process is identical for formatting a 64GB card. Be sure you’re selecting the correct drive.
Next click the Erase option highlighted in the image above by a orange box.
Now click the Format drop down and select MS-DOS (FAT). You can also add a name to make the card easier to identify in the future.
The final step will erase the entire contents of the SD card. Be sure you have the correct drive selected and that any required data from the SD card is backed up before proceeding.
Finally click the Erase… button to start the formatting process.
That's it! Once the erase process is finished the card is ready to be used in your recorder.
Need more help?
If you need help with anything else please check out our other guides or get in contact.