Hacking Why should I switch to sysnand?

[leonmagnus99]

A9LH is only installed to SysNAND, you can use the new Decrypt9 to restore your EmuNAND to SysNAND without erasing A9LH (which would require a reinstall on a O3DS or Brick a N3DS)

first, update Decrypt9 (download the new decrypt9 zip and copy the bin to /aurei/payloads/ and name it "default.bin")
then you will want to backup your current EmuNAND to "emuNAND_original.bin"

Copy and Paste from @Plailect's Guide

Enter Decrypt9

1. Reboot, then open Decrypt9 from arm9loaderhax by holding L+R on boot

Copying RedNAND data to SysNAND

1. Go to "SysNAND Options"
2. Go to "SysNAND Backup/Restore..."
3. Select "NAND Restore (keep a9lh)"
4. Confirm and restore from emuNAND_original.bin

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Once you do this, you will be on 10.7 (or whatever version your EmuNAND/RedNAND was on) SysNAND and have retained A9LH.

owh wait, so the dump ctrnand is not needed anymore ??
(the method you wrote seems easier, btw. i would like to ask why the usual process was like dumping both sys/emu and then injecting emu to sys "basically for the swap and then the wipe of emuNAND" but the sys nand into emuNAND partition< is that needed for those who would want emuNAND wiped completely?

let's say i want sysNAND only, can i use the method above you have posted?

simply dumping my emunand and then restoring it with the new d9 function to retain a9lh?
and if i wanted ds/gba compatibility ,then i assume i would have to dump/inject the twl agb etc. from emu to my sys yep?

 

[driverdis]

owh wait, so the dump ctrnand is not needed anymore ??
(the method you wrote seems easier, btw. i would like to ask why the usual process was like dumping both sys/emu and then injecting emu to sys "basically for the swap and then the wipe of emuNAND" but the sys nand into emuNAND partition< is that needed for those who would want emuNAND wiped completely?

let's say i want sysNAND only, can i use the method above you have posted?

simply dumping my emunand and then restoring it with the new d9 function to retain a9lh?
and if i wanted ds/gba compatibility ,then i assume i would have to dump/inject the twl agb etc. from emu to my sys yep?

Nope, all that was needed to avoid updating FIRM, which would be replaced in a full NAND restore.
This new option restores all but FIRM keeping A9LH intact. which is pretty much the same thing as the old steps but they are all done for you.

 

[leonmagnus99]

Nope, all that was needed to avoid updating FIRM, which would be replaced in a full NAND restore.
This new option restores all but FIRM keeping A9LH intact. which is pretty much the same thing as the old steps but they are all done for you.

awesome, so what is basically does is , it dumps all the nands off the emuNAND with the exception of firm yeah?

so again, if i do not want to keep my emuNAND partition would i not need to backup sys and restore it on my emu partition yep?
but if i want to keep it, for the swap process i will have to backup sys and restore it on the emu partition yep?

 

[pbanj]

awesome, so what is basically does is , it dumps all the nands off the emuNAND with the exception of firm yeah?

so again, if i do not want to keep my emuNAND partition would i not need to backup sys and restore it on my emu partition yep?
but if i want to keep it, for the swap process i will have to backup sys and restore it on the emu partition yep?

Correct you only need to inject/flash crap back to your emunand if you are keeping it. If you are not keeping it just inject/flash the stuff into your sysnand and then format the emunand off the sd card.

 

[Bullseye]

In my case my O3DS A9LH + AuReinand 4.2 (Sandisk Ultra 64 GB SD) takes ~ 12 seconds too boot. (9.2 sysNAND + 10.7 emuNAND). Don't know if it could be lowered t0 8 seconds as in my N3DS XL with same sys and emunands via formatting memory card.

I've tested a few console/setup combinations, here are the results:

O3DS A9LH + AuReiNAND 4.1 (SanDisk Ultra 32GB microSD + adaptor)
9.2 sysNAND + 10.7 emuNAND - 8 seconds to boot into emuNAND
9.2 sysNAND + 10.7 emuNAND - 8 seconds to boot into sysNAND
10.7 sysNAND + no emuNAND - 8 seconds to boot into sysNAND

Additional testing procedure notes:

Spoiler

All memory cards were formatted to FAT32 with an allocation unit size of 64KB. Prior to testing, each console was booted into the Home Menu and then shut down at least once to allow AuReiNAND to patch the firmware.bin. AuReiNAND's "use pre-patched firmware" option was enabled to prevent firmware patching from interfering with the boot time. Replicate tests for each console/setup combination were unnecessary as boot times were consistent and showed no significant variance.

Booting A9LH into sysNAND with no emuNAND partition gave boot times that were almost identical to the negative controls (unmodded consoles) whereas booting to sysNAND with an emuNAND partition present yielded no change in boot time as compared to booting to emuNAND. It looks like there comes a point where the NAND setup location no longer becomes a limiting factor, for O3DS the shortest boot time achieved was 8 seconds while on N3DS the minimum time was 7 seconds. Anything below that would involve other bottlenecks such as SD class.

 

[hobbledehoy899]

Welp, i'm lost.
I already have A9LH set up with emunand and I want to switch it over to sysnand instead but that guide goes from way back and says all sorts of things which don't apply.

Did you keep your 3DS' otp.bin?

 

[Seriel]

Did you keep your 3DS' otp.bin?

All works fine. <3

 

[Balerion]

I swapped my nands using only the CTRNAND option after installing a9lh about a month or 2 ago. GBA and DS carts both work fine for me right now. Will they continue to work? What happens to cause them not to work?

 

[astronautlevel]

I swapped my nands using only the CTRNAND option after installing a9lh about a month or 2 ago. GBA and DS carts both work fine for me right now. Will they continue to work? What happens to cause them not to work?

If you use outdated TWL partitions, it will refuse to launch any DS games.

 

[Deleted-236924]

I don't have A9LH yet, BUT with a fast enough SD card (you should really invest at least $20 on a decent speed to size ratio) I'd still recommend emuNAND even with the restore capabilities of A9LH. The space savings is very minimal of changing to sysNAND, and if you are doing A9LH you're likely looking to install CIA's, which back to my first point - invest in a good SD card.

emuNAND will always be that extra layer of protection for your system. Just because it's protection is less valuable now with A9LH doesn't mean it should be underestimated. I don't need a contraceptive to have sex, but it doesn't mean I shouldn't use one.

^

Even if you have sysnand backups, there's always the possibility however small that your backups would somehow become corrupted or otherwise lost (or your backups were corrupted from the start and you never knew.)

Then being able to boot Decrypt9 won't help you no matter what.

Emunand? You'll never be doing anything that would get your sysnand to corrupt or otherwise break, so it should always be working. If emunand breaks somehow, and let's say you didn't have any working backups, then you can still simply create a new emunand. You can't create a new sysnand if it bricks and you happen to not have any functional backups.

It's like what, 1GB on your SD card (up to 1.8 on N3DS), if you'll be installing games you'll have at least 32GB anyway...

 

[Balerion]

If you use outdated TWL partitions, it will refuse to launch any DS games.

Thanks for your answere. How does the partition become outdated? At what point will games stop loading? If restore my emunand to dump agb and twl should i also dump ctr again and reinject it so they are starting at the same point? DS titles have been launching fine for over a month. Thx

 

[GuyInDogSuit]

EmuNAND can take up to 2 GB on your SD card, and it loads slower, so.... yeah.

Based on my tests; running cfw from sysnand or cfw from emunand is the same speed. However, running a cfw on a sd that does not have a separate emunand partition, that will speed up your 3ds and save you 3 sec on boot. To trim off another additional 3 sec off of boot, you can also format your mem card in 64kb cluster.

Aside from these benefits, your probably getting better performance due to the fact that nand is always faster than sd memory. Your also prolonging the life of your sd by not treating it like a nand.

Another benefit, smaller nand backups, because all you really need is ctr_nand
(I still have at least one nand_sys backup somewhere for other partition resucue

Probably greater ease of troubleshooting gremlins, because there is no emunand for them to get into

Then there are all of the other more obvious benefits that have been discussed

^THIS.

 

[TVL]

No it's not, flash memory can just die. Some brands are better than others(some brands have a high failure rate). Older flash memory seems to be way more stable than new.

Yeah, I knew it wasn't exceeding the writes.

Weird about old flash memory, I can't help but to think that you base your assumption on the number of new consoles you had to repair or something? Or what are you comparing to?

I've had a number die on me. Two were Sandisk, two were Transcend, 1 was Kingston, they don't die completely when they do decide to go, they just fail to write any further data.

I have yet to have my nand go to read only.

Ok, I thought the SD card wrote data on the working sectors and left the dead ones unwriteable. You could still read the SD cards just fine? But unable to put anything new on the card? Definitely learned something new. I must've been really lucky with my SD cards then.

 

[democracy]

What I read about nand is, yes, that is what is supposed to happen and it probably does but my experience has been with sdcards; when they die they just become read only.

Hopefully if this happens to the 3ds nand, worst case scenariono, firm0 and firm1 partitions will still load emunand, because firm0 and firm1 partitions can do there thing as read-only.

I have never had a sdcards just completely stop working. Therefore I think if a nand were to completely stop working as pbanj put it, it was due to heat related damage, not excessive writes. The 3DS does not get as nearly as hot as an Xbox or PlayStation so I think we will always still be able to boot emunand worst case scenario.

 

[frosty5689]

Most of the time, the controller for the SD Card or NAND dies before the flash memory itself. Unlike tradtional hard drive with platters, flash based storage theoretically only have limited write-cycles, but no wear and tear occur for read. When errors occur to a "sector" on write, the controller automatically marks that sector as bad and stops writing anything to it. (whatever data remains will stay read-only forever unless deleted from MBR which will mean all means of accessing that read-only sector is lost).

Anyways.. it is down to preference. I like messing around with my EmuNAND. I feel much safer messing with it than SysNAND, even if we can restore it with Decrypt9 using a9lh. Just think about the wear and tear that happens everytime you restore, not to mention the tiniest possibility of messing up that could cause a brick.

 

[driverdis]

Most of the time, the controller for the SD Card or NAND dies before the flash memory itself. Unlike tradtional hard drive with platters, flash based storage theoretically only have limited write-cycles, but no wear and tear occur for read. When errors occur to a "sector" on write, the controller automatically marks that sector as bad and stops writing anything to it. (whatever data remains will stay read-only forever unless deleted from MBR which will mean all means of accessing that read-only sector is lost).

With EmuNAND, everything you do

Anyways.. it is down to preference. I like messing around with my EmuNAND. I feel much safer messing with it than SysNAND, even if we can restore it with Decrypt9 using a9lh. Just think about the wear and tear that happens everytime you restore, not to mention the tiniest possibility of messing up that could cause a brick.

you are not ever going to brick SysNAND if you keep a9lh when restoring sysnand. If the restore is incomplete, you can redo it over and over. The amount of tines you write will be limited but the chances of hitting that limit are slim unless you are restoring SysNAND backups every other day.

 

[pbanj]

Yeah, I knew it wasn't exceeding the writes.

Weird about old flash memory, I can't help but to think that you base your assumption on the number of new consoles you had to repair or something? Or what are you comparing to?



Ok, I thought the SD card wrote data on the working sectors and left the dead ones unwriteable. You could still read the SD cards just fine? But unable to put anything new on the card? Definitely learned something new. I must've been really lucky with my SD cards then.

What am I using to compare older flash mem to new flash mem? The fact that I still have tons of old flash drives and sd cards kicking around(some from the age of 1gb being the biggest you could get) that have seen heavy use and still chugging along fine. But have dealt with tons of new cards shitting the bed. same with consoles never dealt with a ps2 or older have nand issues. I have dealt with 360, ps3, and wiis with nand issues.