Question How to decrease the apparent capacity of a storage medium?

[Pimpom]

Some devices have an upper limit on the capacity of storage device they can use. For example, the popular MP3 player module DFPlayer Mini can recognize only 32GB or lower capacities of microSD card. My Panasonic FZ1000 M2 camera can use up to 128GB.

Is there a way to decrease the apparent capacity of a memory card or thumb drive?

 

[SkyNetRising]

Is there a way to decrease the apparent capacity of a memory card or thumb drive?

Delete existing partition (usually full size) from USB flash drive and
create desired size partition. Format it to necessary file system format.

 

[Pimpom]

Thanks for the quick reply.
Is it that simple? The thought occurred to me but I couldn't try it because I don't have any device with such a capacity limitation right now.

Besides, I wondered if it involved something more complicated like being able to communicate with the storage device's firmware.

 

[popatim]

That's not always the case. Some devices do see the device size and need a modified firmware to work. Our old tape robots at work could not work with system drives larger than a certain size to they had to get a certain seagate which the firmware allowed the size to be edited every time one would fail.

in the case of flash cards, The technology of the card will also add a restriction. I'm referring to like trying to use an SDXC card in an old device that can only read SD. Generally newer hardware is compatible with old cards but old hardware is not compatible with new card tech.