Hacking Only solution for Fragmentation Error is to format and re-copy?

[CraddaPoosta]

I am using a 32GB Sandisk microSDHC card, that does not show the class. It has what looks like a capital "I" next to where it says microSDHC, but no class appears on the front of the card.

My max card read speed when copying ROMs onto this card has been about 6MB, but is usually 4-5MB, tops.

Filling all 29.7GB of available space takes about an hour from start-to-finish.

I've had to copy my entire ROM collection (at least what will fit) a total of four times now, and am sick of it.

Tried using various defragging utilities, but all of them take forever and a day, and they always usually leave at least one ROM fragmented.

The solution I found was to just format the whole card and re-copy all of the everything.

Is there a faster, more efficient or better way of just adding or removing a single ROM, without causing any fragmentation issues?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Reecey]

Read here buddy there are some good tips

http://gbatemp.net/threads/gw-2-1-omega-fragmentation-error.364050/

 

[Quicksilver88]

Just curious you using fat32 or exFat? Also if you are using exFat what cluster size?

This may be a factor as by default exFat formats 32gb or larger cards with 192kb cluster size vs. 32kb clusters for fat32. I don't know if this is an issue but most people having the frag problem seem to be using exFat and I wonder if the larger cluster size is causing the issue.

 

[redkeyboard]

Have you tried shortening the filename?

 

[Heien]

Just a tip, copy roms from PC to microSD one by one. Do not copy all of them at once. Tested 11 roms this way including pokemon x and haven't seen a single fragmentation error.

 

[Arras]

Because of the way filesystems work... No. It is impossible to prevent this issue until Gateway updates their stuff to handle fragmented files. You might be able to prevent it by filling the card to only, say, 50% of its capacity though. (just a wild guess, no idea whether this will work and what the right percentage would be. It would also depend on the size of the files you're deleting and adding) Of course that means leaving a ton of space unused.

 

[Foxi4]

Do not defrag Flash storage, ever - moving small chunks of data around cycles the module something awful and will shorten its lifespan substantially. Your only method of doing this reasonably is to re-copy. If Windows gives you issues with batch copying, try Total Commander instead.

 

[CraddaPoosta]

Read here buddy there are some good tips

http://gbatemp.net/threads/gw-2-1-omega-fragmentation-error.364050/

This is the page I was referring to; I've read every post so far, and that's how I came to the original solution of formatting and recopying.

I just hoped there was a better/faster/quicker way. In the future, I am just going to tough it out when I get new ROMs, add them as I like, but to have to reformat and copy them all over right before going to sleep. Won't keep losing entire hours of gaming time by having to wait for my entire card's contents to copy, every time I make any change to what my microSDHC's content is.

 

[kyogre123]

This information may not be useful at all, but I can confirm that fragmented roms are playable. My copy of Animal Crossing is fragmented in various parts, yet I have been played it since Omega 2.0 was releaked.

 

[CraddaPoosta]

This information may not be useful at all, but I can confirm that fragmented roms are playable. My copy of Animal Crossing is fragmented in various parts, yet I have been played it since Omega 2.0 was releaked.

Really? Whenever I get the fragmentation error, and I try deleting, renaming and recopying the ROM, it gives me the same error again. Never lets me actually boot the game.

 

[mvmiranda]

Just curious you using fat32 or exFat? Also if you are using exFat what cluster size?

This may be a factor as by default exFat formats 32gb or larger cards with 192kb cluster size vs. 32kb clusters for fat32. I don't know if this is an issue but most people having the frag problem seem to be using exFat and I wonder if the larger cluster size is causing the issue.

Good catch, buddy!

Will it be the cluster size the one causing the errors?
Could someone test a small cluster size? something around FAT32 one...

 

[CraddaPoosta]

My microSDHC is formatted to exFAT, and the cluster size is 32kb.

 

[mvmiranda]

My microSDHC is formatted to exFAT, and the cluster size is 32kb.

So it really doesn't matter, ultimately...

Thx for the heads up!

 

[_Tim_]

Here is a program which scans an exFAT partition and calculates the number of fragments for each file in the root directory. Maybe the fragmentation error occurs when the number of fragments is too high?