Roku2 Giga: A store outage forced me to improvise and upgrade my Roku2 with a 128GB Class 10 MicroSD card

The purpose of this page is to show a rather unique modification made to a Roku 2 device. At the start of my quest I had no idea I'd rocket past some norms established on the Internet many years ago (it is 2023 at the time I put this webpage together). You want to see how impressive the Roku 2 actually is - which I doubt was discovered until now? Read on.

When I started out, I had the simple intent to add a microSD card to the Roku 2 device since it was excruciating to try to load a channel like Netflix or Apple TV whom both are heavy on hi-def images. And by excruciating, I mean the Roku 2 (with no microSD card) would not load those sorts of modern channels.

So, I did some research for the type/size of microSD card that could be added. The norm seemed to be around 32GB and Class 4 (a microSD card that is no longer carried many places), but Amazon had it. I also saw some stories of people adding a Class 10 microSD and having that reduce their Roku 2 to the title of paperweight, and really nothing new reported for the past several years. My order finger was itching to buy a 32GB Class 4 microSD but then I thought, "Do I really want to wait for a week? We're in the modern age after all."

Instead, I decided to drive a few miles to a store to get a microSD. I went through the store and, wouldn't you know it, they were out of stock on basically everything. Things were not looking good and I was starting to get agitated. I went to a huge store, dedicated to tech gadgetry, with hope of at least getting a 32GB Class 10 microSD. But, wouldn't you know it...they were out of everything except for huge capacity and excessively fast microSD cards. In fact they only had a few 128GB Class 10 microSD cards (as the smallest size). I decided to take a gamble and see if the 128GB Class 10 microSD would transform my Roku 2 into a paperweight or not...if worst came to worst, I could buy another Roku since they are not too expensive.

I snagged one of the few remaining 128GB Class 10 microSD cards and headed home. Here are how things turned out:

	Yes, this is my Roku 2 pictured with the SanDisk 128GB Class 10 microSD card! Shortly, I'll discover if I'll be making a paperweight or not...all because multiple stores had little to no inventory.
	As shown here, the back of the Roku 2 has a slot for the microSD card (pointed to by arrow).
	After inserting the 128GB Class 10 microSD, it took around 15 minutes for the Roku to format it. Following that I barreled right on over to Apple TV and Netflix and, BAM, I had no trouble loading with those (and other) channels! In fact, the Roku2 has been humming along every day for over a month now. Just to prove the Roku 2 works with the massive microSD card, I took a picture of the settings page. Is that impressive, or what?! Meet Roku2 Giga! :)

NOTE: Click on an image to enlarge it.

Conclusion
I am confident that when the Roku 2 was engineered many years ago, nobody thought about such massive microSD cards (if I'm not mistaken 32GB was "high end" back then). I also think I may have avoided some of the bad experiences I read about from others - possibly because I waited until now and had the latest software updates.

Still, I'm quite impressed with Roku and engineering a device that, here in 2023, works with a SanDisk 128GB Class 10 microSD without problem!

Desire to achieve balance is rarely tuned to the domain it is realized within, thereby recasting it into atypical substance.