can I save a .zip file to an sd card?

[outdoorlovingrn]

I just got a new mac computer and wanted to transfer my itunes library to the new computer. I do not have a firewire cable. So I thought I could just put the library on my 8gb sd card (my itunes library is 5.25 gb). I thought it might be faster if I zipped the library so I did-that took 10 minutes or so. But whenever I tried to move the zip file to the sd card I got an error message. So then I copied the zip file and tried to move the copy to the sd card. I still got the error message.

So now what is happening is I am simply copying my itunes music folder directly to the sd card. It says it will take about 2 hours (my old computer is from 2003 so I think I have a slow usb port). So hopefully this will work.

But why wouldn't it work with the .zip file?
Thanks,
Jessica

 

[spinnerlys]

As far as I know, SD cards (like USB flash drives) use FAT 32 as their file system, and FAT 32 is not able to have files bigger than 4GB written to drives with FAT 32.

You could also give Ethernet a try, you PC should have a Ethernet port, as your Mac will have. You only need a cable, but if you don't mind having the files copied via night, then it should work the way via an SD card.

EDIT: as BlueRevolution pointed out, and another thread I read, it's 4GB, and not 2GB. I simply forgot about the file size. But wasn't there also a 2GB limit with some file system? When I had Windows 2000, I had to use NTFS to capture DV video, or when using FAT 32, the files had to be split to 2GB chunks. It's still an option for Avid Media Composer.

 

[TuffLuffJimmy]

The zip file should work fine, but why would you use a zip file? Just dragging the folder over would work fine.

EDIT: forgot about fat32... the zip will not work, not that there's any reason whatsoever to use a zip file in this situation.

 

[BlueRevolution]

As far as I know, SD cards (like USB flash drives) use FAT 32 as their file system, and FAT 32 is not able to have files bigger than 2GB written to drives with FAT 32.

4 GB, but the idea is correct. If you split your iTunes library into two zip files it should work fine, or you can try ethernet as spinnerlys suggests.

 

[mkrishnan]

In principle you ought to be able to re-format the SD as an Mac OS X, Extended volume (HFS+ or whatever) and it should work fine also....

And of course, if your SDHC is 8GB and your library is 5GB, you could just copy the library onto the SDHC instead of zipping it (I guess there are permissions issues if you don't reformat the card, but I'm not sure they really matter...)

 

[outdoorlovingrn]

Thanks from OP

It took a couple hours I imagine (I left the house), but I transferred the library to my sd card (not zipped) and it's now on my itunes on the new computer and things seem fine. Why did I want to zip it? I don't have any idea what I was thinking...maybe that it would transfer faster or something-instead of over a couple of hours. But obviously the sd card didn't want a .zip file. So, the issue is taken care of! Thanks!

And thank you for suggesting the ethernet cable as an alternative to firewire cable. I had not thought of that.