Hacking Possible SDXC support?

[Elliander]

I don't really see the point; my 2GB SD card is more than enough, and I have 20 homebrew apps, Project M, and a NAND backup stored on it.

Nintendo would certainly agree with you. Originally Nintendo had no plans to allow even 32 GB SD cards to work because, to them, what you have is more than enough. It's not like anyone would actually purchase WiiWare, right? Then the modding community managed to get 32 GB SD to work and Nintendo, realizing that even the average player who doesn't use Homebrew would want to be able to load more games from SD, followed suit.

For you 2 GB is more than enough, but not everyone plays the same way that you do. Also, keep in mind that a 2 GB SD card today costs MORE than an 8 GB SD card. (no, seriously. Look for yourself.)

Today: (source: Amazon.com)
32 GB SD costs $13.99 New, 18.55 used (class 4); or $28.25 New, $30.24 used (class 10)
16 GB SD costs $5.99 New, $12.00 Used
8 GB SD costs $1.39 New, $75 used.
4 GB SD costs $0.10 New, $1.88 used (class 4)
2 GB SD costs $3.50 New, $0.99 used.
512 MB costs $3.05 new (Elite Pro); or $17.85 New $9.44 used (SanDisc)
128 MB SD costs $12.98 new, and $8.95 used; or $130.00 New, 123.05 used (Class 10 speed).
64 MB SD cards are not even sold used anymore.

Eventually they will stop selling 2 GB SD cards so even you, someday, will need a larger SD card when the smaller ones become obsolete. What if you could only use 64 MB with something when it was more than enough? Even if you never needed more than 64 MB you would have been glad to be able to use a 128 MB SD card so you could replace your card when it fails.

The fact of the matter is that even you need higher capacity SD cards to work, even if you never need more than 2 GB. Even if when it does fail you are able to find 2 GB it won't be worth buying. It isn't even worth buying today and by next year a 32 GB will likely be cheaper than a 2 GB too.

If that isn't enough to convince you, you should be aware that SDXC cards are faster than SD cards. I don't know what the hardware bottle neck on transfer speeds from SD are, but more speed is always a good thing.

 

[Fishaman P]

SDXC cards are faster not because of the new specifications, but because they're based on new technology, kinda like how most USB 3.0 flash drives have passable random 4K performance now (because of the new controllers).

Anyway, SDHC (and definitely SDXC) cards are more expensive than USB flash drives, especially at higher capacities. If you're going with the cost-effective argument, then you have to realize that it isn't.

 

[smf]

Bill Gates in defense of the just-introduced IBM PC's 640KB usable RAM limit: "640K ought to be enough for anybody."

There doesn't seem to be a single piece of evidence that he did & he denies ever saying that.

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/biztech/gatesivu.htm

Your information is wrong anyway as the IBM PC only supported 16k or 64k. The first models of the IBM XT supported 256k and later on they made machines that supported 640k. There was no reason to defend the 640k limit at this point because there really was no option of supporting and keeping it backward compatible with 8086 software. Lotus/Intel/Microsoft introduced an expanded memory board that bank switched memory into the first 1mb, but you had to write software specifically for that & not a lot of software did.

Then when 80286 processors were introduced you could have up to 16mb of ram using extended memory, but again your software had to be written specifically to work in that mode.
You had to use a different compiler that used technology for switching back to 8086 mode for calling MS-DOS.

There were two times the 640k limit could have been avoided. The first was when Intel designed the 8086, but in 1976 it probably didn't seem like such a big limit. It was a big step up from the previous chips and it wasn't really expected to set the standard for the whole computer industry. Intel just rushed it out so that it was easy to port code to from their previous 8 bit processor and would stop their competitors from gaining market share until the iAPX 432 was released (which it never was).

The second was when IBM selected the 8088 over the 68000 for the IBM PC. The choice was unfortunately motivated by the cost. The 8088 was an 8086 that used an 8 bit bus, which allowed the PC to be cheaper. I don't believe Motorola had the 8 bit version of the 68000 (the 68008 used in the QL) available at the time, which could have swung it. Also the 68000 was more expensive than the 8088. It took four years before a 68000 machine was cheap enough to compete. The Lisa failed, but the Macintosh eventually was released. It was limited by the hardware design to 128k, much less than the IBM/XT that had been out for a year.

I don't believe there was anyone that really tried to justify the 640k limit. It's just an urban legend.

SDXC cards are faster not because of the new specifications, but because they're based on new technology, kinda like how most USB 3.0 flash drives have passable random 4K performance now (because of the new controllers).

SDXC just gives the extra storage space, but newer cards will support faster transfer modes (like UHC-1). However SDHC cards can support UHC-1 as well, but both types of cards will fall back to slower modes if the controller doesn't support them.

 

[huniper]

There doesn't seem to be a single piece of evidence that he did & he denies ever saying that.

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/biztech/gatesivu.htm

Your information is wrong anyway as the IBM PC only supported 16k or 64k. The first models of the IBM XT supported 256k and later on they made machines that supported 640k. There was no reason to defend the 640k limit at this point because there really was no option of supporting and keeping it backward compatible with 8086 software. Lotus/Intel/Microsoft introduced an expanded memory board that bank switched memory into the first 1mb, but you had to write software specifically for that & not a lot of software did.

Then when 80286 processors were introduced you could have up to 16mb of ram using extended memory, but again your software had to be written specifically to work in that mode.
You had to use a different compiler that used technology for switching back to 8086 mode for calling MS-DOS.

There were two times the 640k limit could have been avoided. The first was when Intel designed the 8086, but in 1976 it probably didn't seem like such a big limit. It was a big step up from the previous chips and it wasn't really expected to set the standard for the whole computer industry. Intel just rushed it out so that it was easy to port code to from their previous 8 bit processor and would stop their competitors from gaining market share until the iAPX 432 was released (which it never was).

The second was when IBM selected the 8088 over the 68000 for the IBM PC. The choice was unfortunately motivated by the cost. The 8088 was an 8086 that used an 8 bit bus, which allowed the PC to be cheaper. I don't believe Motorola had the 8 bit version of the 68000 (the 68008 used in the QL) available at the time, which could have swung it. Also the 68000 was more expensive than the 8088. It took four years before a 68000 machine was cheap enough to compete. The Lisa failed, but the Macintosh eventually was released. It was limited by the hardware design to 128k, much less than the IBM/XT that had been out for a year.

I don't believe there was anyone that really tried to justify the 640k limit. It's just an urban legend.



SDXC just gives the extra storage space, but newer cards will support faster transfer modes (like UHC-1). However SDHC cards can support UHC-1 as well, but both types of cards will fall back to slower modes if the controller doesn't support them.

WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!

 

[Gabriel Mejia]

Yes i know bumping an old thread is annoying,
i don't know if i'm breaking any rules
but i just wanted to point out to Elliander
that you should be able to get an sdxc card to work with any homebrew
it's just a matter of updating the libraries for each app to support ntfs since sdxc supports ntfs
only problem is some apps aren't going to get updated to support ntfs
because it would mean that several apps would have to be recompiled with a library that supports ntfs
as far as i know homebrew channel already supports ntfs
and there are some apps that already support ntfs
so that should at least fix part of the problem,
as for the idea of using fat32 with sdxc cards the reason why you don't go with fat32 has to do with maximum file size supported which is 4gb
and not to mention the maximum clusters supported is 4177918 and fat32 has very little fault tolerance compared to ntfs which supports 2 ^ 32 clusters
and has high fault tolerance and supports files up to 16 terabytes.

also the wii should support an sdxc card
it just won't operate at full speed
considering the controllers for the sd card module aren't optimized to run at 150MB/s.