Hacking Will Rednand/Emunand expand the lifespan of the 2ds/3ds?

[MiseryXYZ]

Does someone knows more about it? I am curious if by using Rednand/Emunand instead of the Nand memory, which could go bad after reaching its maximum write/read cycles? Does the SD I/O chip on the 3DS motherboard also have such a limitation?

 

[uyjulian]

Yes, it will expand the life of your NAND but will reduce the life of SD.

You can replace SD easily, but you can't replace NAND easily.

In some cases, RedNAND can also help with speed related to NAND operations (example: StreetPass saving)

 

[TurdPooCharger]

Does someone knows more about it? I am curious if by using Rednand/Emunand instead of the Nand memory, which could go bad after reaching its maximum write/read cycles? Does the SD I/O chip on the 3DS motherboard also have such a limitation?

In theory, yes.

By using EmuNAND or RedNAND over SysNAND, you trade wearing out your 3DS onboard NAND to wearing out your (micro) SD card's NAND. All flash memories have finite life. Damn that 2nd law of thermodynamics, but that's how our reality rolls.

***

In practice, no.

As for whatever benefit there is in extending the lifespan of your 3DS by using EmuNAND/RedNAND over SysNAND, the rest of your 3DS such as the buttons, battery, micro fuses, hinges, flex cables, and other parts are more likely to die first than your 3DS internal NAND.

Unless your 3DS had a physically defective NAND from the factory, you should not see your motherboard fail using SysNAND within the normal lifespan use of that 3DS. The only way you would ever get close to killing that NAND is if you constantly flashed your NAND through downgrading and upgrading the firmware, like thousands of times.

However, the same cannot be said for your SD card when running EmuNAND/RedNAND. Due to placing all the burden of running the 3DS operating system on top of handling the read & write of playing games or doing anything extraneous (which is everything), your poor card is being grilled hard. Flash memories like SD cards and USB flash drives were not meant to be operated that way; they're were designed to primarily hold data and quickly transfer data in short sessions.

This is made worse in the fact that not all NAND are made to the same set of durability. Modern day flash memories are, relatively speaking, more delicate than previous generations due to the push for micro-sizing those NAND cells. Your large 128, 200, 256, 400, and now 512 GB SD cards are more likely to hard brick from frying their NAND than the smaller cards due to how they're made with stacking (more) cell layers.

Here's how to think of what those stacked cell layers are like...
Think of writing on pieces of paper with pencil and rubber eraser. Paper comes in grades of weight (in pounds / lb), which is just another way of stating their thickness. Imagine having 3 sheets of computer paper made of tissue/toilet paper. Now think of having 1 sheet of computer paper made out of 24 pound thickness (slightly thinner than cardboard* notecard).

While those 3 sheets will let you convey writing more words and sentences, and they're less thick when stacked together compared to the single sheet,
your single thick computer paper will outlast all 3 of those dinky plies of "paper", even if you carefully wrote by spreading the wear uniformly across them with as light of a writing and erasing.

 

[MiseryXYZ]

Thank you for the great explanation, very well written and understandable. But whats about the SD BUS, I know that SD can die also but they are easly replace able, SD BUS tranfering data to the SD an backward (connected to the motherboard) is not replaceable.

I have 2 NEW3DS, both have the larger NAND, but the slightly differ in size about 20MB, I read the one is better for durability. Is this true?

 

[uyjulian]

Thank you for the great explanation, very well written and understandable. But whats about the SD BUS, I know that SD can die also but they are easly replace able, SD BUS tranfering data to the SD an backward (connected to the motherboard) is not replaceable.

I have 2 NEW3DS, both have the larger NAND, but the slightly differ in size about 20MB, I read the one is better for durability. Is this true?

The PCB mounting the SD card reader is easily replaceable if you don't have the "New Nintendo 2DS XL".

The NAND size don't make a practical difference in durability.

 

[MiseryXYZ]

But in theorie a SD Card read has also limited write/read cycles? Or just de inserted SD?

 

[uyjulian]

But in theorie a SD Card read has also limited write/read cycles? Or just de inserted SD?

Just the inserted SD.
The SD slot will have a different lifespan depending on how much you insert/remove the SD card.
Same with the Game Card slot.