Homebrew WIP libusbhsfs - USB Mass Storage Class Host + Filesystem Mounter static library.

[DarkMatterCore]

Link: https://github.com/DarkMatterCore/libusbhsfs. Co-developed with XorTroll and Rhys Koedijk.

This is a static library for homebrew applications which is aimed at developers that wish to integrate USB Mass Storage (UMS) support into their projects.

• Provides a very easy to use interface, which lets the application retrieve:
  • A user-mode status event to wait for UMS changes.
  • Total count of mounted devices.
  • List mounted devices.
• Spans a background thread that's capable of:
  • Listening for UMS status changes (new device, device removed).
  • Starting logical units from each detected UMS device.
  • Automatically mounting any detected filesystems from the logical units in each detected UMS device.
    • Supports MBR/EBR/GPT/SFD partitioning schemes.
    • Supports FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, exFAT, NTFS*, EXT2*, EXT3* and EXT4* volumes.
  • Signaling the user-mode event to let the application know it detected some changes and processed them.
• Support for variable-sized logical blocks and long (64-bit) logical block addresses.
• Automatic devoptab device (un)registration, so you can use standard libc I/O calls on mounted filesystems.
• Relative path support.
• Dedicated 8 MiB buffer per each UMS device, which helps speed up data transfers.
• Unlike fsp-usb, the library doesn't depend on using a custom "ams_mitm.kip" with Atmosphère - just link your homebrew application against it and it will work.
• Licensed under the ISC License, so anyone can freely use it - even as part of private/closed-source projects. We really want developers to adopt this library.

* Only in GPL builds of the library. ISC licensed builds only offer FAT support.

I'll just say this once before someone throws the usual question: this doesn't open any possibility whatsoever to launch Switch games from a UMS device, and never will. Something like that demands system-wide UMS support, which this library clearly doesn't provide.

Please let me know what you think.

 

[peteruk]

So glad you took up the mantle and got this sorted for all the homebrew makers to include USB functionality, it's been a long time coming and for this a massive thank you

I really hope that @Joel16 will include this inside his excellent NX-Shell.

 

[Intronaut]

Amazing news for the scene. You guys have done an amazing work.

 

[linuxares]

Dude amazing stuff!

 

[iriez]

Finally! The other implementation was very quirky. Glad to see some alternative options and hope this is stable

Are there any file transfer limitations? I see it supports EXfat! This is great.

 

[grcd]

Thank you, thank you, thank you! A massive step for Switch homebrew!

 

[merlin555]

Can someone please compile this for me ?

Thank you!

 

[mathew77]

Wow! I REALLY want all the major nsp installers adopts it in a blink.

 

[TotalJustice]

Can someone please compile this for me ?

Thank you!

its a *very* simple to use library for developers to use so that they can usb hdd support to their apps. I'm sure you can imagine how many apps could benefit from this

 

[linuxares]

its a *very* simple to use library for developers to use so that they can usb hdd support to their apps. I'm sure you can imagine how many apps could benefit from this

NSAInstaller (or Where's my waifu Awoo-Installer) and Tinfoil?

 

[TotalJustice]

NSAInstaller (or Where's my waifu Awoo-Installer) and Tinfoil?

Yep! Also hoping to see nxdumptool, nxshell, pplay, any save manager (dump saves to usb!) and maybe hbm use this lib

 

[linuxares]

Yep! Also hoping to see nxdumptool, nxshell, pplay, any save manager (dump saves to usb!) and maybe hbm use this lib

Oooh dump to USB would be sweet with all of them. I bet Dark already got it in nxdumptool.

 

[ber71]

Cant wait for Retroarch

 

[Fgamer]

Sounds fantastic! Let's hope it's widely adopted.

 

[Imancol]

RetroArch likes this.

 

[DarkMatterCore]

Thank you all for your kind comments and support!

Please feel free to test it and report any bugs or feature requests. If they can be implemented, I'll gladly add them to our to-do list.

Aree there any file transfer limitations? I see it supports EXfat! This is great.

Only limitations inherent to the underlying filesystem used by the UMS device you're working with. That's why the listed UsbHsFsDevice elements include a fs_type field, to let developers workaround filesystem-specific limitations.

Other than that, the whole interface is pretty much filesystem-agnostic to the end-user.

 

[Imancol]

How high is the transfer speed of a common HDD? (seagate)

 

[DarkMatterCore]

How high is the transfer speed of a common HDD? (seagate)

We performed benchmarks reading the first raw 128 MiB (concurrent reads) from each connected drive with logging enabled back when the Bulk-Only Transport driver was still being developed, and we got speeds between 4 and 6 seconds. We used portable Seagate HDDs and WD HDDs with custom enclosures. So we could be talking anywhere between ~21 and 32 MiB/s - which yes, is better than fsp-usb's performance.

Disabling debug logging makes transfers go even faster, but we can't properly do benchmarks without it. Even if you're using the example test application, there's a noticeable difference if you link it against the debug build of the library vs the release one.

 

[Skonikol]

NSAInstaller (or Where's my waifu Awoo-Installer) and Tinfoil?

DBI, Daybreak

 

[nWo]

Thank you, this is awesome. I just want this implemented so I can play music and movies from a USB on the TV, that would be ill. Then, run some classic games on retroarch, all of that without using up space on the SD card. As a matter of fact I still use from time to time my Wii to do these things, so it will be a great, great addition to be able to do it at last on the Switch.