Homebrew Specific question before backing up NAND

[Roquentin]

I know rule of thumb is you need an SD card that has 2x the size of your system memory (i.e. 64gb for a black 32gb Wii U). But if my console is pretty empty (no digital downloaded games) what are the consequences / risks of using a 32gb SD card, since I'm planning to immediately transfer the backup to an HDD anyway (not keeping the backup on the SD card). Is it just a matter of 'if it runs out of memory, the backup will fail' or is there more to it than that? Can I do some kind of 'free memory' check beforehand to know for sure that there will be no problems?

Thanks!

 

[Lacius]

Even if you don't have any game content on your NAND, you will still need 32GB of space on the SD card. Since the vast majority of 32GB SD cards actually have slightly less than that, you almost definitely need to have a 64GB SD card to backup a 32GB NAND. There's no real way around this with the currently available tools.

 

[Roquentin]

Even if you don't have any game content on your NAND, you will still need 32GB of space on the SD card. Since the vast majority of 32GB SD cards actually have slightly less than that, you almost definitely need to have a 64GB SD card to backup a 32GB NAND. There's no real way around this with the currently available tools.

Crap. That's what I was worried about. I already have a 32gb SD card, and would prefer not to buy a 64gb one if I dont need to. Is there some way I can selectively copy over the important parts of it, or is that some mess that I don't want any part of. Background - I am at kind of a medium level of tech sophistication (have successfully modded and added homebrew to a Wii and 3DS, but have not modded my Wii U yet, but would like to). Also, how important is backing up the NAND? Is this necessary, or just optional good practice on the off chance that I brick it.

Oh, and thanks for the previous reply- I really appreciate it.

 

[Lacius]

Crap. That's what I was worried about. I already have a 32gb SD card, and would prefer not to buy a 64gb one if I dont need to. Is there some way I can selectively copy over the important parts of it, or is that some mess that I don't want any part of. Background - I am at kind of a medium level of tech sophistication (have successfully modded and added homebrew to a Wii and 3DS, but have not modded my Wii U yet, but would like to). Also, how important is backing up the NAND? Is this necessary, or just optional good practice on the off chance that I brick it.

Oh, and thanks for the previous reply- I really appreciate it.

I think making a NAND backup is important, but I don't believe it's worth the price of buying a new SD card. If you're just using homebrew applications and installing games, you're very unlikely to need a NAND backup.

 

[Ryccardo]

Also, how important is backing up the NAND? Is this necessary, or just optional good practice on the off chance that I brick it.

It's only (practically) useful for unbricking via hardmod, but having one and never needing it didn't kill anyone

A backup is made of: SLC (512 MB) + SLCCMP (Vwii) (512 MB) + MLC (8/32 GB) + OTP (little) + EEPROM (little)
You can in theory back them up separately, as long as you do them "close enough" in time (basically meaning "don't update, don't factory reset, don't change the launcher app by installing CBHC or other means" in between those)

Ah, 8 GB privilege