Hacking would this work?HDD to SD adapter

[weatMod]

couldn't someone make an interface that lets you plug usb HDD into the SD slot on the WII u for loadine backup loading?
kind of like the way we use a hard mod MSD to SD adapter to dump and re flash the 3DS NAND ?
would it be as easy as connecting the proper pins from the MSD to SD adapter to the wires from the cut ends of a female to male USB extension cable?
or would we need something in between to translate and trick the wii u SD reader into thinking the HDD is an SD card?
maybe a Rpi or adruino could be used to perform this?

 

[AaronUzumaki]

Even if this were possible, and I'm not sure that it is, the Wii U's SD card size limit, I believe, is 32gb max. So, even if it were possible, you'd probably be better off spending ~$20 on a 32gb SD card. Although, hopefully, someone will correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[fiveighteen]

Even if this were possible, and I'm not sure that it is, the Wii U's SD card size limit, I believe, is 32gb max. So, even if it were possible, you'd probably be better off spending ~$20 on a 32gb SD card. Although, hopefully, someone will correct me if I'm wrong.

People have used 128GB SD cards. (Possibly even 256GB, but don't quote me on that one.)

 

[gamesquest1]

to answer the first question, no, you couldn't just splice a USB wire to a SD card and magically make the SD slot turn into a USB capable port, for this to even be possible you would need some sort of bridge/emulation device afaik there isnt any even proof of concept USB -> SD card emulators, and if there was i doubt they would offer fantastic speed or reliability for something like loading games from, i know USB hard drives offer more space etc, but its a lot of work for something that would be defunct as soon as a IOSU loader is out, not to mention it would look pretty horrible sticking out of the SD port

i guess a workaround would be using a vwii homebrew app which can transfer games from a HDD to SD then reboot and load up loadiine, granted you have a delay whenever you swap games, but a decent 32GB card stores a fair amount of games stretch to a 64GB or 128GB and you probably wouldn't even need to swap games except for very rare occasions,

you could also look at trimming/ripping your games, some games can have quite a bit of valuable SD space saved by doing stuff such as swapping out FMV's for dummy/compressed version, and some games have huge files easily packed and labeled by language, meaning you can just strip out all the other language's files and still have the game but not have 5GB's of "junk" you dont even need

 

[subcon959]

I'm using a 128GB SD card and it's working fine. Although it sounds nice to have a HDD that can store all the games, in reality I'm struggling to get anywhere near filling the card up with stuff that I would actually play regularly. The Wii U library just isn't that big.

Having said that, when I was using it for Wii/Gamecube games I had no trouble at all maxing it out.

 

[Skater4599]

you could also look at trimming/ripping your games, some games can have quite a bit of valuable SD space saved by doing stuff such as swapping out FMV's for dummy/compressed version, and some games have huge files easily packed and labeled by language, meaning you can just strip out all the other language's files and still have the game but not have 5GB's of "junk" you dont even need

I've been looking into this, perhaps it would be nice to create a thread with games names and which files could be removed or dummied safely. I knew about compressing mp4 and removing localization languages, but this is the first I've heard of FMV. could you elaborate what exactly it is and how to go about making a dummy for it?
I'd think some games might even see a small speed improvement if you were able to remove a large amount of small files from it.

 

[gamesquest1]

I've been looking into this, perhaps it would be nice to create a thread with games names and which files could be removed or dummied safely. I knew about compressing mp4 and removing localization languages, but this is the first I've heard of FMV. could you elaborate what exactly it is and how to go about making a dummy for it?
I'd think some games might even see a small speed improvement if you were able to remove a large amount of small files from it.

i said FMV, as in the generic term for pre rendered video. can be .MP4 or .BIK, im sure there are others, some good examples are Hyrule warriors, compressing the cutscenes saves a good 3GB, or for example watchdogs has the files
sound_english.dat
sound_french.dat
sound_spanish.dat
sound_italian.dat
sound_russian.dat
sound_german.dat
all clocking in at around 2GB each, ripping out those 5 extra languages saves a whopping 10GB, so down from a 19GB game to 9GB

 

[weatMod]

to answer the first question, no, you couldn't just splice a USB wire to a SD card and magically make the SD slot turn into a USB capable port, for this to even be possible you would need some sort of bridge/emulation device afaik there isnt any even proof of concept USB -> SD card emulators, and if there was i doubt they would offer fantastic speed or reliability for something like loading games from, i know USB hard drives offer more space etc, but its a lot of work for something that would be defunct as soon as a IOSU loader is out, not to mention it would look pretty horrible sticking out of the SD port

yeah this is what i thought
but what i don't get is why 3DS nand mod can do this with nothing
but a MSD to SD adapter
but on say ,a PS3 you need a progskeet or E3 flasher something with a big complex board
i nevee did a hard NAND mod on my 3DS i'm not even sure how it works and i never even seena single post that explains how to do it on the software end ,what PC program is actually used to do the dumping
why does it work on 3DS with no special hardware but on PS# you all kinds of special hardware? isn't a NAND chip a NAND chip?

 

[gamesquest1]

yeah this is what i thought
but what i don't get is why 3DS nand mod can do this with nothing
but a MSD to SD adapter
but on say ,a PS3 you need a progskeet or E3 flasher something with a big complex board
i nevee did a hard NAND mod on my 3DS i'm not even sure how it works and i never even seena single post that explains how to do it on the software end ,what PC program is actually used to do the dumping
why does it work on 3DS with no special hardware but on PS# you all kinds of special hardware? isn't a NAND chip a NAND chip?

The chip on the 3ds is a Emmc chip, it basically has its own onboard controller chip so it has basically the same functionality as a sd card (well technically it's a mmc chip designed to be embedded into a system and most sd card readers double.up as mmc card readers)