Hacking MicroSD Cards for N3DS XL

[Dvdxploitr]

I am going to be buying a New 3DS sometime this week (hopefully) and odds are, will be installing TONS of CIA files (mostly VC games more than likely). What is the biggest MicroSD card the New 3DS can handle and does the card class make much difference? (install time, dumping/writing NAND during A9LH install, etc...)

 

[GothicIII]

No the card class makes nearly no difference. You won't see huge differences between the preinstalled class4 card and a class10. I won't go into much detail but it has something to do with the 3ds' cpu and the encryption.

Theoratically you can use >256gb cards. But the sdio chip from the 3ds has bugs with cards >32gb. They will boot slower than normal. The 64gb card need over 13secs to boot sysnand. And bigger cards will be even slower.

I recommend max 64gb to get a compromise between speed and size. Keep in mind there is also a limit of how many games you can install (about 300). many ppl use 128gb too. So do what you want

 

[Hayleia]

No the card class makes nearly no difference. You won't see huge differences between the preinstalled class4 card and a class10. I won't go into much detail but it has something to do with the 3ds' cpu and the encryption.

I understand that if the 3DS is slow, it doesn't copy/read faster to/from a class 4 or 10 SD card, but doesn't the class affect performance on PC at least ? I mean, when you install a cia on your 3DS, it's not faster with a class 10, but at least you copied the cia faster on the SD card from your PC ?

 

[GothicIII]

Of course.

 

[Dvdxploitr]

I saw NewEgg was selling 32GB MicroSD cards for $7.02, I might get two and use the program to duplicate my SysNAND and just swap between the two.....that would help get around the game limit plus give me around 60GB to play around with games .

 

[izy]

No the card class makes nearly no difference. You won't see huge differences between the preinstalled class4 card and a class10. I won't go into much detail but it has something to do with the 3ds' cpu and the encryption.

Theoratically you can use >256gb cards. But the sdio chip from the 3ds has bugs with cards >32gb. They will boot slower than normal. The 64gb card need over 13secs to boot sysnand. And bigger cards will be even slower.

I recommend max 64gb to get a compromise between speed and size. Keep in mind there is also a limit of how many games you can install (about 300). many ppl use 128gb too. So do what you want

Actually it does Larger cards have better Sequential Read/Write Speeds which is good since the Emunand/Sysnand is constantly accessing the cards.
Also card life wise Larger Cards are better Due to the Flash Memory type. Samsung 64gb cards and some other 64gb+ cards are actually using MLC Flash vs TLC flash (TLC is the reason SSDs used to die so fast at the start).
This leads to 3X+ more the write to the card before its lifecycle is hit and it dies.
Which is good because like i said the 3DS is constantly read/writing to the card. I have personally seen SD/MicroSD cards that came with the 3DS die due to this

Also the benefits of a larger card also come from reading it on the PC. For example my 32gb Card Class 10 caps at 30mb read speeds, my 64gb Caps at 80mb write speeds have a larger gap also.

Sure the 3DS seems to have a hardware Cap of about 3MB/S but the benefits are elsewhere and that is important.

The Boot times you stated are more due to the fact that LARGER CARDS HOLD MORE CONTENT ofc its gonna have longer boot time when you Home Menu has to read 2x to 4x the amount of content on boot

I saw NewEgg was selling 32GB MicroSD cards for $7.02, I might get two and use the program to duplicate my SysNAND and just swap between the two.....that would help get around the game limit plus give me around 60GB to play around with games .

Honestly Get a 64GB you will not hit the game Limit installing 3DS games unless you installed like 200VC games.

Each AList 3DS game averages 500mb -1.5GB

I installed the Best 40+ games on my 3DS and that hit about 50gb including DLC.

 

[Temarile]

I use a 32GB card and it's working fine. I still have plenty of space left for games.

 

[izy]

For example here is a list of some of the games I have. You really gonna hit 300 Cap lol

 

[GothicIII]

The Boot times you stated are more due to the fact that LARGER CARDS HOLD MORE CONTENT ofc its gonna have longer boot time when you Home Menu has to read 2x to 4x the amount of content on boot

No that's wrong. I've got 2 identical setups. 2x N3DSXL 9.2.0 booting gateway through menuhax. Sysnand is empty except menuhax installed. Sd cards are from same batch and manufacturer only the size is different (and yes the 64gb card is faster). On the 32gb card the gwlauncher starts after about 12secs while on the 64gb it's about 15. And no its not about the files installed.

I also saw flash/sd cards dying but honestly, putting the ssds aside, most cards will die because of hotplugging before even one sector wears out. You have to write over 3000 times to one sector over and over again to make it fail. So realistically even if you log everything what the 3ds do into a log file on the sd it will survive many years before it dies. So most sd card failures have other reasons to be defect.

 

[izy]

I also saw flash/sd cards dying but honestly, putting the ssds aside, most cards will die because of hotplugging before even one sector wears out. You have to write over 3000 times to one sector over and over again to make it fail. So realistically even if you log everything what the 3ds do into a log file on the sd it will survive many years before it dies. So most sd card failures have other reasons to be defect.

Wouldnt the gateway launcher be more privy on how fast the gateway card is accessed not the actual SD card so that kinda defeats the purpose. Try using actual homebrew

Except the 3DS is known to kill SD cards its also one of the reasons why they had to roll out a 10.5 update so fast because 10.4 was known to corrupt cards, even before that there are literally plenty of cases of cards Dying/Corrupting in the 3DS. Defects are Not That Common especially since so many cases are linked to the console..

Also about Hotplugging that in itself is more of a reason to get a Larger card.

if OP gets 2 cards he is constantly switching between the two which is bad.

 

[GothicIII]

Wouldnt the gateway launcher be more privy on how fast the gateway card is accessed not the actual SD card so that kinda defeats the purpose. Try using actual homebrew

What? I don't understand what you mean. If you start both consoles without gwcard inserted the speed is comparable. And the 32gb is definitive starting faster. I don't make things up, go look in 3dbrew.org and read about sdio.

Also about Hotplugging that in itself is more of a reason to get a Larger card.

if OP gets 2 cards he is constantly switching between the two which is bad

I agree. When I think about swapping sd cards all the time on a new3ds xl it will also damage the backplate.