Hardware Lightbulb!..Is this possible?

[Infidel]

I was sitting around bored yesterday with nothing to do, browsing the forum, and was looking at a hardmod thread when the lightbulb came on. I know that this probably isn't practical and menu load times would be horrendous etc but with that being said is it POSSIBLE to take a hardmod setup and instead of wiring to the motherboard wiring it to say a external hard drive a.k.a. (1TB N3DS XL) for example. Is this even feasible?

 

[smileyhead]

*watches thread*

 

[ItsKipz]

*watches thread*

this gon be a good one

 

[Mazamin]

Someone managed to load nand content from an sd(not emunand)

 

[PewnyPL]

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too different of a communication protocol. Just like you can't plug a HDD into an SD-card slot (which someone was going on and on on this forum for Wii U back in Loadiine-only days). And even if (and that's a HUGE if) someone managed to make a piece of electronics that would translate IDE/SATA communication to the direct communication that NAND has with 3DS, consider this - power. The 3DS charger is 4.6 Volt, battery itself is 3.7 Volt. A 2.5 inch laptop HDD requires 5 Volts, so this is already a problem. Next, battery drain. You know how people said PSP was a bad idea due to UMD drive eating a lot of power? HDD would eat even more. The battery life of that 3DS would be cut to 20% AT BEST.

In other words - nearly impossible and completely non feasible.

Someone managed to load nand content from an sd(not emunand)

That's due to SD cards and 3DS's NAND are quite similair, that's why the hardmod has an SD-card as a plug, because certain models of SD-readers can read it that way.

 

[Infidel]

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too different of a communication protocol. Just like you can't plug a HDD into an SD-card slot (which someone was going on and on on this forum for Wii U back in Loadiine-only days). And even if (and that's a HUGE if) someone managed to make a piece of electronics that would translate IDE/SATA communication to the direct communication that NAND has with 3DS, consider this - power. The 3DS charger is 4.6 Volt, battery itself is 3.7 Volt. A 2.5 inch laptop HDD requires 5 Volts, so this is already a problem. Next, battery drain. You know how people said PSP was a bad idea due to UMD drive eating a lot of power? HDD would eat even more. The battery life of that 3DS would be cut to 20% AT BEST.

In other words - nearly impossible and completely non feasible.



That's due to SD cards and 3DS's NAND are quite similair, that's why the hardmod has an SD-card as a plug, because certain models of SD-readers can read it that way.

Thanks for this information. I knew power would be a problem. See what happens when the hamster starts turning the wheel. Thanks again for shedding some light on this for me.

 

[Mark McDonut]

I was sitting around bored yesterday with nothing to do, browsing the forum, and was looking at a hardmod thread when the lightbulb came on. I know that this probably isn't practical and menu load times would be horrendous etc but with that being said is it POSSIBLE to take a hardmod setup and instead of wiring to the motherboard wiring it to say a external hard drive a.k.a. (1TB N3DS XL) for example. Is this even feasible?

the sd method is for rescuing firmware / flashing. In addition, you'd need filesystem support, which according to 3dsbrew, only native on-nand fat16 is supported and sd-card supports fat32. If you'tre trying to save a ton of data using fat32 format, you're going to run into some issues when you hit the ~114gb ceiling which is a spec suggested limit, not even taking the 3ds into consideration.

TBH you're better off with hardmod for restoring/rescue and a 64gb sd card for functional practical use.

 

[sarkwalvein]

Possible yes.
Easy no.
Also, isn't the amount of NAND available to the system limited to 1GB or 2GB by the OS no matter the actual size of the nand chip?
I mean, even if you create a custom FPGA based interface to interconnect the NAND lines with an HDD and carry around a diesel generator to power the thing up, wouldn't it just end up being a N3DSXL with a 1TB HDD "NAND" that can only see 2GB of it?

 

[Infidel]

Possible yes.
Easy no.
Also, isn't the amount of NAND available to the system limited to 1GB or 2GB by the OS no matter the actual size of the nand chip?
I mean, even if you create a custom FPGA based interface to interconnect the NAND lines with an HDD and carry around a diesel generator to power the thing up, wouldn't it just end up being a N3DSXL with a 1TB HDD "NAND" that can only see 2GB of it?

I think we have different ideas here. When I posted this I was thinking this way: Modded MicroSD wired to ExternalHD, plug said MicroSD into 3DS and 3DS reads the HD from the SD card slot like it was a SD card.

 

[ItsKipz]

I think we have different ideas here. When I posted this I was thinking this way: Modded MicroSD wired to ExternalHD, plug said MicroSD into 3DS and 3DS reads the HD from the SD card slot like it was a SD card.

....

 

[gamesquest1]

go for it then
http://www.saelig.com/product/MIO001.htm
but I doubt a hard drive would work with that, but a big flash drive might, it also wouldn't fit into a n3ds console (I don't see the point though a sd card has plenty of space for cheap enough, who would really need 1tb of space on a 3ds, it doesn't even function as a media player really for that excuse)

ps it's kinda obvious you just moved the goalpost , you were talking about the nand at first and now switched to saying the sd card

 

[Infidel]

go for it then
http://www.saelig.com/product/MIO001.htm
but I doubt a hard drive would work with that, but a big flash drive might, it also wouldn't fit into a n3ds console (I don't see the point though a sd card has plenty of space for cheap enough, who would really need 1tb of space on a 3ds, it doesn't even function as a media player really for that excuse)

ps it's kinda obvious you just moved the goalpost , you were talking about the nand at first and now switched to saying the sd card

Plz point out to me where I was talking about NAND I must have missed it. I believe I also said external HD meaning the exterior of the device?

Ps: Clearly you couldn't even see the goal post for you didn't read this thread.

 

[GerbilSoft]

For replacing eMMC: There's no point. The system's limited to 943 MB (Old3DS/2DS) or 1.2 GB (New3DS) regardless of how much actual storage there is. (As an example, New3DS systems that have 1.8 GB NAND chips have ~600 MB that's never used.)

For the SD slot: Yes. You'd need to use a microcontroller to act like an SD card and bridge access between the SD interface and the HDD interface. This is ridiculously impractical, since you lose the 3DS's portability by doing this. (EDIT: Apparently the device exists and was linked in the previous post - "Mobidapter". It doesn't seem to be manufactured anymore, though.)

 

[zoogie]

I fully endorse this thread if only for its entertainment value.

 

[gamesquest1]

Plz point out to me where I was talking about NAND I must have missed it. I believe I also said external HD meaning the exterior of the device?

Ps: Clearly you couldn't even see the goal post for you didn't read this thread.

I was sitting around bored yesterday with nothing to do, browsing the forum, and was looking at a hardmod thread when the lightbulb came on. I know that this probably isn't practical and menu load times would be horrendous etc but with that being said is it POSSIBLE to take a hardmod setup and instead of wiring to the motherboard wiring it to say a external hard drive a.k.a. (1TB N3DS XL) for example. Is this even feasible?

you talk about hard mods, hard mods deal with the system nand, nothing else you said implied anything other than you hooking up a hard drive to the normal hard mod nand points

see every other reply in the thread seems to have read you post in the exact same way, nowhere did you mention anything about using it as a sd card until you moaned for people getting the wrong end of the stick see its hard to know what your originally asking if you talking about something completely different

anyway as I shared in my last post, that will be the kind of device you would need to do what it is you wanted to do, good luck

 

[Infidel]

For replacing eMMC: There's no point. The system's limited to 943 MB (Old3DS/2DS) or 1.2 GB (New3DS) regardless of how much actual storage there is. (As an example, New3DS systems that have 1.8 GB NAND chips have ~600 MB that's never used.)

For the SD slot: Yes. You'd need to use a microcontroller to act like an SD card and bridge access between the SD interface and the HDD interface. This is ridiculously impractical, since you lose the 3DS's portability by doing this. (EDIT: Apparently the device exists and was linked in the previous post - "Mobidapter". It doesn't seem to be manufactured anymore, though.)

Thanks you so much for this post. I wasnt thinking of replacing anything in the 3ds i guess what I was basicly trying to say is getting the sd slot to read the hdd possible. With what you said I guess it theoretically is but I realized that it wouldn't be a portable device anymore. The only use I could think of would (not even sure how many you can have) be 5 200gb emunands? Different regions? It was just a random thought I had yesterday I realized it wasn't practical. I always appreciate the valuable knowledge.

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you talk about hard mods, hard mods deal with the system nand, nothing else you said implied anything other than you hooking up a hard drive to the normal hard mod nand points

see every other reply in the thread seems to have read you post in the exact same way, nowhere did you mention anything about using it as a sd card until you moaned for people getting the wrong end of the stick see its hard to know what your originally asking if you talking about something completely different

anyway as I shared in my last post, that will be the kind of device you would need to do what it is you wanted to do, good luck

This is where we got confused I guess. when I said hardmod I meant like take the hardmod setup then replace the 3ds side of things with a external hdd. Sorry I probably worded things wrong.

 

[gamesquest1]

Thanks you so much for this post. I wasnt thinking of replacing anything in the 3ds i guess what I was basicly trying to say is getting the sd slot to read the hdd possible. With what you said I guess it theoretically is but I realized that it wouldn't be a portable device anymore. The only use I could think of would (not even sure how many you can have) be 5 200gb emunands? Different regions? It was just a random thought I had yesterday I realized it wasn't practical. I always appreciate the valuable knowledge.

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This is where we got confused I guess. when I said hardmod I meant like take the hardmod setup then replace the 3ds side of things with a external hdd. Sorry I probably worded things wrong.

no worries, well see if you got one of those mobiadapters you could replace the SD slot with a usb port, I read one person bought one for using with loadiine on the wii u and said it worked fine (for what it is) so then you could use large sized flash drives for storing games etc (in replace of a sd card), but yeah its not really that practical sd cards aren't that expensive and the cost of the adapter you could buy a couple of 64GB sd cards anyway....plus having a usb drive hanging out the side of the 3ds wouldn't be very cool

 

[NekoMichi]

Damn, when I read the title I thought this was what you had in mind:

As for the hard drive, the power supply would be an issue with most conventional 2.5" hard drives, though theoretically you could probably power a tiny 1.4" hard drive from the old iPod Mini. That said, the 1.4" HDDs only go up to 4GB (I think, might be wrong) in capacity, so it's not really worth it.