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I wanted to make this write-up for the community at large to discuss how to go about obtaining/creating a high capacity memory stick for PSPs. I'm hoping this guide/thread can become the definitive place to discuss these issues as much of the information and guidance is scattered throughout this and other forums. There are a few myths and a lot of vagaries about this topic and I hope to clear some things up.

NOTE: All my practical experience is on an original PSP-1001 (phat/fat) model.
The below has all been validated on this device running currently running 6.61 ME 2.3, though the vast majority of this should work on all of the standard PSP models using ME or PRO. There is a bit more detail below regarding FW versions (which are really beyond the scope of this guide).

Additionally, all my tests were done with MicroSD cards up to 200 GB capacity (because I got a good deal on them). This means the largest high capacity setup I have personally tested is 400 GB. Theoretically, the information in this guide should be attainable for MicroSD cards of 256 GB, 512 GB, or even 1 TB in size. Practically however it may be that the adapters on the market today have a limitation or that the CFW will not indeed support such large sizes. I will leave it up to others who have the available hardware to test this.

Have a working high capacity Memory Stick combination? Please post your info!

You may find after reading all the information presented here that you have no need to go beyond ~200, ~400, or ~500 GB in size based on other usability factors I will discuss below.

What is a High Capacity Pro Duo Memory Stick?

As we all (should) know, the PSP uses the Pro Duo format for it's external memory card. The maximum available space that the Pro Duo was manufactured with is 32 MB. If you want a stick with more than 32 GB then you will have to create one using a Pro Duo adapter and one or more MicroSD cards to achieve the capacity you desire.

While you can technically create any size card from 1GB to 2TB, most people will be looking to create something 64 GB or higher.
Even if you are looking for a smaller capacity card, creating your own memory stick may be cheaper as MicroSD cards are plentiful and cheap (especially the small capacity ones).

So, assuming you want to use a custom Memory Stick, let's talk about how to get there in the following posts....

• What you need
  Choosing memory (MicroSD) Card(s)
  Choosing a Pro Duo Adapter
  Configuring/Formatting the Pro Duo Adapter
  Best Practices
  Troubleshooting
  F.A.Q.

What you need:

• - 1 or more MicroSD cards
  - A MicroSD to Pro Duo adapter

In theory the basic idea that most people posit is you simply place your MicroSD card(s) into the adapter, insert the adapter into the PSP, format, and profit!

In theory this is correct. In practice, things don't usually go so smoothly.
Issues usually come down to one of a few things:

• - Lack of knowledge about the basic concepts/procedures
  - Bad/incompatible memory cards
  - Bad/incompatible adapters

This thread will try to address all of these to help you achieve success.
Let's start with arguably the easiest one to cover - memory cards:

Choosing memory (MicroSD) Card(s)

What memory card(s) are supported?

Any SDHC and SDXC (including I and II) should work.

The only difference between SDHC and SDXC cards is the maximum storage capacity and default file system format.

SDHC cards only go as high as 32 GB, whereas SDXC cards go up to 2 TB

You may see some information/verbiage that states the PSP or the adapters support only SDHC cards. This is only because SDXC cards were not around when these devices were made there was only SD and SDHC format. So, the SDHC verbiage was meant to say "hey, we support the larger size SDHC, not just SD!" The same is still true in that the SDXC will work fine and indeed must be used if you want to use MicroSD cards beyond 32 GB.

It is probably wise to stay with the name brands of memory (Sandisk, Transcend, PNY, etc.) And, since you won't necessarily see speed improvements with the newest and fastest cards you can probably buy the lower end of the more modern cards. Have some spare ones sitting around that are a few years old? They will probably work just fine.

BEWARE of buying memory cards off of eBay and similar sites, or even for Amazon deals that are probably too good to be true. Trust me (first hand experience) that unless it is a super holiday sale that amazing deal you are getting is because you are getting a knock-off card. These knock-offs aren't just slower/inferior, they literally don't have all the memory they claim to have (even though they may report they do) - which will lead to data corruption and just lots of issues. You can get good 32 GB cards for ~$15 a piece and 200 GB cards for ~$80 without looking too hard.

How much Memory can I use?

This depends on what firmware is running on the PSP. I believe that the latest OFW version can support up to 128 GB (though it might be as much as 256 GB). Most of the modern CFW should support up to 2 TB. You should verify what your FW can support before buying anything.

Additionally, the adapter you use may determine the maximum amount of memory (based on what it can support.
More on that below...).

The last topic I want to address in terms of memory is the idea (myth?) that you must use memory cards that are of the exact same type/size/speed/etc when using 2 of them in a Dual Pro Duo adapter. While this is certainly a good idea, it is not true.

I have personally confirmed mixing and matching of MicroSD cards of different sizes and speeds (although they were all the same brand - SanDisk). For instance I installed a 64 GB with a 16 GB to get ~72 GB (after format) of usable storage.

I would highly recommend that you do use cards that match speeds/type - preferably from the same manufacturer. However I don't believe there should be danger in using different size cards within the same product line. In fact the original PhotoFast claimed you could mix between SD and SDHC which likely also meant different speeds. So, mixing cards should be supported but if you have problems, stick to cards that are as identical as possible.

Choosing a Pro Duo Adapter

This section is maybe more aptly named "Letting a a Pro Duo Adapter Choose You!" since it might be hard to get your hands on the specific adapter you want. The problem is there was (to the best of my knowledge) only one or two "brand name" Pro Duo adapters ever produced and widely used. The most common one was the PhotoFast CR-5400. There is some information about this card at the PhotoFast site.

The PhotoFast link includes some information about spotting fakes - but the thing is these days pretty much everything is a fake - or at least not a "name brand." This isn't all bad news though because the genuine CR-5400 cards can't even support MicroSD cards above 32 GB. So if you want to build a card with more than 64 GB of memory you need to find another (no-name) brand.

To be honest, I'm not sure if there are any real companies out there manufacturing one specific card that is better than the rest. The market is littered with knock-offs. Some of these claim to be real PhotoFast CR-5400 cards while others simply state they are Pro Duo adapters and have little to no identifying characteristics. There is virtually no quality control and the card you buy on eBay for 99 cents may be as good as the one you get on Amazon for $10.

There is however a taxonomy about these cards which the PhotoFast link above addresses to some degree. I have purchased quite a few of these cards and will show you how to distinguish between them and which cards you are likely better to have success with.

Identifying Pro Duo Adapters

The best way to identify is visually, so let's just get started with a pic of several different cards:
As we can see from the picture above we can break down these cards based on several identifying factors.

The first, and perhaps most obvious is the color. Black or white. Probably choose what suits you here, I haven't necessarily found either color to work better. However in general I would say that you are likely to get a less fragile card if you go with the black models. You can see card #3 is literally cracking apart. While this wasn't delivered in this state, it happened with very little handling. #2 is an almost identical card but whether it was a better batch or actually a different make has been a little more sturdy. If you get a hold of one of these very flimsy white cards you may wish to put one or two small bands of clear scotch tape around it to provide better strength and flexibility.

The next identifying feature is card slot shape. This is highlighted with the red rectangle in card #1 (the *genuine* PhotoFast card). Cards either have the rounded slot shape of #1 or the jagged shape of all the others. As I haven't tested any other cards with jagged slots I can't definitively say which type of cards might be better on any given trait.

Next is lettering. Here I mean both font and verbiage. The font is very similar on most cards, though some have a slightly stronger/bolder printing that might help you distinguish between them. But, more visible are simply the words. Many will state "PhotoFast CR-5400" as highlighted by the blue rectangle (which they aren't). The rest will just print a generically more honest "MS Pro Duo" and "Dual Slot Adapter."

In my experience you are likely better off getting a card that doesn't say "PhotoFast CR-5400" as I have had better luck with the blatantly generic ones.

Last identifying trait I want to point out on this front picture is the plastic used. Specifically, if you look at #1 (the genuine article) you can see that the plastic is of a translucent type. If you look at the area circled in green you can see the internal circuit board of the chip. This isn't just because the material is thin and flimsy like #3 it is actually one of the more quality cards in terms of construction. You don't really need to worry about this because the genuine PhotoFast is the only one I've seen that has this translucent appearance, but it is good to know in identifying an original.

Let's take a look at the back of these cards...
The backs of all the cards is pretty similar. Apart from coloring and some minor variances in the print font they are almost identical. Again, the difference here is the genuine card (#1) which has a more unique number printed on the back side.

Card #4 has a distinguishing characteristic that I haven't experienced on the other cards...and it isn't a good one.
If you look at the contacts you will see that at least one of them appears a little bent. In actuality the plastic separating the contacts on these cards is not always fully attached to the card. This means they can easily separate and bend. This next picture here shows how I received this card (or at least what happened after only 1 or 2 inserts into my PSP).
(continued in next post)

You can see here I have literally slipped a piece of paper between the prong and the contacts to show how it is separated. I bought 3 cards like this and they were all like this to some degree. Another way to identify these cards (unfortunately only after you buy them) is they each came with a sticker on them like the picture below:
I will note that these cards actually seem to work as well as most of the others but I have reservations about using any card that can break/crumble on you. Even if you have backups of your data it can still take hours and hours to transfer 100+ GB of games/data onto your card. You don't want to have to do that again if you don't need to.

There are more cards than I have shown here but for the most part the taxonomy above will at least allow you to select and try different types of cards.

For what it is worth #5 would be my recommendation. This is because it was of a decent build quality and seemed to give the most consistent and reliable formatting results (more on that below).

Once the cards were formatted however I was able to remove the MicroSDs and place them in any card and they all appeared to function normally. The exceptions here are #1 (the genuine PhotoFast which wouldn't support cards higher than 32 GB) and #6, which seemed to have no issues with 2 x 64GB but would not read my 200 GB cards properly.

With all the cards (again, with the exception of #1) I was able to achieve a 2 x 64 GB cards (using the process described below).

However #5 was the only card that I could consistently get 2 x 200 GB cards to format on.

If you want to go with up to 128 GB I think most any card will work. To go higher than that you might have a bit more of a challenge finding a card like #6, or some other card that has proved trustworthy for others.

Some notes on speed:
I did some speed tests with blackSPEED v.2 and most of the cards fell within a common range:

• - #1 scored in the high 300's with read speeds around 11 MiB/s
  - #2, #3, #4 all scored in the low-mid 400's with read speeds around 12 MiB/s
  - #5 scored off the charts near 2000 with read speeds around 15 MiB/s
  - #6 scored in the high 400's with read speeds around 13 MiB/s

They all had slightly higher write speeds relative to their read rates.

Based on this I would have to recommend #5 if you plan to only go up to 128 GB of memory. Unfortunately I couldn't get this card to reliably detect my 200 GB card and so #6 was the best choice and the one I would continue to recommend out of my tests.

So how/where do you buy these cards?
Amazon and eBay are the two easiest places to find them. I didn't spend more than $2 for any of these cards. I'm not 100% confident that spending $6-$10 for some of the identical looking Amazon ones would be a good investment, thought they may ship to you quicker than the ones coming direct from Asia.

There are some sellers on Amazon who are selling cards that look almost exactly like the genuine except they don't say "PhotoFast CR-5400" on them. They even appear to have the translucent plastic type. I expect that the build quality on these is superior due to this type of slightly flexible plastic.

Also note that most of the manufacturers/sellers won't be able to reliably tell you what the maximum capacity card supported is. Most of them will probably tell you 32 or 64 GB but indeed they can almost certainly support more than that.

Additional Info on Adapter Types:

There is/was actually one other make of card that you might come across, the SDA-1800. There is apparently both a black and white version and I'm not sure if either of them is genuine/fake. There is at least one seller on Amazon who sells working 2 x 128 GB sticks (256 GB) using the black ones. Apart from this - I haven't really seen them for sale separately. But if you can get your hands on one they would appear to be pretty reliable.
Finally, I want to note that all these cards I have been discussing have been DUAL adapter cards. Which means they can take 2 MicroSD cards each. However they don't have to take two. You can use these adapters with one or two cards. In fact my main use card uses only a single 200 GB MicroSD in it. We will talk more about this in the below sections.

However, they do make single adapter cards as well, like this one:
While I don't have any experience with them directly they are likely easier to work with since they use only a single card for formatting and therefore would be only a physical adapter (as opposed to circuitry which combines two cards into one). If you have or can get a deal on a single MicroSD of the capacity you want (say 1x 256 or 512 GB) you might be better off just getting one of these single adapter cards.

While I have given a lot of background here on the different Pro Duo types it is assuredly not complete. I have no direct evidence that a card which looks like #6 here will be of the same make as another one which appears physically identical.
There are no brand names or known retailers who sell and vouch for these cards. And, as I was against spending $5-10 for a card that I had no guarantee would work I preferred to play the numbers by buying a bunch of cheaper ones. It is very likely that one of the more expensive cards on Amazon will work more reliably, but there isn't enough data in the community to come to that conclusion.

My recommendation would not be to pay more than $1-$2 for a card that you can't return. Buy several, and of different types using the identifications above and hopefully you will find a good one. While I would recommend based on my experienced a card that looks like #6 it is possible you may get one that has a different provenance than mine.

With that - let's now talk about actually setting up the card for use with the PSP...

Configuring/Formatting the Pro Duo Adapter

As discussed previously, the basic steps for setting up the Pro Duo card is to simply insert the MicroSD cards, place the adapter in the PSP and then choose "Format Memory Stick" from "System Settings." If all goes well the PSP will say "Format completed" and you will be able to enter "USB Connection" mode and begin to transfer data from your PC.

In practice however the PSP is likely to give you several different kinds of "Format failed" errors.

These "Format failed" errors do not mean you can't use the card!

The ONLY thing of importance is that after the format the PSP can see your inserted memory card with all the available space that was formatted!!!

For instance, 2 x 64 GB cards should result in ~118 GB stick size. A 200 GB card should show ~183 GB of free space.

This can be checked by navigating to "Memory Stick" under "Game", "Video", or "Music" in the XMB. If it shows "Free Space" of the right amount, you are good to proceed to the next step.

If it doesn't show the correct space then you won't be able to continue on with the next stage of configuration.
You can try several troubleshooting steps to try to get the system to show the available space.

If however you can't get the PSP to recognize the card with all space you will likely need to get a hold of another adapter, MicroSD card, or possibly CFW.

You may also get the error:

"There is no Memory Stick inserted"

This error may show either directly after format or upon inserting the card. In either case, same as the above - if you can't get past this error message you are out of luck with your current hardware configuration. Refer to the troubleshooting steps to see if you can resolve.

NOTE: If you plan on using only a single MicroSD card in a Dual adapter, place it the slot labeled "1" (top slot).

If you get a "Format completed." you are likely good to go - though you should read through the next sections to ensure that your card really is setup properly.

More than likely you will get a "Format failed" error, but as long as you have the usuable space showing on the Memory Stick in the XMB you should be able to get a usable card by re-formatting the drive from your PC.

To do this, you need to hook your PSP up via USB and go into "USB Connection" to mount your PSP to your PC.

During this process the PSP exposes the internal memory stick to your PC as a drive. At this point you should see a new drive letter appear in Windows.
The drive may:

• - Show as a good drive and contain all necessary PSP files and folders*
  - Show as a good drive, but not contain any files/folders
  - Show as a good drive, but have corrupted/gibberish data on it
  - Show as a bad drive needing fix/scanning

(* This would be at the very least the MSTK_PRO.IND and MEMSTICK.IND hidden files.)

If you had a "Format completed" message on your PSP and #1 above is true you can likely stop here and just start using the card.
However if you got any sort of "Format failed" message you should continue on.

Re-formatting After a Failed Format

This process simply entails re-formatting your card through the PC. After putting your PSP in "USB Connection" mode and seeing the drive letter appear in windows we need to reformat.

The tricky part here is that the PSP reads only FAT/FAT32 and Windows (by default) will not format a FAT32 partition above 32 GB.
There are however several tools/application which can get this job done.

rsn8887 (who helped me get over some of my misgivings about this process) recommends the lightweight guiformat tool in his helpful thread. This tool is extremely easy to use - just select the drive, cluster (allocation) size, and quick format.

While I have also had success with guiformat in some cases it would give me an error about the drive being locked. I have found more consistent success with the free EaseUS Partition Manager. I won't go into detail how to use this tool as most people reading this will have the necessary skills to decipher its basic use.

NOTE: Use 32 or 64 KB cluster size. See Best Practices for more info.

At this point the PSP drive letter should show as a good drive on the Windows system and you should be able to browse and copy files to/from it.

The final step is to create the default/file folder structure on this card that the PSP expects.

Note: Personally I was very concerned when I was unable to successfully format my card using the PSP. My thought process was that if the PSP is not able to successfully format the cards then it likely wouldn't be able to read/write data to them without issues either. This issue kept me from getting a successful build of a high capactity card for months as I searched and searched for adapters and MicroSD cards that would successfully format.
After many tests I decided that it was unlikely I was going to ever get a clean format on anything over 128 GB. After reading rsn8887's thread above and seeing that he encountered the same issues I did I gave in to the fact that I probably have to rely on Windows to properly format the cards.
I am happy to report though that although the PSP has issues with the formatting, it appears that once it is formatted properly via PC the PSP has no troubles accessing the cards.

Creating the Default Memory Stick File/Folder Structure

After a standard format on a PSP using the 6.61 OFW, the standard folders are created:

D:.
├───PSP
│ ├───GAME
│ ├───SAVEDATA
│ ├───COMMON
│ ├───SYSTEM
│ ├───THEME
│ └───RSSCH
│ └───IMPORT
├───MP_ROOT
│ ├───100MNV01
│ └───101ANV01
├───MUSIC
├───PICTURE
└───VIDEO

Additionally, there are two hidden files in the root:

• - MSTK_PRO.IND
  - MEMSTICK.IND

(to view these files make sure you enable hidden files in your Windows Explorer view!)

You can manually recreate this structure by copying it from another working card that formats successfully in your PSP.

After you manually create this folder structure on your PSP drive which has been successfully re-formated via the PC tools you should be good to go in using this card in your PSP.

You should dissconnect from the USB connection and restart your PSP several times to ensure that the card continues to be detected.
Alternately you can simply remove and replace the card. Some people believe that swapping cards while the PSP is on may lead to corruption of the filesystem on the card. While I have not personally experienced this, I tend to not remove my memory card while it is being accessed because I don't want to have to reformat and copy all my files again. However, do be sure to disconnect the USB mode from your PC before removing the card because that can lead to file system errors.

If the card is properly detected by the PSP and by the PC in USB mode, then try to copy one or two games/apps/music/etc and ensure they copy and play successfully. At this point you should be complete and ready to enjoy your high capacity Memory Stick!

Best Practices

I'm going to list in here some additional notes, suggestions, etc I have in terms of creating or managing your high capacity Memory Stick. The will not be in any particular order and some of these topics may be mentioned in other places in the guide.

Default Cluster size

When formatting your Memory Stick via the PC you will use FAT32 (FAT/FAT16 has a maximum partition size of 4 GB so is not an option when creating high capacity sticks).
Your formatting tool should provide an option for Cluster Size (possibly called "allocation unit size").

Select either 32 KB or 64 KB.

The only officially published standards for FAT32 partitions beyond 32GB state 32 KB sizes. However 64 KB is also sufficient. In theory, performance should be increased with larger cluster sizes at a (small) expense for space. If you plan to store mainly large ISO/CSO or video files go with 64KB. If you will have mostly small emulator programs/ROMS and music files you can stick with 32KB.

Consider building a card under 256 GB

While it is possible to go 400 GB+ larger cards are going to have speed penalties when loading the card.
Note this does not mean that things from the card will load slower, but it means that the PSP will take longer to recognize the card and load its contents into the XMB memory.

After I was maxing out my 128 GB card I decided to go with 400 GB but decided I didn't want the PSP to take a minute to load my memory card each time. I decided that I could probably fit everything I needed on a 200 GB for my day to day needs and save $$ and loading time.

If you really need all that space on one card and don't mind the waiting while the memory card is initialized each time, then there should be no problems going to the higher capacities.

Consider building a card with only one MicroSD

So you want a 256 GB card? There are some advantages in buying 1 x 256 GB MicroSD instead of 2 x 128 GB.
In fact, the only disadvantage is probably cost (as 2 smaller cards are cheaper than 1 big one).

If you do choose to go with one however you will get the following advantages:

• - You can remove the MicroSD from the ProDuo adapter and place it in a USB/other SD adapter to place in your PC. This can make transferring files, etc much quicker than doing it over the PSP USB Connection.
  - More likely a higher probability of working in your ProDuo adapter. Some adapters may have problems formatting both cards, but not with one. In fact, because you can mount the single card directly in your PC (without PSP) you can format it there using the methods in this guide and then put it into the ProDuo adapter. As long as the ProDuo adapter is capable of addressing that memory capacity it should work immediately!

Use ISO for speed, CSO for space

If anyone tells you that CSO (Compressed ISO) loading speed is negligible compared to ISO, they're lying.
Most games load anywhere from 50-100% slower when running from a CSO instead of an ISO.
Now - that being said, CSO compressed games are far from unplayable and in most cases won't have you twiddling your thumbs either.

As with the topic above regarding total Memory Stick size, you should decide if you want to use CSO or ISO.
You may opt for a smaller card and use CSOs to save space. Comparable to the speed differential, many games can be compressed considerably from their ISO forms.

You may however choose to stick with ISOs and use higher capacity cards to store them. Personally I prefer to have a smaller card with CSO files, but there isn't a wrong decision here.

Use a File manager to sort/alphabetize, and a Categories Plugin to organize your files

With a large card you can load up hundreds of games. The problem becomes browsing them.

I recommend using pspHBSortTool to sort your games alphabetically.

I also recommend Game Categories Lite for organizing your games into folders. For instance you can create folders A-H, I-P, Q-T, and U-Z and divide your games up into their respective folders. Keep each set of folders relatively small and create as many letter ranges as you need to keep ~20-30 games per folder.

Troubleshooting

Getting PSP to recognize/format full amount of space

As mentioned in the guide above, the most important thing to get a working configuration is getting your PSP to format (even a failed format) the entire contents of your MicroSD card(s). If you get the "There is no Memory Stick inserted" error or simply only see a portion of the space you should then you might be out of luck. There are however some things you can try:

1) Try switching the slots each MicroSD card is in and formatting again.
2) Try to format each MicroSD in slot 1 by itself (i.e. nothing in slot 2). After formatting both separately, put them back in and try again.
3) Try to clean both disks completely using diskpart's "clean" process (or something similar)*
4) Try to format both cards using FAT32 in a 3rd party format tool.*
5) Try every combination of the above several times
6) Try a different CFW (though I doubt it will make a difference as long as both support high capacity).

* These require you to mount the MicroSD card directly in your PC using a USB (or other) adapter.

If you are unsuccessful with the above you may simply be out of luck with the combination of MicroSD card and ProDuo adapter you have. More often than not the issue will be the adapter, so spend another few bucks and try to get a few others with different physical characteristics.

You may also want to try to take the PSP out of the equation entirely. While ProDuo card readers aren't standard on most computers, you can purchase one and try the format directly from your PC. There are several on Amazon in the $8-15 range. While I have never tested one myself these may be the easiest/most foolproof method of getting a good format for a few extra $$. Note however that this won't automatically solve your issues if the ProDuo adapter itself is faulty or just not capable of addressing memory beyond a certain amount.

F.A.Q

In progress...

I will attempt to list any additional questions/clarifications in this section if there is confusion about the text of the main guide.