Homebrew Question what's the problem with exfat for homebrew?

[tomi1578]

i saw that alot of people are saying to not use exfat for homebrew
what's the problems with it?

 

[Draxzelex]

Using exFAT with homebrew can corrupt your SD card. This is why big names like Lakka and Retroarch advise heavily against exFAT and do not offer any support for it. Seeing as there are multiple ways to bypass the 4 GB limit with FAT32 now, there's not much reason to use exFAT. Couple that with the fact that the Switch doesn't support exFAT out the box and FAT32 is just objectively better.

And just because it hasn't happened to you doesn't mean it will never happen. Corruption has and will occur; its not a matter of how, its a matter of when.

 

[tomi1578]

Using exFAT with homebrew can corrupt your SD card. This is why big names like Lakka and Retroarch advise heavily against exFAT and do not offer any support for it. Seeing as there are multiple ways to bypass the 4 GB limit with FAT32 now, there's not much reason to use exFAT. Couple that with the fact that the Switch doesn't support exFAT out the box and FAT32 is just objectively better.

And just because it hasn't happened to you doesn't mean it will never happen. Corruption has and will occur; its not a matter of how, its a matter of when.

ok thank you

 

[tomi1578]

Using exFAT with homebrew can corrupt your SD card. This is why big names like Lakka and Retroarch advise heavily against exFAT and do not offer any support for it. Seeing as there are multiple ways to bypass the 4 GB limit with FAT32 now, there's not much reason to use exFAT. Couple that with the fact that the Switch doesn't support exFAT out the box and FAT32 is just objectively better.

And just because it hasn't happened to you doesn't mean it will never happen. Corruption has and will occur; its not a matter of how, its a matter of when.

last question
if i let the switch format the sd card will it format fat32?

 

[Draxzelex]

last question
if i let the switch format the sd card will it format fat32?

Nope, you have to format it yourself especially if it is larger than 32 GB in which case you will need a third-party program such as GUIFormat.

 

[tomi1578]

Nope, you have to format it yourself especially if it is larger than 32 GB in which case you will need a third-party program such as GUIFormat.

ok
what allocation size sould i pick for a 128gb sdcard?

 

[Draxzelex]

ok
what allocation size sould i pick for a 128gb sdcard?

Default is sufficient but in case your formatter doesn't have a default option, its 128 for exFAT and 32 for FAT32.

 

[Extreme184X]

Tomi1578,
i want to give you a different perspective on this topic, solely based on my own experience. Out of the 3 MicroSD cards tested, all cards had experienced the same file corruption in both fat32 and Exfat. My testing were conducted with emulators,roms,and nsp's back and forth connecting my cards from pc to the switch.
two issues i had with in terms of corruptions:
1) Some files become corrupted, meaning i can no longer use the file (example; a snapshot becomes completely black when attempting to view it, nro wont boot anymore and would have to re-download and replace the nro for it work again)
2) Folder and files would disappear from its directory (meaning those folder or files completely disappear) but when you check the cards overall used capacity, it appears as the storage space is still occupied even though you browse these files and do not appear anymore. This became a big problem for me, experienced this several times mostly under fat32, it even happen sometime later when i formatted it to exfat to transfer my nsps.

Then i realized i have experienced this exact issue before on the same three cards on my android phones, and came to "MY OWN" conclusion that the filesystem is not the problem, but rather the card. my cards are older High Capacity I cards 16gb,32gb, 32gb, class 10 and by default are formatted to fat32. These older cards tend to heat up when writing lots of files just like older usb flash drives and error out while transfering. My phones sometimes used to get so hot with wifi, cellular data, bluetooth etc while all on at the same, at some random time i've noticed some files became corrupt. The card heats up and can cause issues while transferring many files or huge capacity files at slower speeds.

I bought me the Lexar 128gb UHS-II fastest card i can find sometime in august of this year. For five months now i've been doing the exact same operations as did with my older cards, non stop copy and paste files, disconnecting and reconnecting this card from pc to the switch, its it an extended capacity card, it comes pre-formatted with Exfat, ZERO ISSUES with this card. Buying this card has made a huge difference: on my older 32gb HC-I card a game like breath of wild to takes more than 10 minutes to transfer while the card feels very hot to the touch after transferring, and on my 128gb UHS-II ,BOTW transfers under 2 minutes and the card is barely warm.


CONCLUSION
File System not the problem, MicroSD Card is the Problem.
invest in a Fast READ & Write speed Card (BEWARE of those deals with High capacity, that come with slow read and write speeds)

(I will NOT reply to anyone who wants to debate me on this topic, my response is based on my own experience and it is proven to "me", that the filesystem is NOT the problem, just wanted to share my experience)

 

[TunaKetchup]

I use exfat and don't have any problems

And I'll continue to use exfat

 

[Techjunky90]

I've been using exfat since day 1, which in my case was 6 months or so ago, and my conclusion is brand name and user error are the cause for corruption.

 

[pillemats]

I am using exfat at First time! 400gb an 200gb without any errors or Problems

 

[Clapmaster]

I used exfat at first for a couple of months and thought that I was golden but then when I started transferring homebrew(retroarch updates and various nro files) over my wifi network all of my eshop and nsp installed games started to become corrupted so I had to format to Fat32 and reinstall every game and I have not had an issue since.