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Is it possible to save data from the Arduino to an SD card memory module?

Peter Mortensen
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desNotes
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  • If you have a "SDHC" card, you might want to see [Micro SD Shield with Arduino](http://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/2086/micro-sd-shield). – davidcary Oct 19 '12 at 16:22

7 Answers7

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There are also a couple of hardware solutions which should be usable with Arduino:

  1. DOSonCHIP which is FAT32- and FAT16-compatible. It will be really cool when they update the firmware to support I²C. SparkFun also had a breakout board for it (now retired), but the page may be useful for further information.
  2. 4D systems makes micro-DRIVE. Also this OpenLog open source data logger seems to be available from SparkFun.
  3. GHI Electronics had the uALFAT MicroSD Board (now discontinued). It has an easy I²C interface and also supports long filenames.
Peter Mortensen
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tuupola
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Saving data on an SD card is not that difficult without pre-made boards/solutions.

Saving data on a file system (meaning that you can just mount it as a regular partition on your computer) on an SD card is much harder. This is because you have to be able to manipulate the file system itself which is much harder.

There are ready-made libraries for this which make it easier. So it depends on what you want to do.

Chetan Bhargava
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Dago
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    Yes... if it never needs to go in a pc, or the pc runs something capable like linux, you don't need a file system. You can just treat it as a big addressable collection of memory blocks. Also if you get a cheap microSD kit that comes with the full size adapter, you can just solder onto the adapter and use that as your socket. – Chris Stratton Dec 13 '10 at 06:17
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If you wish to be able to read the card from your PC and not simply use it a big EEPROM, here's an extensive thread on the Arduino forums which explains how to interface with an SD card with FAT support.

Also take a look at this Arduino sketch to get you started on the software side. A lot of it has nothing to do with SD card I/O, but I'm sure you'll figure it out: LCRACS SD interface V1.

Peter Mortensen
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vic
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Yes, it is. Check out SD card read/write with Arduino.

Peter Mortensen
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zklapow
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Look at this:

Libelium SD module; check the "Documentation:" section. There you will find everything you need.

I used this module; you can even build it yourself. It works perfectly, and there are developed libraries for use with FAT as you can see.

Robherc KV5ROB
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jotasa
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You can get a simple SD card reader/writer from the Maker Shed. You can get an SD card reader/writer with audio out with the Adafruit WaveShield.

Craig Trader
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The Storage Shield utilizes an on-board Atmega328 processor so your project can now access gigabytes of storage while using very little memory or processing power of the Arduino.

http://www.chipstobits.com/blog/storage-shield/

Daniel Grillo
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  • The only thing funnier than giving the arduino an identical twin cpu as a storage co-processor is realizing that the SD card itself may contain a 32 bit arm core! see http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=898 – Chris Stratton Dec 13 '10 at 07:48