Hacking Is there *any* advantage to WBFS drives?

[djtaz]

It was kind of skipped over earlier but somone did mention it.

WBFS is a native format for a wii so it can read the drive easier and without converting anything.

For this reason alone , the wii is faster when accessing a WBFS partition. Windows is slower at reading it as are other OS's , and they are better at reading other formats , which is why most want to step away from WBFS and use a more 'user friendly' OS.

People will always differ on what format to be used but this was discusses at great length when initially deciding on an OS for the usb loaders and it was discovered that Fat32 had certain size limitations that slowed things down , and NTFS also had its issues with read and conversion speeds, so WBFS was used to make things easier for the wii.

Personally , i wouldnt be limited by a 500 game limit on a drive - id just get another drive if i got that stuck ... or maybe delete a few games, and i find a simple small fat partitiion for covers is simple to do for the covers.

I dont see why people fuss so much - the loaders work great and there is a lot of choice , so pick what you want yourself. At this stage it really is up to you and no answer is the right one for everyone.

 

[Wiiwu]

dexter222 put it very nicely - the WBFS filesystem is a relic or soon to be.

True - its native to Wii since it was first released last year with usb loader to allow games to play from usb. The limitations that you mentioned could not be overcome by the original developers so they created WBFS.

Now, things are different; oggzee/hermes solved those limitations and give us FAT/NTFS support. Speed/size/reliability are non-issues anymore.

I'll say *technically* there is no advantage to keeping your games in a WBFS drive/partition.

---

The only advantage is for sellers of HDD packed with Wii games - they luv WBFS, they tell their customers their HDD is special format, games are protected and cannot be copied which for most non-tech buyers is true.

 

[bubbleboy]

seems like a lot of trouble to format my harddrive to a different format, then re-rip all the games on there though.

the benefit of "being able to use the extra space for something else" doesn't seem like it warrants all that work/time.

Just copy all the files (most are under 4 gig) to another HDD when you aren't using the computer. Come back, it's done. Format drive, start the copying the files to the FAT32 partition. Have a shower. Done.

You don't actually need to sit there and click 'copy' and 'paste' for every individual file.

FAT32 >>>>> WBFS

 

[poppa0808]

Just my two cents: no loader would ever mount my external when I tried various partition schemes on FAT32. NeoGamma and cusb both timed out trying to find my data. So knowing the limitations of wbfs at least it seems to work pretty universally. Who knows, might have been a quirky issue with my drive (an old laptop drive salvage from my gfs macbook) but regardless everything works now so i can't complain.

 

[ThaDraGun]

I'm still on WBFS. I've been thinking about changing to fat32.. havent yet since I figure it will be a lot of work since I have over 100 games on my drive.

If I do change, how do I add the games to the fat32? I've always used WBFS manager before to add my games. Can I just drag and drop the game anywhere or does it have to be in a specific folder?

How do I get a scrubbed game on there? When I download a scrubbed game it comes in rar files. It could be only 600mb but then when I unpack it it turns into 4.5gb. When I put it on my wii drive with WBFS manager it changes it back to 600mb. How would I change it on fat32 to be 600mb?
How do I put the big games on, I've read they have to be split because fat32 doesnt support large files. is there a program for that?

I read that some people are experiencing slow reading time on fat32. Everyone with big drives have that problem? My drive is 1tb.

Sorry for all the questions. I just cant decide if I should change over or not. I've never had a problem with WBFS

 

[dexter222]

I'm still on WBFS. I've been thinking about changing to fat32.. havent yet since I figure it will be a lot of work since I have over 100 games on my drive.

If I do change, how do I add the games to the fat32? I've always used WBFS manager before to add my games. Can I just drag and drop the game anywhere or does it have to be in a specific folder?

How do I get a scrubbed game on there? When I download a scrubbed game it comes in rar files. It could be only 600mb but then when I unpack it it turns into 4.5gb. When I put it on my wii drive with WBFS manager it changes it back to 600mb. How would I change it on fat32 to be 600mb?
How do I put the big games on, I've read they have to be split because fat32 doesnt support large files. is there a program for that?

I read that some people are experiencing slow reading time on fat32. Everyone with big drives have that problem? My drive is 1tb.

Sorry for all the questions. I just cant decide if I should change over or not. I've never had a problem with WBFS

If WBFS is working great for you and you only have 100 games you might not really need to switch. WBFS can handle 500 games per partition. You'd only be able to fit 550 games on a 1tb drive anyways even if you were to switch to NTFS or FAT32, give or take a few games, and that's if you aren't using other partitions for other things. Even though it doesn't make any sense to set up any new Wii partitions with WBFS it doesn't necessarily mean you need to run out and change it right away if it's working okay for you and doing everything you need it to

That said, if you do decide to change, Wii Backup Manager http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=188...t=0&start=0 is the most complete Wii file utility I've ever seen. It can copy Wii games from WBFS/FAT32/NTFS partitions (including ISO and cISO formats - and even rar files) TO WBFS/FAT32/NTFS partitions while taking care of the scrubbing while doing so.

The individual games are going to load at close enough to the same speed no matter what you do. You WILL notice slower load times as you get upwards of say 700 games on an NTFS/FAT32 partition - not for the individual games to load, it just takes about 10 seconds for the game list to populate in USB loader gx with that many titles...

Hope this helps.

 

[ThaDraGun]

I'm still on WBFS. I've been thinking about changing to fat32.. havent yet since I figure it will be a lot of work since I have over 100 games on my drive.

If I do change, how do I add the games to the fat32? I've always used WBFS manager before to add my games. Can I just drag and drop the game anywhere or does it have to be in a specific folder?

How do I get a scrubbed game on there? When I download a scrubbed game it comes in rar files. It could be only 600mb but then when I unpack it it turns into 4.5gb. When I put it on my wii drive with WBFS manager it changes it back to 600mb. How would I change it on fat32 to be 600mb?
How do I put the big games on, I've read they have to be split because fat32 doesnt support large files. is there a program for that?

I read that some people are experiencing slow reading time on fat32. Everyone with big drives have that problem? My drive is 1tb.

Sorry for all the questions. I just cant decide if I should change over or not. I've never had a problem with WBFS

If WBFS is working great for you and you only have 100 games you might not really need to switch. WBFS can handle 500 games per partition. You'd only be able to fit 550 games on a 1tb drive anyways even if you were to switch to NTFS or FAT32, give or take a few games, and that's if you aren't using other partitions for other things. Even though it doesn't make any sense to set up any new Wii partitions with WBFS it doesn't necessarily mean you need to run out and change it right away if it's working okay for you and doing everything you need it to

That said, if you do decide to change, Wii Backup Manager http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=188...t=0&start=0 is the most complete Wii file utility I've ever seen. It can copy Wii games from WBFS/FAT32/NTFS partitions (including ISO and cISO formats - and even rar files) TO WBFS/FAT32/NTFS partitions while taking care of the scrubbing while doing so.

The individual games are going to load at close enough to the same speed no matter what you do. You WILL notice slower load times as you get upwards of say 700 games on an NTFS/FAT32 partition - not for the individual games to load, it just takes about 10 seconds for the game list to populate in USB loader gx with that many titles...

Hope this helps.

Thanks alot, that explanation really helped. I think I'll stick with WBFS.

 

[bubbleboy]

I'm still on WBFS. I've been thinking about changing to fat32.. havent yet since I figure it will be a lot of work since I have over 100 games on my drive.

If I do change, how do I add the games to the fat32? I've always used WBFS manager before to add my games. Can I just drag and drop the game anywhere or does it have to be in a specific folder?

How do I get a scrubbed game on there? When I download a scrubbed game it comes in rar files. It could be only 600mb but then when I unpack it it turns into 4.5gb. When I put it on my wii drive with WBFS manager it changes it back to 600mb. How would I change it on fat32 to be 600mb?
How do I put the big games on, I've read they have to be split because fat32 doesnt support large files. is there a program for that?

I read that some people are experiencing slow reading time on fat32. Everyone with big drives have that problem? My drive is 1tb.

Sorry for all the questions. I just cant decide if I should change over or not. I've never had a problem with WBFS

Slower speeds are only on startup, if you have a lot of games (500+). You will have to wait an extra 5 or 10 seconds. The actual games load just as quickly once the loader has started.

But if you are on WBFS and things are fine then there might be no reason to change.

For all n00bs, forget WBFS, it's a lot more trouble than it's worth. Lots of disadvantages, where FAT32 only has a few seconds longer startup (and even then only if you have an insane amount of games) as it's only real disadvantage, and even that is negligible.

 

[dexter222]

I'm still on WBFS. I've been thinking about changing to fat32.. havent yet since I figure it will be a lot of work since I have over 100 games on my drive.

If I do change, how do I add the games to the fat32? I've always used WBFS manager before to add my games. Can I just drag and drop the game anywhere or does it have to be in a specific folder?

How do I get a scrubbed game on there? When I download a scrubbed game it comes in rar files. It could be only 600mb but then when I unpack it it turns into 4.5gb. When I put it on my wii drive with WBFS manager it changes it back to 600mb. How would I change it on fat32 to be 600mb?
How do I put the big games on, I've read they have to be split because fat32 doesnt support large files. is there a program for that?

I read that some people are experiencing slow reading time on fat32. Everyone with big drives have that problem? My drive is 1tb.

Sorry for all the questions. I just cant decide if I should change over or not. I've never had a problem with WBFS

Slower speeds are only on startup, if you have a lot of games (500+). You will have to wait an extra 5 or 10 seconds. The actual games load just as quickly once the loader has started.

But if you are on WBFS and things are fine then there might be no reason to change.

For all n00bs, forget WBFS, it's a lot more trouble than it's worth. Lots of disadvantages, where FAT32 only has a few seconds longer startup (and even then only if you have an insane amount of games) as it's only real disadvantage, and even that is negligible.

LOL Thanks for the great paraphrase

 

[Scuba156]

If WBFS is working great for you and you only have 100 games you might not really need to switch. WBFS can handle 500 games per partition. You'd only be able to fit 550 games on a 1tb drive anyways even if you were to switch to NTFS or FAT32...

WBFS can handle more than 500 games... just format it with a bigger sector size

 

[dexter222]

If WBFS is working great for you and you only have 100 games you might not really need to switch. WBFS can handle 500 games per partition. You'd only be able to fit 550 games on a 1tb drive anyways even if you were to switch to NTFS or FAT32...

WBFS can handle more than 500 games... just format it with a bigger sector size

The only reason to continue to use WBFS is so you can continue to use your existing partition and not have to reformat and transfer all your games around. If you're going to reformat a drive/partition anyways, it would be silly to use WBFS.

 

[Scuba156]

True, i was just correcting that particular statement as its been fixed.

I use WBFS by the way and i only have 35 games, im just too lazy to change it to FAT32 or NTFS, but i might now with Usb Loader GX's NTFS support. now we just need HFS+

 

[dexter222]

True, i was just correcting that particular statement as its been fixed.

I use WBFS by the way and i only have 35 games, im just too lazy to change it to FAT32 or NTFS, but i might now with Usb Loader GX's NTFS support. now we just need HFS+

LOL I made a joke about that earlier somewhere asking when it was going to support MFS - the original Mac File System - even on 400k floppies, the only media available at the time, it supported something like 1400 files.


BTW: Even though it's a moot point now, has the 500 game limit for WBFS really been fixed? I read that there was one command line utility that let you define a bigger sector size, and that USB Loader GX was thinking about supporting bigger sector sizes, but did that actually happen? Have you've actually tested it? Has anyone actually tested it and put it into use?

 

[drcrappants]

im going to a fat32, can i plug in isos into my wbfs folder (the mount") and have wii read that or do i need to convert to .wbfs first so the read can read them? also, is there any data loss/ slowness/ etc in the conversion?

 

[nl255]

I'll say *technically* there is no advantage to keeping your games in a WBFS drive/partition.

Actually, the big advantage is you don't need to go to the trouble of making sure you have enough free space on a different drive (possibly having to buy another hard drive), extracting each of your games, converting each one to .wbfs or .ciso format, and then putting them on the newly reformatted drive. In my case, I would probably have to buy another drive to have enough free space to do the conversion.

 

[smf]

I'll say *technically* there is no advantage to keeping your games in a WBFS drive/partition.

Actually, the big advantage is you don't need to go to the trouble of making sure you have enough free space on a different drive (possibly having to buy another hard drive), extracting each of your games, converting each one to .wbfs or .ciso format, and then putting them on the newly reformatted drive. In my case, I would probably have to buy another drive to have enough free space to do the conversion.

That is an operational advantage, not a technical one. The time to do it is another problem.

 

[commdante]

Well, I bought a Wii yesterday (had OS3.1 on it, so at least can watch DVD's :3 (only other DVD drive I've got is in my comp and that kinda stinks, besides ... it's getting REAL old. And some GC games are so hard to get these days)) and I had a lot of trouble trying to get "backups" running (mostly due to being "hasty" and not reading the stickies/readme-s thoroughly through, which resulted in wasting more time compared to when I would have).

Anywho, I finally figured some stuff out. Like: stuff needs to be in a certain "naming format" to be recognised (being ./wbfs/GAMEID.iso etc if wondering). I figured I could just browse the drive and select which directory held my data and it would get recognised instead of the "name the file with the ID number"-thingy.
Lacking in money to buy another external drive, I figured I'd just format my USB-stick for now and try WBFS with "Wii game manager v1.5". Since then everything almost seemed to work "out of the box".
I guess THAT is the main reason why people stick with WBFS (for what does that stand for anyway? W(here's all data/WAD) Big File System?)

For now I can at least play some games and it does help against skimming through them. The only thing I'm still a bit puzzled about/couldn't find is which partition format likes to be first for what reason etc (say: for when mixing FAT (for homebrew), WBFS for game-data and FAT32 (does homebrew like FAT that much better over fat32?) for misc stuff/backup for other stuff. I kinda would like to regain/have at least 1GB left on my USB-stick.

Only thing that sticked to me was that no "logical drives" should be made (so max=4 partitions, all primary) and something about being active (I thought that was only for booting OS'?).

 

[smf]

Lacking in money to buy another external drive, I figured I'd just format my USB-stick for now and try WBFS with "Wii game manager v1.5". Since then everything almost seemed to work "out of the box".
I guess THAT is the main reason why people stick with WBFS (for what does that stand for anyway? W(here's all data/WAD) Big File System?)

IIRC Wii backup file system

FAT32 with a backup manager that supports it would be just as easy to use. Require less steps and Windows wouldn't complain about the drive needing formatting every time you plug it in. You could also use the free space for other things easier (like running ps2 backups).

 

[julz1]

I swapped to Fat32 the other week i know people complain about like 1-2 secs of loading time during the boot but i think this is way better like my games are 60% pal 40% NTSC i swapped to Fat and for some reason i didnt have to mess around settings to just boot a game like Force NTSC, Vid Patch, swap IOS, alt dol. etc plus it feels better knowing that i have all the free space to use once Wiisx and Wii64 beta 2's come out i swapped am very satisfied