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

[markmcrobie]

Since starting out with Wii softmodding 2 weeks ago, I went with formatting my 320GB HD as WBFS. Everything seems to be going ok, but I read a lot of people using FAT or NTFS.

Is there any advantage/disadvantage of me starting again with either of those two?

Cheers

 

[tj_cool]

An advantage would be that you can use the drive for other stuff than just games. It's also possible to recover and resize FAT32/NTFS partitions, which isn't possible with WBFS.

You can go to FAT32/NTFS if you really want to. You'll have to backup your games elsewhere for a while though (since WBFS can't be resized, and the format will erase all games).

 

[Tagg7]

I find that WBFS is still the most stable filesystem personally.

 

[zeedds]

I use fat32. That way I have my apps, wii games, emulators and roms, nand for triiforce, and movies/tv shows for mplayer on it and no need for an sd card. It can be defragged,resized or partitioned if need be.Also game discs can be backed up to it directly on the wii. At this time I think its the best choice.

 

[etrigan]

I use fat32. That way I have my apps, wii games, emulators and roms, nand for triiforce, and movies/tv shows for mplayer on it and no need for an sd card. It can be defragged,resized or partitioned if need be.Also game discs can be backed up to it directly on the wii. At this time I think its the best choice.

And this is why everyone should be using fat32. Everything on one fat32 partition.

I have a friend who has wbfs, and he's trying to switch to fat32...which means either extracting all of the iso's or reripping everything. Needless to say he's wishing fat32 was working when he first started all of this crap...

I honestly held out until fat32 was working for usb loaders(im chipped and i used to use neogamma here and there)...then i jumped on board with configurable usb loader.

 

[terminal_illness]

i use wbfs and am not going to change... what about DL on fat32? how to you get around the filesize limitation? i guess i use wbfs because i havent learnt how to install games on a fat32 drive. something about converting .iso's to .wbfs im not sure... can someone fill us in?

 

[zeedds]

it doesnt get any easier then this http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=188295

 

[rommy667]

I use fat 32 for apps and emus and WBFS for wii stuff its easy to split the drive and have both

 

[smf]

i use wbfs and am not going to change... what about DL on fat32? how to you get around the filesize limitation? i guess i use wbfs because i havent learnt how to install games on a fat32 drive. something about converting .iso's to .wbfs im not sure... can someone fill us in?

Games bigger than 4gb are split into multiple files, this isn't limited to dual layer, single layer is 4.7gb.
Converting iso's to wbfs files is no different to converting iso's to a wbfs partition. You just need newer software.

 

[Wiimm]

I have tested FAT and I stay on WBFS. I see no reasons to switch permanently to FAT/NTFS. With WBFS I haven't any writing, splitting or fragmentation problems and must not handle sparse files with care.

 

[ephumuris]

Also game discs can be backed up to it directly on the wii. At this time I think its the best choice.

WiiFlow does that on my WBFS drive.

 

[WiiUBricker]

I use NTFS but I was wondering if I should switch to FAT. What are the advantages and disadvantages between those two filesystems apart from the 4GB limit in FAT partitions?

Furthermore, is it possible to reformat a NTFS drive to FAT without losing all the data inside?

 

[lolsjoel]

My thought, if you're on WBFS and it's working well for you, why bother switching? Chances are you've got 10's to 100's of GB of games on it, so why go through all the work to switch to FAT?

Just my thought. But then again, I'm not sure what FAT/NTFS offers over WBFS (except I know I won't switch to NTFS).

 

[nickh]

I use NTFS but I was wondering if I should switch to FAT. What are the advantages and disadvantages between those two filesystems apart from the 4GB limit in FAT partitions?

Furthermore, is it possible to reformat a NTFS drive to FAT without losing all the data inside?

There are a number of Disc utilities for a PC which can change partition formats without losing data such as Partition Magic (which costs) and something like the Ultimate Boot CD which is free and runs off a CD.

AFAIK, the 4GB limit for FAT does not matter to a Wii as something like the WiiBackupManager will split larger files.

Up to recently (and maybe still true), NTFS partitions were read only on the Wii so you could not backup (aka copy) games discs from the Wii to the disc with something like the Configurable USB Loader. FAT read/write so copying is OK.

 

[WiiUBricker]

@nickh: Thanks

@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 and cISO files are shrinked/scrubbed/trimmed (whatever) just like games on a WBFS partition.

 

[WiiCrazy]

Today I wrote it in my local forum, let me translate it to here...

WBFS
+ Being a simple filesystem, faster than FAT32/NTFS
+ More established & widespread usage hence more loaders & tools support it
+ No need to defrag (a tool for this job doesn't exist anyway)

- Disc to disc copying is slower than FAT32/NTFS and you need to use specific tools for the job
- Game deletion doesn't reclaim the space at once... You need to add an exact size or smaller game so that it's placed where previously deleted game were (not exactly sure of this since I never deleted a game)
- You can't shrink or enlarge
- You can only use it for wii game storage, nothing else...


FAT32
+ Since the filesystem is a standard one no third party tools needed for copying the games and it's a bit speedier than WBFS
+ You can shrink, enlarge or defrag the drive using usual software
+ You can use the partition for homebrew & loaders (beware though some is strictly tied to sd usage so certain homebrew is out of this context )
+ Since you can load homebrew off it you might discard sd card usage

- Slow compared to wbfs especially when launching games & in game. Fragmentation can occur if you do a lot of delete & copy operations on the drive which again affects speed...
- Fat32 out of the box doesn't support >32GB drives you need 3rd party software to format such partition.
- Each homebrew program comes linked with a certain fat library. Possibility of corruption in case of malfunctioning homebrew or operation especially one that both reads from and writes to the drive
- Max file size on disc will be 4GB, you can't store say 6-8GB mkv files on that disc.

NTFS
+ Since the filesystem is a standard one no third party tools needed for copying the games and it's a bit speedier than WBFS
+ You can shrink, enlarge or defrag the drive using usual software
+ You can store files bigger than 4GB
+ Most homebrew doesn't touch it and those that touch mount it readonly (GX is the exception here AFAIK) and thus less probability of corruption.

- Slow compared to wbfs especially when launching games & in game. Fragmentation can occur if you do a lot of delete & copy operations on the drive which again affects speed...
- You can make use of with certain homebrew (like geexbox & mplayer ce) . Homebrew channel doesn't support it.
- It's spec is the reserved property of Microsoft. Library/ies on wii that support it created through a process called reverse engineering. If bugs prevail don't get surprised.
- You can't install games using a loader (since it's mounted read-only... again exception is GX AFAIK)

 

[smf]

+ No need to defrag (a tool for this job doesn't exist anyway)

- Game deletion doesn't reclaim the space at once... You need to add an exact size or smaller game so that it's placed where previously deleted game were (not exactly sure of this since I never deleted a game)

Those two points contradict each other. On WBFS both the free space and the games themselves can be fragmented. You just can't do anything about it & most tools don't report how fragmented it is. Ignoring it doesn't mean it's not there.

Another couple of cons for WBFS:

- Annoying prompt everytime you plug the drive into a windows machine, because it's not recognised as being formatted.
- WBFS managers have to be run as Administrator, so they have permission to cause damage ( either malicous or not ).

 

[tj_cool]

- Annoying prompt everytime you plug the drive into a windows machine, because it's not recognised as being formatted.

Mine doesn't give a prompt
It just ignores the WBFS partition

 

[WiiCrazy]

+ No need to defrag (a tool for this job doesn't exist anyway)

- Game deletion doesn't reclaim the space at once... You need to add an exact size or smaller game so that it's placed where previously deleted game were (not exactly sure of this since I never deleted a game)

Those two points contradict each other. On WBFS both the free space and the games themselves can be fragmented. You just can't do anything about it & most tools don't report how fragmented it is. Ignoring it doesn't mean it's not there.

Another couple of cons for WBFS:

- Annoying prompt everytime you plug the drive into a windows machine, because it's not recognised as being formatted.
- WBFS managers have to be run as Administrator, so they have permission to cause damage ( either malicous or not ).

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...

 

[ciris]

I switched from WBFS to NTFS. I like the advantage that I can use the entire partition on my drive for other things than just games. Only downside I see is no write support and very limited homebrew support. So I have my 750GB HD split into 3 partitions.

Something like this 730GB NTFS (files and games), 10GB FAT32 (all my homebrew stuff), 10GB WBFS (to backup game discs)

FAT32 is the most flexible and compatible option which is why I think its the best. (I just cant wait for NTFS write support from my favorite loaders and homebrew...whenever that happens...)