Hacking Why not use NTFS?

[apoptygma]

I'm trying to figure out why I'm so hesitant to format my Wii's USB drive as NTFS.
I’ve recently copied all the titles on my drive to a friend’s NTFS drive of the same size and the collection took up 40gb! less space.

Here's what I've got so far:

Pros:
File splitting not needed
Better data integrity
More storage capacity (in this case saving 40gb of a 500gb drive!)

Cons:
Compatibility issues with files >4gb (not sure which loaders)
Not working with Uneek?*
Emulators can’t use for ROMS?*

*not really sure if these are true or not

 

[m3xic4ndiy3i]

at this time almost every usb loader haves a good compatibility with NTFS, so, is an advantage, u can defragment ur games, and if u want ROMS , u always can make a little partition in FAT for this.

and yes , i think the games in NTFS is less space than WBFS ( i always use WiiBackupManager0.3.4r4 to dump games in m usb hard drive)

 

[apoptygma]

I'm not really phased about the ROMs or Sneek to be honest, the combination of the two takes up only about 1/2 the capacity of the 4gb SDHC card I have living in my Wii.

I guess I'm more concerned about other issues like the >4gb files not being split causing issues, or for some reason a loader not working.

I have currently Hermes v4 (37+38 on 222) and Waninkoko v19 (37 on 249) and use USBloader GX
which works fine with FAT32 and don't really want to cause myself more headaches.

On a side note is there any version of Waninkoko's that works with NTFS through GX or is the loader itself the problem? I don't really use CFG much and haven't tried it.

 

[Taleweaver]

I guess I'm more concerned about other issues like the >4gb files not being split causing issues, or for some reason a loader not working.

Honestly...I don't get this concern. Ever played a PC game? Back there, it's as normal as can be that games are "split" in multiple files, and it's never an issue. Serious: I have used split files for MONTHS now, and I have yet to see a first error because of it*, either in the loader or the game itself. And considering you're using it as well...what kind of errors did you have?




*I'm not counting uloader here. The .ciso files it uses apparently can't be split on a FAT32 partition.

 

[apoptygma]

Wever are you using NTFS with split? or FAT?

I think I might just use NTFS with split

 

[Kurisuellegarden]

I suggest using FAT32. It reads faster and file splitting isn't as bad as you'd think. Using the Wii Game Manager, you just turn the ISO into a wbfs file with a 4gb split. It takes only about 2 minutes a game...on my crappy super old computer! Any decent computer now could get that done with in no time! And the wbfs format makes the games smaller too, so you'll barely need to split any too.

 

[nknave]

NTFS is too big and complex to add to a cIOS. I don't think the dev's here (Wii) or any other scene like xbox 360 will add NTFS.

Just get used to FAT32. It's the best we'll get.

 

[apoptygma]

I suggest using FAT32. It reads faster and file splitting isn't as bad as you'd think. Using the Wii Game Manager, you just turn the ISO into a wbfs file with a 4gb split. It takes only about 2 minutes a game...on my crappy super old computer! Any decent computer now could get that done with in no time! And the wbfs format makes the games smaller too, so you'll barely need to split any too.

Is it really faster? I don't know if that's true. How much faster do you think FAT32 is than NTFS?

QUOTE(nknave @ May 4 2010, 04:28 PM) NTFS is too big and complex to add to a cIOS. I don't think the dev's here (Wii) or any other scene like xbox 360 will add NTFS.

Just get used to FAT32. It's the best we'll get.

Actually Hermesv4 works fine with NTFS

 

[smf]

I suggest using FAT32. It reads faster and file splitting isn't as bad as you'd think. Using the Wii Game Manager, you just turn the ISO into a wbfs file with a 4gb split. It takes only about 2 minutes a game...on my crappy super old computer! Any decent computer now could get that done with in no time! And the wbfs format makes the games smaller too, so you'll barely need to split any too.

Is it really faster? I don't know if that's true. How much faster do you think FAT32 is than NTFS?

QUOTE(nknave @ May 4 2010, 04:28 PM) NTFS is too big and complex to add to a cIOS. I don't think the dev's here (Wii) or any other scene like xbox 360 will add NTFS.

Just get used to FAT32. It's the best we'll get.

Actually Hermesv4 works fine with NTFS

ogzee's NTFS & FAT code (which AFAIK works with hermes v4/v5 & ciosx) should run the games at exactly the same speed as it runs games stored on a WBFS partition. The reason is that once the game is running, the IOS only knows where the data is on the disk. It has no idea about the filesystem it's stored in.

If you don't want to use up 4.7gb per game (or double that for dual layer) then .wbfs files are the most convenient. You can move them from disk to disk without them magically(*) taking up more space (iso's can be stored as sparse files on NTFS, where unused space isn't allocated but copying to another disk doesn't preserve that).

Once you have games in .wbfs files, then storing them split every 4gb is irrelevant (as long as you store the games in directories, which isn't hard).

So FAT32 starts looking attractive. Couple that with only having one partition with all your games, artwork, usb loader etc & the decision has almost made itself. Every computer that supports plugging in a USB drive will support FAT32, while NTFS is less likley.

There are only two reasons for using NTFS:

1. you use the drive for something else that absolutely must have files greater than 4gb & storing them as split files would be very very inconvenient for you.
2. you need to burn the games to dvd-r at a moments notice & converting them from wbfs to iso on your local hard drive wouldn't be an option

 

[Taleweaver]

Wever are you using NTFS with split? or FAT?

I think I might just use NTFS with split

I'm FAT all the way.

I'd motivate my reasons, but I can't add anything that smf hasn't already said (and that's plenty of reason, as far as I'm concerned).

 

[ChokeD]

I have considered going Fat32 for the simple reason that my wbfs drive has corrupted twice and I could not recover my games. I wish I new of a tool that would recovery the wbfs format.

I'm SERIOUSLY considering the fat32 and SNEEK2+DI option now simply because I can recover my files easily from a fat32 drive if it ever corrupts. I couldn't do that before because I couldn't find a program that would rebuild the broken drive.

 

[Wiimm]

I have considered going Fat32 for the simple reason that my wbfs drive has corrupted twice and I could not recover my games. I wish I new of a tool that would recovery the wbfs format.

I'm SERIOUSLY considering the fat32 and SNEEK2+DI option now simply because I can recover my files easily from a fat32 drive if it ever corrupts. I couldn't do that before because I couldn't find a program that would rebuild the broken drive.

have you ever tried: "wwt format --recover" ?

 

[ChokeD]

I have considered going Fat32 for the simple reason that my wbfs drive has corrupted twice and I could not recover my games. I wish I new of a tool that would recovery the wbfs format.

I'm SERIOUSLY considering the fat32 and SNEEK2+DI option now simply because I can recover my files easily from a fat32 drive if it ever corrupts. I couldn't do that before because I couldn't find a program that would rebuild the broken drive.

have you ever tried: "wwt format --recover" ?

No, I discovered your WiiMM's tools after I already formatted the drive for the second time and started over, so I haven't had the opportunity to use them. Being quite frank, I hope I never have to use that option but if I do, will the "wwt format --recover" command find the drive when at it's most corrupt point ?

What the problem was, none of the Wii Game Managers, WBFS Manager and a few others apps would read the drive at all and when I tried to use a recovery tool for just salvaging the data as raw data, off the drive, the only format supported by tools I could find were of course NTSF and FAT32.

While I'm on about my problem, let me say THANK YOU for the hard work you've done on your set of WiiMM tools. I've been using them for everything along with the GUI and Windows Vista.

 

[PsyBlade]

There are only two reasons for using NTFS:

2. you need to burn the games to dvd-r at a moments notice & converting them from wbfs to iso on your local hard drive wouldn't be an option

If someone added edited wwt or wbfs_file this would be possible to.
All thats needed is writing the iso to stdout.

Should be easy to do but I dont think many people want it.

 

[apoptygma]

Once you have games in .wbfs files, then storing them split every 4gb is irrelevant (as long as you store the games in directories, which isn't hard).

I've got my split files *not* in directories and it works fine - Is this expected? I mean by that all my .wbfs files are in a wbfs folder, including the split ones... I've read before they are supposed to have their own sub-folders but when I did it I just threw them right in with the rest and it was fine. I'm guessing if the game tries to read data in the second 'chunk' i'm going to get a crash? I should probarbly fix this. What's the naming convention for the folders? just the disc ID?

 

[Dermy]

I've got my split files *not* in directories and it works fine - Is this expected? I mean by that all my .wbfs files are in a wbfs folder, including the split ones... I've read before they are supposed to have their own sub-folders but when I did it I just threw them right in with the rest and it was fine. I'm guessing if the game tries to read data in the second 'chunk' i'm going to get a crash? I should probarbly fix this. What's the naming convention for the folders? just the disc ID?

Games will work correctly all from one folder if you want to keep it that way. But if you want to make it a little more organized you can put them in folders with one of these 3 naming conventions: Title [GameID], Title_[GameID], or GameID_Title.

 

[apoptygma]

Also - this conversation seems to have gotten way off tangent. I was trying to debate the choice of NTFS or FAT32 - WBFS (format, not files) was never an option, for all the reasons stated above.

The main incentive I have to switch from FAT32 (my current file system) to NTFS is that it would free up ~40gb

I’ve got a couple of 500gb drives, one is NTFS and one is FAT32. both have 101 titles on them, the same titles. FAT one is using 260gb of 496gb and the NTFS 220gb of 496gb (figures approx, going from memory here)

This in itself kinda puzzles me, I thought that the cluster sizes (32k and 4096k respectively) would make almost zero difference when it comes to files this large. I would assume that even if by some random chance all the files started one cluster and took the remainder of it as slack the maximum discrepancy would be 410,464k (400mb) (4096k – 32k x 101), but this would go in favour of FAT32. All I can think is that the clusters on a 500gb FAT32 drive aren’t 32k, but in fact something closer to 320MB!

 

[PsyBlade]

are you sure the files are the same?
maybe riped with different settings?

 

[9th_Sage]

Also - this conversation seems to have gotten way off tangent. I was trying to debate the choice of NTFS or FAT32 - WBFS (format, not files) was never an option, for all the reasons stated above.

The main incentive I have to switch from FAT32 (my current file system) to NTFS is that it would free up ~40gb

I’ve got a couple of 500gb drives, one is NTFS and one is FAT32. both have 101 titles on them, the same titles. FAT one is using 260gb of 496gb and the NTFS 220gb of 496gb (figures approx, going from memory here)

This in itself kinda puzzles me, I thought that the cluster sizes (32k and 4096k respectively) would make almost zero difference when it comes to files this large. I would assume that even if by some random chance all the files started one cluster and took the remainder of it as slack the maximum discrepancy would be 410,464k (400mb) (4096k – 32k x 101), but this would go in favour of FAT32. All I can think is that the clusters on a 500gb FAT32 drive aren’t 32k, but in fact something closer to 320MB!

I don't understand this either. WBFS files, which you'd probably get if you'd been ripping games to FAT32, should take up about the same amount of space as the games on NTFS would (be they WBFS files or sparse files).

 

[ciris]

Most of my titles are stored on my NTFS partition. My drive is split up in 3 partitions, NTFS, FAT32, WBFS with NTFS taking the 80% of the space.

I love my titles on NTFS!!!

(since discovering CFG usb loader boots .iso's, my next project will be to convert all the wbfs titles to sparse .iso's. for easy burning to disks)