Hacking Using WBFS, any reason to go FAT and/or NTFS?

[smf]

Well my point there was in terms of fragmentation affecting speed.. I mean single game disc fragmantation... AFAIK a game's blocks stored contigiously on wbfs file system...

Games can be fragmented on WBFS. They can also be unfragmented on FAT32.
The wbfs managers probably try to limit the fragmentation, but it's not possible to always avoid it.

 

[hdhacker]

Unless games stored to a wbfs partition are being broken into smaller pieces on different parts of the drive, there's no fragmentation going on. AFAIK, a game stored to a wbfs partition takes up a continuous part of the drive. Yes, there can be unrecoverable gaps when games are deleted, but gaps does not mean fragmentation.

 

[Dispel]

NTFS, because I use the disc for other non-Wii stuff too .. CFG loader supports it fully other then ripping straight from disc - that is done via PC

 

[ClockWorK]

@DeadlyFoez: Wrong. To use NTFS for Wii games, you have to convert your 4.37 GB iso files to *.wbfs or *.cISO files (uLoader). wbfs files are shrinked/scrubbed/trimmed (whatever) just like game on a WBFS partition.

Thanx for the info. I wasn't aware of it. I'm still going to stick to wbfs though.

I think this is still wrong.

I use NTFS. My files are .ISO. They are sparse ISO files, so they are all listed as 4.3 gig. But they actually only take up the scrubbed size on the disc. So, WiiSports only consumes a few hundred megs on the drive. Wii Backup Manager writes sparse ISO files by default.

If any loader supports .WBFS or .CISO from an NTFS drive, I think it's only uLoader.

Both GX and CFG support sparse .ISO files on NTFS partitions.

 

[smf]

AFAIK, a game stored to a wbfs partition takes up a continuous part of the drive.

It's a common misconception but games on WBFS can be fragmented, each game has a list that maps blocks to different parts of the disk. WBFS blocks are usually bigger than FAT32's clusters, which will ensure that there is less fragmentation (but it wastes more space). Also because you are limited to only storing WBFS files on there, your free space is less likely to get fragmented (but again, it is a waste of space as you can't resize WBFS partitions).

Free space fragmentation has everything to do with game fragmentation, unless you move all your games to the beginning of the disk each time you delete one then eventually you won't be able to write a game without splitting it up.

The only reason to stick with WBFS is if your favourite loader doesn't support FAT32 or NTFS.
I prefer FAT32 as it has advantages over both WBFS & NTFS. The only down side is 4gb file limits, but splitting files is trivial compared to WBFS/NTFS.

 

[FullMetalEnginee]

@DeadlyFoez: Wrong. To use NTFS for Wii games, you have to convert your 4.37 GB iso files to *.wbfs or *.cISO files (uLoader). wbfs files are shrinked/scrubbed/trimmed (whatever) just like game on a WBFS partition.

Thanx for the info. I wasn't aware of it. I'm still going to stick to wbfs though.

I think this is still wrong.

I use NTFS. My files are .ISO. They are sparse ISO files, so they are all listed as 4.3 gig. But they actually only take up the scrubbed size on the disc. So, WiiSports only consumes a few hundred megs on the drive. Wii Backup Manager writes sparse ISO files by default.

If any loader supports .WBFS or .CISO from an NTFS drive, I think it's only uLoader.

Both GX and CFG support sparse .ISO files on NTFS partitions.

Hi clockwork, I have tried to use sparse ISO files using your program to do it. The disk size on volume still takes 4.3 for games that should be 2.5 gigs scrubbed (sonic all stars racing)...
Even if I do an export of games in ISO format with wii backup manager they still are full size in their listing and space on disk.

How do you guys get this working? I'm using NTFS partitions.

 

[gotchapt]

*bumpity bump*

So... I always used a wbfs partition, but now my hdd is dead and when I have a new one I'm considering using a NTFS filesystem. Has anything on usbloaders changed, since the last time? I'm still considering the advantages and disadvantages.

 

[PsyBlade]

WBFS: legacy
no need to change existing drives
no need to create new ones either
(used as a baseline here)

FAT: normal
+ usable on any computer (without special programs)
+ support all kinds of files eg movies for mplayer (4GiB max per file)
+ supported by hbc and other homebrew

NTFS: pirate
+ usable on most computers (without special programs)
+ support all kinds of files (no max size)
- read only on wii (so no ripping bought discs ...)


besides a growing adoption of fat and ntfs nothing has changed

 

[Gvaz]

I have a whole drive just dedicated for wii games in my wbfs partition and the other half is for storage for my stuff.

Totally worth it.

 

[Liberty]

I would go for
1. Primary/Active FAT32-partition for Wii-stuff
2. Logical NTFS-partition for whatever you want to do

The FAT32-partition is holding the following files:
-Wii-Disc-Backups
-UNEEK-NAND

 

[PeregrinFig]

I just started with USB loaders, and I'm pretty happy with WBFS personally. I don't have enough apps/emulator ROMs/etc that I really need the space on the HDD for that, everything occupies barely 1GB on my SD card. I've had absolutely zero problems with the WBFS HDD and USB Loader GX, every single game I've tried easily went onto the drive and played perfectly, including problem games like New Super Mario Bros Wii and Monster Hunter Tri.

The only thing I'd like about FAT32 is being able to keep the archives the isos came in on the HDD itself. It took too long to download the archives to just delete them in the case of something happening to the isos, and they're occupying a decent sized chunk of space on my laptop's hard drive.

 

[PsyBlade]

Id go for one big FAT partition

the 4GiB max are not really a problem
Games in *.wbfs format are split on creation
the only other type of large file for most users are HD movies
but while they are easily split they cant be played on wii anyway