Homebrew What is the max SD card size I can use in my DSi with HiyaCFW and DSiMenu++ ?

[Hammyface]

Hello! I know Nintendo says the max SD card size for the DSi is 32gb, but I figured with a CFW and especially DSiMenu++ that the limit might be higher, but I just tried a 128GB SD card and it won't boot (the contents of the SD card are identical to my 8GB SD card which works without issue). Is there any way to get 128GB cards to work? Or is 32 GB truly the limit?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Sha8q]

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[Hammyface]

You would need to format the 64gb+ SD to SDHC, not SDXC. Doing that does slow down the SD, so you really shouldn't try it.

I actually did not know you could format a card to SDHC. Is that the same thing as formatting it to fat16 or something?

 

[Ryccardo]

I actually did not know you could format a card to SDHC. Is that the same thing as formatting it to fat16 or something?

There's indeed no such thing as "formatting to SDHC"; however, the standard for regular SDs mandate them to have a MBR partition table containing only one FAT16 primary partition, the standard for SDHCs mandate them to have a MBR partition table containing only one FAT32 primary partition, and the standard for SDXCs mandate them to have a MBR partition table containing only one ExFAT(FAT64) primary partition

There's absolutely no technical reason to tie a generation of SD to a specific partition table or filesystem (lobbying of members of the SD association, especially towards the still-patented ExFAT, is probably the main reason); however that's how the standards are written and the only reason why many devices supporting SDXC cards (which have no significant differences with SDHC) but not ExFAT can't advertise "SDXC support"

 

[Hammyface]

So...can the DSi accept a larger than 32GB SD card or no?

 

[KleinesSinchen]

So...can the DSi accept a larger than 32GB SD card or no?

Short answer is: Yes!

I tested an SDXH with 128GB successfully on a DSi and don't see a reason why bigger capacity would not work. But I don't see any reason to actually use such big SDs on a DSi either.
Please note that (modern) Windows does not allow formatting partitions >32GB to FAT32. If you are WIndows user guiformat will do.

 

[Hammyface]

Short answer is: Yes!

I tested an SDXH with 128GB successfully on a DSi and don't see a reason why bigger capacity would not work. But I don't see any reason to actually use such big SDs on a DSi either.
Please note that (modern) Windows does not allow formatting partitions >32GB to FAT32. If you are WIndows user guiformat will do.

Thank you! The reason to use a bigger one is so you can have every DSi and DS release on the system at once

 

[Hammyface]

Also is there anything special I need to do to get it to work? Just format it to fat32 is all? I would be using a 200GB card.

 

[KleinesSinchen]

Also is there anything special I need to do to get it to work? Just format it to fat32 is all? I would be using a 200GB card.

Linux: mkfs.vfat
Windows: guiformat
I don't have a Mac but I guess Mac OS has built-in FAT32 formatting tools (hopefully not with an artificial limit like Windows)
Mostly recommended cluster size is 32KB.

Anything ≤ 2TB can be easily formatted to FAT32

Unless you manually changed the partition table on your SD card to GPT there is nothing more to do than reformatting.

 

[de-coder]

I tried many sd-cards >2GB ... they do only work, when sd is filled with data <2GB. More than 2GB causes an black screen error an twilight++ is not booting.
2GB can only formatted with 16KB clusters, not 32kb. Its working. When using more partitions on SD, install in primary partition.

 

[Pk11]

I tried many sd-cards >2GB ... they do only work, when sd is filled with data <2GB. More than 2GB causes an black screen error an twilight++ is not booting.
2GB can only formatted with 16KB clusters, not 32kb. Its working. When using more partitions on SD, install in primary partition.

TWiLight Menu++ can work perfectly fine on large cards, its just HiyaCFW that doesn't work well. So if you're using TWiLight Menu on a large card I'd recommend switching to launching it directly in Unlaunch instead of through HiyaCFW, unless you do want to have the HiyaCFW SDNAND menu too in which you will need to fill it up.

 

[jamespoo]

Thank you! The reason to use a bigger one is so you can have every DSi and DS release on the system at once

yeah if you use the trimming tool NDSTokyoTrim3 you can save a lot of space

 

[TontonSerge]

So If resume, sd card with a capacity under 2tb and sdxc can be used by TWL if they're formated in fat 32 ans a cluster size of 32kb, by using Guiformatter on windows.

So using à 256gb sd card formated to fat 32 with 32kb of cluster size, should be okay.

 

[chief18]

So If resume, sd card with a capacity under 2tb and sdxc can be used by TWL if they're formated in fat 32 ans a cluster size of 32kb, by using Guiformatter on windows.

So using à 256gb sd card formated to fat 32 with 32kb of cluster size, should be okay.

Can anyone confirm this?

 

[EvilMakiPR]

Can anyone confirm this?

Im trying right now with a 128gb card and the exploit cant even start. So thats why I ended up in this old thread.

 

[Gameboy_XL]

Im trying right now with a 128gb card and the exploit cant even start. So thats why I ended up in this old thread.

I confirm that TWiLight Menu++ works with 128gb card. I formatted SD card using guiformat.

 

[EvilMakiPR]

I confirm that TWiLight Menu++ works with 128gb card. I formatted SD card using guiformat.

I didnt for me. I had to buy an really old 32B SDCard

 

[banjo2]

I didnt for me. I had to buy an really old 32B SDCard

Did you format it according to the guide? And what issue did you have, exactly?

 

[EvilMakiPR]

Did you format it according to the guide? And what issue did you have, exactly?

Sure did

 

[xva]

After some googling I decided to try my luck with a 64gb SDXC, formatted it according to the guide (Linux variant), however the camera/album said it was not supported.

The guide says to use `mkdosfs` which at least on my system is a symlink to mkfs.fat. However, mkfs.fat and mkfs.vfat are not the same thing as vfat is an extension to the fat system. Maybe that is the problem? Anyhow, I deleted every partition on the sdcard using gparted, then created a new one in FAT32 and now it works for me.