I have 3 SanDisk Ultra XC UHS-1 64gb SD cards and I can't get any of them to work in the Mavic Air and my Mac. I started by formatting them within the Mavic Air but they weren't readable on the Mac. I'm given the option to initialize, as if it's a new and unused card. I formatted an empty one on the Mac (exFAT) but then it wasn't recognised by the Mavic Air. I've gone back and forth a few times with three different cards but always get the same result.

Am I doing something wrong or is there an issue with how the Mavic Air is using/formatting the SD card?

1. Formatted and partitioned?
2. If formatted by the MA, can you enter it via USB?

Not much help but I formatted my Samsung card on the MA and macbook air reads them fine via the card adapter. Have you partitioned them previously?

the0bone Posted at 2018-2-21 05:58
1. Formatted and partitioned?
2. If formatted by the MA, can you enter it via USB?

Just straight formatting. Nothing fancy.

It connects via USB and I could see that the Mavic-formatted card was MS-DOS (FAT32) so I tried formatting one on the Mac to FAT32. The Mavic reads that but says 'Slow SD card'.

Cameleon Posted at 2018-2-21 06:14
Not much help but I formatted my Samsung card on the MA and macbook air reads them fine via the card adapter. Have you partitioned them previously?

Two cards are fresh out of the wrapper. One has come from a GoPro, but I don't think I ever partitioned it.

DarrenF Posted at 2018-2-21 06:37
Two cards are fresh out of the wrapper. One has come from a GoPro, but I don't think I ever partitioned it.

Seems a bit odd. I used a new Samsung out the packet and a Sandisk from my GoPro 3 and both formatted fine in the Air and readable in the Macbook. Only disks I've had before when it said it can't read it are ones from my NAS (RAID) which is understandable.

I assume the Air is happy to format and use the card?

Also, the Sandisk Ultra is not rated high enough for 4k and could even maybe struggle with 2k. You ideally need the Sandisk Extreme U3 which is rated to 30MB/s write. The Sandisk Ultra is only rated to U1 which is 10MB/s which is too slow for 4k.

Cameleon Posted at 2018-2-21 06:50
Seems a bit odd. I used a new Samsung out the packet and a Sandisk from my GoPro 3 and both formatted fine in the Air and readable in the Macbook. Only disks I've had before when it said it can't read it are ones from my NAS (RAID) which is understandable.

I assume the Air is happy to format and use the card?

Kinda. It'll record to a card it's formatted itself but it still warns me 'slow SD card' and I suspect that'll be an issue with higher frame rates. The card is high speed so there's something not quite right. As that's three cards I've tried I've got to assume there's something quirky with the Mavic Air.

See above. The card is U1 which is only rated to 1080p write speeds, anything higher and it won't cope. I didn't realise this til I put an older Sandisk Ultra in expecting it to be ok but it isn't. Any U3 card will be fine.

Cameleon Posted at 2018-2-21 06:55
Also, the Sandisk Ultra is not rated high enough for 4k and could even maybe struggle with 2k. You ideally need the Sandisk Extreme U3 which is rated to 30MB/s write. The Sandisk Ultra is only rated to U1 which is 10MB/s which is too slow for 4k.

Our posts crossed in the ether.

The cards are rated to 100MB/s. Still too slow for 4K, I guess, given the warning.

DarrenF Posted at 2018-2-21 06:58
Our posts crossed in the ether.

The cards are rated to 100MB/s. Still too slow for 4K, I guess, given the warning.

This is where the confusion arises. U1 is rated for a sustained write speed of 10MB/s which is too slow for 4k. The 100MB/s you refer to (assuming it is the U1 version) is for the read speed.

Prior to high def video, read speed was the speed you needed on SD cards so you could get your pics off the card quickly, but the write speeds were always a lot less as it didn't need to be that quick to write images to the card. With 1080p it was noted a lot of cards could not sustain the 10MB/s write speed required and hence U1 was born. This was upped to 30MB/s with U3 for 4k.

Marketing are cheeky with it calling it 100MB/s "transfer" speed which in reality means read speed.

Cameleon Posted at 2018-2-21 07:17
This is where the confusion arises. U1 is rated for a sustained write speed of 10MB/s which is too slow for 4k. The 100MB/s you refer to (assuming it is the U1 version) is for the read speed.

Prior to high def video, read speed was the speed you needed on SD cards so you could get your pics off the card quickly, but the write speeds were always a lot less as it didn't need to be that quick to write images to the card. With 1080p it was noted a lot of cards could not sustain the 10MB/s write speed required and hence U1 was born. This was upped to 30MB/s with U3 for 4k.

The description and packaging says 'speed up to 100MB/s'. You need to find the small print on the reverse that says '100MB/s read speed. Write speed lower.' There's no figures for write speed at all. Very poor.

DarrenF Posted at 2018-2-21 08:07
The description and packaging says 'speed up to 100MB/s'. You need to find the small print on the reverse that says '100MB/s read speed. Write speed lower.' There's no figures for write speed at all. Very poor.

Yup, bummer eh! the U rating is the one to look for, its the sustained write speed. U1 is only 10MB/s, and U3 is 30MB/s. The MA can do 100Mbps which is ~12.5MB/s. I'm not sure if that 100Mbps is only for 4k or if 2k can output at that too. If 2k does output lower, then your card can probably do 2k, but not 4k.

I format on my Mavic, Spark and Air and my MacBook Pro running High Sierra reads them just fine.

I just make a video about it.
Class 10 U1 cards are warned in the DJI Go4 App as to slow. But they work fine with 4k 30fps records.
Class 10 U3 cards don't have a warning. Sure. But all is the same

I tested:
4k 30fps 30sec record
1080p 120fps 10sec record
7 picture burst as DNG and JPEG

No difference in file size nothing.
But! The burst took with the U1 30 sec and with the U3 just 13 sec!!!

the0bone Posted at 2018-2-21 11:44

Class 10 U1 cards are warned in the DJI Go4 App as to slow. But they work fine with 4k 30fps records.
Class 10 U3 cards don't have a warning.

U1 and U3 just mean minimum sustained data rate. U1 could - on a good card - maintain the ~12.5MB/s required for 4k recording, but it is not guaranteed. U3 guarantees a minimum 30MB/s which is far more than the required ~12.5MB/s for 4k.

So there's nothing saying a U1 card wouldn't support 4k, but its not guaranteed. It might that it couldn't support it at all, it might be able to keep up for some time and then not, or it might be just fine and give you a good file. But its a risk that you record something and the file ends up corrupt at some point.

I formated 32 gb for my Mavic Air in Macbook Pro 2011 and it works just fine

Cameleon Posted at 2018-2-21 12:15
U1 and U3 just mean minimum sustained data rate. U1 could - on a good card - maintain the ~12.5MB/s required for 4k recording, but it is not guaranteed. U3 guarantees a minimum 30MB/s which is far more than the required ~12.5MB/s for 4k.

So there's nothing saying a U1 card wouldn't support 4k, but its not guaranteed. It might that it couldn't support it at all, it might be able to keep up for some time and then not, or it might be just fine and give you a good file. But its a risk that you record something and the file ends up corrupt at some point.

I can confirm that a U1 MicroSD is working for MA to record 4k BUT the result is poor...your 4k recording won't play smoothly but with a lot of stutter.
That is why I bought the recommended U3 MicroSD to record smooth 4k recording .

A U3 Sandisk Extreme card behaves the same way. I formatted it in the Mavic Air but it's not recognised when plugged into my Mac. It does recognise both the MA's internal storage and the SD card when I connect it via USB and power on the Mavic Air. It's a workaround but an unexpected amount of faff.

I have the exact same issue,my Mac can't read my SD card after I formated it in my Mavic Air.
I just upgraded to a Air from my Spark and when I formated the very same SD card in the spark there was no issues at all to use my usb adapter to transfer the files to my Mac :/

Gonna try to see if it works on a PC later on tonight.

I have a samsung 64gb EVO 3 XC I card and so on, but that's not the issue, the issue is that when it was formated by the Mavic Air it's unreadable on the Mac (running macOS Sierra 10.12.5)

I have a similar problem. I have used the Mavic to record video and stills onto the supplied 32GB Micro SD card. I can transfer them onto a PC with no problem. When I put the MSD card into my Mac I can see all the files in the finder but when I try to open or transfer them I get a message saying "The operation can’t be completed because one or more required items can’t be found. (Error code -43)" Disk Utility says that the card is FAT32.
Is this a problem with the card or the way it is formatted or is it a problem with how the Mavic writes the files? Anyone have any idea how to resolve this? I need to be able to get these files onto my Mac asap and I am unimpressed with this fault when lots of us are using Macs.