How to find your SD card's device

In laptop computers with SD card slots, this will often be /dev/mmcblk0. In most desktop computers, even if it has an integrated SD card reader, they will be connected by a multiport USB unit and will be presented as /dev/sdX, where X is a single letter. Given your first hard drive is often /dev/sda, you will be looking for the highest letter possible.

I find the following recipe to be reliable and simple:

  1. Open a terminal

  2. Get the list of existing devices in your system into a temporary file (say, /tmp/before_sd):

     $ ls /dev > /tmp/before_sd
  3. Insert your SD card (be it via an external reader or directly to the SD port of your computer)

  4. Get again the list of devices into a second temporary file (say, /tmp/after_sd):

     $ ls /dev > /tmp/after_sd

  5. Compare them. Don’t worry, Unix is your friend!

     $ diff /tmp/before_sd /tmp/after_sd
 36a37,39
 > mmcblk0
 > mmcblk0p1
 > mmcblk0p2

    Or, if the device follows sdX, it would be:

     $ diff /tmp/before_sd /tmp/after_sd
 55a56,57
 > sdc
 > sdc1

    Note the topmost name you received — In my case, either mmcblk0 or sdc. That’s the device you want to write to! (the other devices will point to partitions within the media you inserted).

  6. Just for cleanness sake, remove the temporary files:

     $ rm /tmp/before_sd /tmp/after_sd