1.5 or 2tb SDXC card constant corruption

[SylverReZ]

Use a installer like DBI or Awoo with a USB cable from PC to Switch and you don't have to worry about splitting files.

The developer of DBI once said that he's going to brick Switches in retaliation to people asking for an English translation. If something does arise, then I would strong advise moving to Tinfoil or Awoo.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

unfortunately as it sounds, switch doesnt really know how to properly handle a exFAT filesystem leading to filesystem corruption.

FAT32 on other hand works great on switch, with a big caveat. It cause slow down. Its a well known drawback of FAT32 on larger capacity drives. You may not notice this on Switch that much but very noticeable on systems like PSP with duostick to sd adapter and Nintendo 3DS.

its also a good idea to check the SD card first if its fake or not. The quickest way to validate it is using Validrive application from grc which is the same maker of spinwrite.

I don't have issues with slowdown, that said I always use 64K cluster size on large drives.
It will obviously take longer to list directories and initially load the game list as there are more files and more data that needs to be read but that is the case regardless.
Load times in games should not be affected, at least in my experience.

Post automatically merged: Dec 29, 2024

talking about microsd cards, what maximum capacity ns supports? 4 tb?
readed somewhere that ns2 will support 8 tb cards...

Electrically, SDXC and SDUC seem to be the same, so it's likely the transition will be as smooth as the transition from SDHC->SDHC and existing SDXC devices should just work with it, so theoretically 128 TB (the limit for SDUC) is the limit. But the Switch can only display 2000 game icons so you will run into other limits well before you can fill up a card that large.

 

[cucholix]

Out of curiosity, what tool did you format your card with, and what cluster size did you pick? I'm assuming GUIFormat, 65536 byte cluster size? I'm about to switch to a bigger card myself.

Directly with hekate, it picks the cluster size automatically

 

[rave420]

FAT32 on other hand works great on switch, with a big caveat. It cause slow down. Its a well known drawback of FAT32 on larger capacity drives. You may not notice this on Switch that much but very noticeable on systems like PSP with duostick to sd adapter and Nintendo 3DS.

There might be something to this, but I'm not sure it is strictly related to Fat32. Moving from a 64gb microSD to a 512gb microSD, for example, caused some serious slowdown on the 3DS for me. Granted, I filled like 250gb or so with roms for emulation and a crapload of 3DS games, so it might just be the sheer amount of files the system is having troubles with. Every time the 3DS goes "checking contents of SD card" I basically have enough time to make myself a coffee with the 512gb card, it used to be much snappier on the 64gb version.

Trying to access a folder with more than 100+ items in it over FTPD sometimes straight up fails to list the contents of the directory, never had that issue on the 64gb card. And no, the contents are not corrupted, inserting the card into an SD reader everything works, writes, and reads properly. Not sure if this is a homebrew-specific issue, even the 3DS system menu is overwhelmed and just displays "999,999 free blocks" or whatever. Evidently Nintendo never expected people to use cards bigger than 64gb in a 3DS. The switch on the other hand was designed with large capacity cards in mind.

It is perhaps worth noting that a fat32 file system keeps two file allocation tables handy, for redundancy purposes, and exfat does not. Maybe this is why exfat cards are more liable to corrupt. If a write to the file allocation table screws up somehow, the system can fall back onto the 2nd copy, worst case you'll just be missing a file, and the corruption stays contained. In theory exfat should be the more resilient file system because it instead relies on a cluster bitmap and additional metadata for error recovery and efficiency. Nintendo must have screwed up something big time in their exfat implementation to make it less reliable than a file system out of the MS-DOS days.

Fat32 was never made with such capacities in mind. The huge amount of clusters seems to be what is causing slowdowns, so picking the largest cluster size in order to keep their count down seems sensible. I can't say I have ever noticed similar slowdowns on the Switch. Maybe it is just far more noticeable on the 3DS due to a general lack of system processing power.

 

[impeeza]

So for over 3yrs Ive had a 1TB sdxc card sandisk if it matters in my v1 swich formatted in exfat. Now I finally upgraded to a 2tb SDXC card and what a nightmare so far. I'm constantly getting corruption and I know its a legit card (so no need to mention that issue, i confirmed its real). So my issue is most likely the exFAT format. But why on the 2tb and never on my 1tb card have i seen this issue? Can anymore explain that to me? Or is there perhaps a fix coming in atmoshere that is in development. I cant make heads or tails of this, If I must go to fat32 fine, but it really seems like its something else.

NEVER user ExFAT format on a SD Card for Switch, AND OPEN A ISSUE on Atmosphère and/or Hekate or better contact @SciresM on Discord, may be the initialization of SD cards will need to be tweaked for new cards.

Post automatically merged: Dec 29, 2024

Sucks so many games are over 4gb and what a pain to split them just to install the large nsp/xci.

YOU DON'T NEED TO COPY THE XC* NS* FILES TO YOUR SD CARD IN ORDER TO INSTALL THEM, ALMOST ALL INSTALLERS LIKE TINWOO ALLOW YOU TO INSTALL GAMES FROM NETWORK OR USB CABLE.

 

[LagunaLoire88]

So for over 3yrs Ive had a 1TB sdxc card sandisk if it matters in my v1 swich formatted in exfat. Now I finally upgraded to a 2tb SDXC card and what a nightmare so far. I'm constantly getting corruption and I know its a legit card (so no need to mention that issue, i confirmed its real). So my issue is most likely the exFAT format. But why on the 2tb and never on my 1tb card have i seen this issue? Can anymore explain that to me? Or is there perhaps a fix coming in atmoshere that is in development. I cant make heads or tails of this, If I must go to fat32 fine, but it really seems like its something else.

Sorry but it does sound like it is a fake, corruption of out door makes it very likely it is one. I mean 2tb microsd cards that are legit are rare and super expensive, unless you bought it direct from a real brick and mortar retailer then it is likley a fake. Heck I checked a few shops locally and all do not have a 2 tb micro sd card for sale and the one on amazon is a fake.

 

[Deleted member 731084]

FAT32 on other hand works great on switch, with a big caveat. It cause slow down. Its a well known drawback of FAT32 on larger capacity drives. You may not notice this on Switch that much but very noticeable on systems like PSP with duostick to sd adapter and Nintendo 3DS.

If you mean the good old "doubling the capacity of your SD card doubles boot time on the 3DS" type issues, that's because the readers (or IO generally) in those devices are super slow, still having to read the entire FAT. And the size of the FAT is based on the number of sectors, which are dependent on cluster size. That's why 64k clusters is important on these devices, it halves the size of the FAT.

 

[00diabolic]

I'm going to start over with fat32, I've already had a lot of issues and it might be cluster size also but its not worth waiting for whatever bug might be fixed for exfat. Ill just use fat32 and get going. It will stop my bad habit of copying the games directly to the card anyway to install. So thanks for everyones help. I'm just shocked so many people are forced to fat32 when it has those limits, to bad exfat is not good enough on the switch.

For the record my card was bought direct from sandisk/western digital so its legit and yes it is a exfat issues I guess I'm forced to admit that now. I'm still surprised I got through so many cards with no issues to come to this card and face them all.

 

[kidkat210]

The exfat driver will never be fixed by ninty. This has been a know issue since roughly atmosphere was released, and since the issue mainly applies to homebrew. They aren't gonna fix it.

 

[00diabolic]

The exfat driver will never be fixed by ninty. This has been a know issue since roughly atmosphere was released, and since the issue mainly applies to homebrew. They aren't gonna fix it.

I know nintendo wont fix what they have but what I'm wondering is if the sd card reader on the switch would get some kinda update or perhaps atmosphere would have some kinda update that helps larger card issues. IDK, the line between what's nintendo issue, a card reader driver and what could be related to atmosphere is blurry at best. The reason i say this is because I had issues with my 1tb card with exfat at first and then a later atmosphere and horizon update fixed it for me last time. How I got through so many cards on exfat with no issues I guess is Pure luck, still odd. Even if nintendo wont fix the underlying issues perhaps a patch will. In any case I cant wait for it and want to use my 2tb card now, so fat32 it seems is the only way, especially since multiple people are using 2tb with fat32 and it works.

Unmodified switches also see issues: https://www.nintendolife.com/forums/nintendo-switch/1_5tb_sd_card_concerns

 

[kidkat210]

1) the card reader doesn't have a firmware, so there is nothing to patch.
2) if the driver for exfat could be redone/fixed by atmosphere devs, they would have by now. The exfat driver has been known to be unstable when using homebrew. We (the community) have known this since ~2018. Hence why every guide (every good guide at least) says to use exfat.

Yes you were lucky. Your not the first or last to say "they've been using exfat for x years and didn't have any problems till now" and that issue could have been anything, left over file from an older atmosphere version (sometime just overwriting the files causes issues when updating atmosphere)

Again exfat issues mainly affect homebrew (more specifically, when they crash) it can happen even on unmodified units (pkmn scarlet and violet caused issues for ppl with exfat untill a game update came out) it's just a shitty driver that only ninty could fix

 

[00diabolic]

1) the card reader doesn't have a firmware, so there is nothing to patch.
2) if the driver for exfat could be redone/fixed by atmosphere devs, they would have by now. The exfat driver has been known to be unstable when using homebrew. We (the community) have known this since ~2018. Hence why every guide (every good guide at least) says to use exfat.

Yes you were lucky. Your not the first or last to say "they've been using exfat for x years and didn't have any problems till now" and that issue could have been anything, left over file from an older atmosphere version (sometime just overwriting the files causes issues when updating atmosphere)

Again exfat issues mainly affect homebrew (more specifically, when they crash) it can happen even on unmodified units (pkmn scarlet and violet caused issues for ppl with exfat untill a game update came out) it's just a shitty driver that only ninty could fix

Thanks for the further explanation.

 

[anon730]

1) the card reader doesn't have a firmware, so there is nothing to patch.
2) if the driver for exfat could be redone/fixed by atmosphere devs, they would have by now. The exfat driver has been known to be unstable when using homebrew. We (the community) have known this since ~2018. Hence why every guide (every good guide at least) says to use exfat.

Yes you were lucky. Your not the first or last to say "they've been using exfat for x years and didn't have any problems till now" and that issue could have been anything, left over file from an older atmosphere version (sometime just overwriting the files causes issues when updating atmosphere)

Again exfat issues mainly affect homebrew (more specifically, when they crash) it can happen even on unmodified units (pkmn scarlet and violet caused issues for ppl with exfat untill a game update came out) it's just a shitty driver that only ninty could fix

Yeah, with ExFat it's not If it will fail, but When.

 

[Ikaruga007]

I've tought 2tb sd cards didnt exists (yet)

The 2TB "extreme" Micro SD by Sandisk has been available for a while now, haven't seen any other brand attempt that but apparently there are more popping up now. The extreme stands for extreme price by the way (also extreme speeds but you're not getting any benefit in the switch with them I'd wager)

I've been using exfat forever on all sorts of capacities and it's never caused any of these "always does" problems. Oh, I've had problems but never due to the SD card being exfat.

Yes, I've been using a 256GB exfat card for my launch Switch as well without any issues but there's no denying that it can cause problems. Only downside I can think of with Fat 32 is that you can't have larger Switch Roms on it for install, unless you split them because of the max file size limitations of fat 32, I think it was 4GB.

 

[kidkat210]

The 2TB "extreme" Micro SD by Sandisk has been available for a while now, haven't seen any other brand attempt that but apparently there are more popping up now. The extreme stands for extreme price by the way (also extreme speeds but you're not getting any benefit in the switch with them I'd wager)


Yes, I've been using a 256GB exfat card for my launch Switch as well without any issues but there's no denying that it can cause problems. Only downside I can think of with Fat 32 is that you can't have larger Switch Roms on it for install, unless you split them because of the max file size limitations of fat 32, I think it was 4GB.

Why put the nsp on the sd to install when you could install over usb or even ftp instead?

 

[Ikaruga007]

Why put the nsp on the sd to install when you could install over usb or even ftp instead?

Convenience of not needing to connect the switch via USB, there are file splitter tools for this purpose alone. You can put the ROMs on the sd card with a fast card reader, insert it into the switch and install them. These days I just install them over USB though, it's quite fast this way too at 40-50MB/s.

 

[worm28]

I'm going to start over with fat32, I've already had a lot of issues and it might be cluster size also but its not worth waiting for whatever bug might be fixed for exfat. Ill just use fat32 and get going. It will stop my bad habit of copying the games directly to the card anyway to install. So thanks for everyones help. I'm just shocked so many people are forced to fat32 when it has those limits, to bad exfat is not good enough on the switch.

For the record my card was bought direct from sandisk/western digital so its legit and yes it is a exfat issues I guess I'm forced to admit that now. I'm still surprised I got through so many cards with no issues to come to this card and face them all.

You can split your NSP and XCI files with this and install from sd card you just need your prod.keys https://github.com/dezem/SAK/releases

 

[kidkat210]

1) its less convenient cause you gotta split the files
2) proceed to wait for files to transfer over (depending on various variables, some people will have faster transfer times others wont)
3) you gotta make sure you have 2x the the file size.

Usb install (granted this portion is different depending on the installer) just requires a cord and that's it. If you use any installer other than dbi or tinfoil, you'll need ns-usbloader to push said files.

But each to there own

 

[anon730]

Yes, I've been using a 256GB exfat card for my launch Switch as well without any issues but there's no denying that it can cause problems. Only downside I can think of with Fat 32 is that you can't have larger Switch Roms on it for install, unless you split them because of the max file size limitations of fat 32, I think it was 4GB.

Using DBI, awoo even tinfoil,I have had no trouble installing the roms over 4gb. My personal preference is DBI, the others in a pinch. I use only FAT32 after learning my lesson to heed the exfat warnings.

 

[l7777]

Convenience of not needing to connect the switch via USB, there are file splitter tools for this purpose alone. You can put the ROMs on the sd card with a fast card reader, insert it into the switch and install them.

This still doesn't make sense to me though. This process requires:

1. Remove SD Card from Switch
2. Connect to computer via SD Card reader (likely USB)
3. Split files
4. Copy files to sd card
5. Remove card from computer
6. Install card in Switch
7. Install software
8. Delete installer files to free up sd space

Doing install directly to Switch via DBI/Tinfoil/Etc...:

1. Start MTP responder on Switch
2. Connect Switch to computer via USB cable
3. Drag/drop files to be installed