After figuring out how to get the USB external hard drive to show in WiiStation and other emulators (remember folks, even if it's a single partition, the partition table must be MBR, not GPT), I tried some SEGA CD and TurboGrafx-CD titles and noticed some pauses in gameplay and sounds. This was using Redump's multibin/cue. I then tried the same games in CHD format on the SD card and they ran fine. I then run the CHD versions on the hard drive and get the same pauses as I would get with the bin/cue versions.
A quick and easy method to test was with Sonic CD US on Genesis Plus GX standalone. After pressing Start on the first screen, a second screen appears, showing Sonic next to the SEGA logo waving his finger, then sparkles shoot from his finger and a sound is played. When run from the hard drive, that sound starts off as a sort of buzz noise with the sparkles staying put, a pause. It happens whether it's bin/cue or CHD. On SD, this pause and buzz noise doesn't occur.
On another note, I used WiiStorageBench on large files for both SD and USB and was surprised with the results. I've read posts that USB is way faster than SD due to the latter being slowed down on purpose by Nintendo. The test showed around 7000 KB/s for SD, and 7600 KB/s for USB. Not much of a difference! I then tried out an SD card from a USB drive and that also had 7600 KB/s for the file I tested. What's more, running Sonic CD from that setup didn't give the pause/buzz that occured when ran from the external hard drive.
I'm guessing the pausing problem is due to my hard drive? It's a WD Elements 2TB with 5400 rotation speed. It came with a USB cable, but I've been using a Y-adaptor, however the tests were done with both and I saw no difference. But the benchmark speed has me wondering if my Wii's USB ports aren't that good or if that really is the normal speed that things run on that. I've looked for benchmark tests by other users running other USB devices and found zilch.
Yes, I know USB 2.0 speeds aren't as good as 3.0, but I figured they would be better than what I've found. And yes, I've used the port closer to the side of the Wii.
A quick and easy method to test was with Sonic CD US on Genesis Plus GX standalone. After pressing Start on the first screen, a second screen appears, showing Sonic next to the SEGA logo waving his finger, then sparkles shoot from his finger and a sound is played. When run from the hard drive, that sound starts off as a sort of buzz noise with the sparkles staying put, a pause. It happens whether it's bin/cue or CHD. On SD, this pause and buzz noise doesn't occur.
On another note, I used WiiStorageBench on large files for both SD and USB and was surprised with the results. I've read posts that USB is way faster than SD due to the latter being slowed down on purpose by Nintendo. The test showed around 7000 KB/s for SD, and 7600 KB/s for USB. Not much of a difference! I then tried out an SD card from a USB drive and that also had 7600 KB/s for the file I tested. What's more, running Sonic CD from that setup didn't give the pause/buzz that occured when ran from the external hard drive.
I'm guessing the pausing problem is due to my hard drive? It's a WD Elements 2TB with 5400 rotation speed. It came with a USB cable, but I've been using a Y-adaptor, however the tests were done with both and I saw no difference. But the benchmark speed has me wondering if my Wii's USB ports aren't that good or if that really is the normal speed that things run on that. I've looked for benchmark tests by other users running other USB devices and found zilch.
Yes, I know USB 2.0 speeds aren't as good as 3.0, but I figured they would be better than what I've found. And yes, I've used the port closer to the side of the Wii.
