Hacking Hekate and its different file sized backups

Snap00 · Mar 5, 2021

Hi there

Tried a bit around with the backup functions in hekate and get the following results :

Creating a filebased emummc results in 4 GB parted files, independent where the SD format is Fat32 or exFat.

Creating a backup from a RAW Partition results in 2 GB parted files on Fat32 and in one 29 GB file on exFat.

Migrating all those backups in a emummc shows no noticeable differences in performance or speed, wether using the 2 GB or 4 GB parts, nor the single file.

But why every function generates different file parts and sizes and sometimes consider the fileformat (backup the RAW partition) and sometimes not (creating a emummc from sysnand) ?

Also no noticeable differences between filebased and RAW partition based emummc. What‘s recommend for best performance and security ? It‘s still a RAW partition ? Is exFat still not save ?

Greetings, Snap.

Draxzelex · Mar 12, 2021

Snap00 said:
Hi there

Tried a bit around with the backup functions in hekate and get the following results :

Creating a filebased emummc results in 4 GB parted files, independent where the SD format is Fat32 or exFat.

Creating a backup from a RAW Partition results in 2 GB parted files on Fat32 and in one 29 GB file on exFat.

Migrating all those backups in a emummc shows no noticeable differences in performance or speed, wether using the 2 GB or 4 GB parts, nor the single file.

But why every function generates different file parts and sizes and sometimes consider the fileformat (backup the RAW partition) and sometimes not (creating a emummc from sysnand) ?

Also no noticeable differences between filebased and RAW partition based emummc. What‘s recommend for best performance and security ? It‘s still a RAW partition ? Is exFat still not save ?

Greetings, Snap.

Backups could always be split or not regardless of the format. emuMMC however cannot be used as a single file on FAT32 so the universal solution is for it to be automatically split. I believe partition-based is still slightly faster than file-based on top of the fact that it is less prone to corruption. And exFAT is far from safe.

Snap00 · Mar 29, 2021

Hi Draxzelex

Just wondering, why hekate makes 4 GB parts, while creating a filebased emummc and makes 2 GB parts, while backing up a RAW Partition. And in the second case it considers also the filesystem, by doing parts or even a single file. It does the same procedure for each function in a different way.

Greets, Snap.

tabzer · Mar 29, 2021

Snap00 said:
Hi Draxzelex

Just wondering, why hekate makes 4 GB parts, while creating a filebased emummc and makes 2 GB parts, while backing up a RAW Partition. And in the second case it considers also the filesystem, by doing parts or even a single file. It does the same procedure for each function in a different way.

Greets, Snap.

The file based emummc was created a lot more recently, after a lot of research and better understanding developed. 2 GB parts are safe. 4 GB parts are more efficient. Changing something about the past isn't really a priority when it there is no issue caused by how it already is.

Also, a full-sized backup on an exFAT isn't going to be as prone to corruption due to the lack of constant reads/writes. It's only meant to be read, after being written once. It's not made with the file-based emuMMC constant read and writes in mind.

Draxzelex · Apr 11, 2021

Snap00 said:
Hi Draxzelex

Just wondering, why hekate makes 4 GB parts, while creating a filebased emummc and makes 2 GB parts, while backing up a RAW Partition. And in the second case it considers also the filesystem, by doing parts or even a single file. It does the same procedure for each function in a different way.

Greets, Snap.

File-based emuMMC is a rather new utility compared to making backups which the latter has been around since the scene's inception. For backing up the eMMC, CTCaer may have wanted to encourage people to use smaller SD cards to dump it just so that they have a dump available. As an example, Hekate lets you dump the eMMC as 1 GB parts but only if the space doesn't exceed 2 GB. As for file-based emuMMC, it won't be functional without an SD card that can support its entire size of around 30 GB but there is also less of a need to make shortcuts if the SD card is formatted as FAT32 so 4 GB parts is sufficient.

Hacking Hekate and its different file sized backups

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