Hacking FAT VS WBFS

[tj_cool]

Is it true that if we delete a game in WBFS that space will never be reused?

No

The space will be marked as inactive and will be overwritten the next time

 

[Pakatus]

Is it true that if we delete a game in WBFS that space will never be reused?

i wonder if those rumours are inspired by some "secret-fat-filesystem-conspiracy-to-take-over-the-world"

 

[smf]

Is it true that if we delete a game in WBFS that space will never be reused?

i wonder if those rumours are inspired by some "secret-fat-filesystem-conspirancy-to-take-over-the-world"

Most of the FUD is coming from the WBFS side, the only problem with FAT right now is that not all loaders support it.

The games don't have to take any appreciable difference on either ( you can dump 1:1 copies on FAT/WBFS if you want or you can remove all but the game partition on both too ).

There is no limit to the size of the game, because they are split into seperate files every ~2gb.

If WBFS doesn't fragment the files, then it will fragment the free space. If it does fragment them, then it's in the same boat as FAT but has no way of defragging.

All the technical arguments for WBFS have always been flawed, it's entire existance was a mistake.

Once your favourite loader has support for FAT, then the only reason to ever move away is when it adds support for NTFS.

 

[FenrirWolf]

It would be helpful if the first post had some (accurate) compare/contrast info so people would stop making bad assumptions or asking the same questions repeatedly. That's how vs. threads ought to work. >_>

 

[tj_cool]

It would be helpful if the first post had some (accurate) compare/contrast info so people would stop making bad assumptions or asking the same questions repeatedly. That's how vs. threads ought to work. >_>

Well, we have an excellent guide, so if you want to include one ...

 

[Fat D]

advantages of WBFS:
- Supported by most loaders and managers
- Stealthy, tends to stay hidden from view
- quicker file system access
advantages of FAT:
- trivial defragmentation
- space need not be pre-allocated, can be used for other files - however, this will accelerate fragmentation: see above
- files can be moved with any file manager once converted

However, at the moment I would say that it is still WBFS which is more beginner-friendly, due to the high availability of file managers vs. a command line tool only for FAT. However the availability of drag-and-drop on wbfs_file makes the issue a little less pressing.

 

[FenrirWolf]

Also, is loading via FAT32 any more or less compatible than from a dedicated WBFS drive? Anyone run any tests on that?

 

[laurozza]

Another pro that i noticed is that deleting the WBFS partition have improved my hard disk compatibility with other homebrew(like emulators)that have never work before with usb but only from sd.

 

[bnm81002]

so the bottom line is which is the better way to go? which way will preserve the life of the hard drive longer? thanks

 

[olliepop2000]

so the bottom line is which is the better way to go? which way will preserve the life of the hard drive longer? thanks

I can't imagine that making much difference.
Hey is it possible to implement SMART monitoring into USB loaders? just a thought...

 

[LxTrix]

fat32 support was added to slowly get rid of WBFS so while one person might say its for newbies that's not at all true.

 

[Wiimm]

WBFS fragments, definitely. If adding a new ISO LIBWBFS will always use the first free blocks.
Because of the large blocks/clusters and few files fragmentation is not so bad.

P.S.: With the command "wwt dump -lll wbfs" you can analyse your WBFS.

 

[spritefreak]

What loaders are FAT compatible?

Also, if you have WBFS formatted games, is it possible to convert them back to be able to play them on a FAT system?

 

[bnm81002]

WBFS fragments, definitely. If adding a new ISO LIBWBFS will always use the first free blocks.
Because of the large blocks/clusters and few files fragmentation is not so bad.

P.S.: With the command "wwt dump -lll wbfs" you can analyse your WBFS.

so FAT doesn't fragment then? Fat is the way to go to preserve the hard drive life?

 

[TheShadowRunner]

Waiting for rev15 to support FAT, but why not go all the way to FAT32?
FAT32 would support those big games without splitting.

 

[madeirabhoy]

WBFS fragments, definitely. If adding a new ISO LIBWBFS will always use the first free blocks.
Because of the large blocks/clusters and few files fragmentation is not so bad.

P.S.: With the command "wwt dump -lll wbfs" you can analyse your WBFS.

so FAT doesn't fragment then? Fat is the way to go to preserve the hard drive life?

no, as you delete files and fill space both formats will fragment equally.


However on the one side, fat can be defragmented, on the other hand, if you have other files on the drive this is likely to make the fat drive defragment quicker.

Neither is a big issue in general use, the size of files and the general rarity of deleting files means that fragmentation will be slight, theres not a major issue for the drive to move between two fragments as is likely to be about worst case for most people, its when a drive in normal use for files that are continually saved over ends up really fragmented and some files are in 50 fragments that speed and drive life is an issue

 

[nando]

Neither is a big issue in general use, the size of files and the general rarity of deleting files means that fragmentation will be slight

i'm not here to argue for one or the other, but the fact that people can now have everything on one partition with fat, means that there will be lots of deleting and writing over and over. i would suggest two partitions even if with fat if you happen to watch movies on wii for example.

 

[AllWiidUp]

and has no file fragmentation meaning that there is less space wasted

Because there is no fragmentation it does waste space. Fragmentation happens when small pices of big files get into small free spaces on the disc.
So, if you delete a 2GB game in the middle of your WBFS partition and you install a 3GB game the Installer will put it at the first free space with at least 3GB, this is not the 2GB space you made free before. So if you don't have other games under 2GB you will loose this space forever. So it does waste space. On a Fat partition the first 2GB would go into the 2GB free space and the last GB into the next free space.

This is all written on the asumption that the one who said that WBFS does not fragment the files is right.

WBFS fragments discs, and doesn't waste space. remove a 2GB in the middle and install a 3GB, 1GB will be at the end. Fat32 with wbfs files suffers from the same problem. since there are more than 1 file, even if you defrag the drive, a single file might be contiguous, but the 2nd + files aren't guaranteed to follow, since it will filnd the next largest contiguous space to put the file. This is where the fat32 guys get tripped up, you get the same behavior in both systems unless you copy everything off, format and then copy back on. WBFS does have less overhead than wbfs files on fat32.

 

[AllWiidUp]

In FAT, a 500MB (in WBFS) game would take 4GB right?

No it compresses it the same amount if not better

same compression ( removal of unused sectors ), but overhead of filesystem is smaller in WBFS, compared to FAT, but in either case is negligible compared to the size of the games.

 

[EnioMarcos]

FAT: KISS