Has anyone tried a 1TB MicroSD card in their MiSTer?

[JudgeDrokk]

Has anyone tried a 1TB MicroSD card in their MiSTer?
Will it work ok? Is there a limit? 512mb SD is ok.

They're expensive - yes, but for space saving, all in one place convenience, if you take out the price from the pros and cons
they're number one.

But how big can you go with MiSTer?

I'm OK for space at the moment but when the PSX core drops at some point this could change...

[mrtomato]

1TB are very overpriced - that way I could get 2x 512GB cheaper. I have 512GB and wondering if will be option to use IO Board's sd slot as additional storage, but I heard that it is not possible.

[ZigZag]

1TB are very overpriced - that way I could get 2x 512GB cheaper. I have 512GB and wondering if will be option to use IO Board's sd slot as additional storage, but I heard that it is not possible.

Get a tiny usb microSD reader for the other. I have one made for a keyring & it's a snug fit. Very handy.

[mrtomato]

1TB are very overpriced - that way I could get 2x 512GB cheaper. I have 512GB and wondering if will be option to use IO Board's sd slot as additional storage, but I heard that it is not possible.

Get a tiny usb microSD reader for the other. I have one made for a keyring & it's a snug fit. Very handy.

Yes i am thinking about that, but idk why same thing could not be done by by IO boards sd slot...

[zakk4223]

The IO board's SD slot is not connected to the ARM/linux side of the de-10, so it can't be used as general storage. It can only be used directly by cores.

[retrorepair]

Out of interest, how many cores use the I/O SD slot and for what?

[Cebion]

Some time ago many cores used the 2nd sd card as internal storage such as MSX, Atari 800 etc.
But the good devs found a way to implenent the whole thing via vhd.

So it is not necessary anymore.
The x86000 and PC88 core also used this at the beginning but thank god also switched to the new better solution.

[seastalker]

I haven't even looked into how to use an external drive, etc. for storage. So if I use a cufflink size thumb drive in one of my available USB slots on my Blisster board, I can navigate to it through the menu or do I have to configure something first? This would be great for adding storage for eventual PSX/PS1 games.

[JudgeDrokk]

So... does anyone have a 1TB SD in their MiSTer?

[redsteakraw]

I saw elsewhere that a person has the top 300 best PSX games including multi disks and they fit on 165GB Double that for Sega CD and Turbo CD and you have 330 leaving 170GB for the rest and I would say you are fine with 512. You really don't need to cram the drive with crappy or bad games you will never play anyway.

[Cebion]

Most people just use a external hard drive or a Nas.
My rom folder has about 2 tb on my Nas currently

[flynnsbit]

I would do a USB 1TB SSD, small, can sit at the bottom of the MiSTer Stack, way cheaper, easier to use for the cores that would need that kind of space.

[ZigZag]

I saw elsewhere that a person has the top 300 best PSX games including multi disks and they fit on 165GB Double that for Sega CD and Turbo CD and you have 330 leaving 170GB for the rest and I would say you are fine with 512. You really don't need to cram the drive with crappy or bad games you will never play anyway.

And Amiga & AO486 HDD's and CD ISO's...

[redsteakraw]

I saw elsewhere that a person has the top 300 best PSX games including multi disks and they fit on 165GB Double that for Sega CD and Turbo CD and you have 330 leaving 170GB for the rest and I would say you are fine with 512. You really don't need to cram the drive with crappy or bad games you will never play anyway.

And Amiga & AO486 HDD's and CD ISO's...

You are fine with the Amiga and DOS AO486 you might run out with all the CD ISOs

[legelan]

I have SanDisk Ultra SDXC A1 1TB in my setup and it works fine.

[fierman]

Most people just use a external hard drive or a Nas.
My rom folder has about 2 tb on my Nas currently

I use an external hdd as well, works without a hitch and probably more reliable in the long term than an SD card. A powered usb hub is needed though.

[pepito]

Since I moved from 256Go to 512GO, my OLED screen takes 30seconds to boot up...
well... something is not going right on the scripts

[jurkevicz]

I'm using a 1TB Micro SD Card with my Mister and it works great with no issues.

[Ashfall]

I've been using a 1TB for the past 8 months.
This one:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07P9W5HJV

The first one I had died after 3 days, so I returned to Amazon and got a replacement. That one has worked perfectly ever since. No difference from smaller cards except for the size.
It's really nice to have a huge collection all in one place. After converting all my CD based games to CHD, everything fits nicely, around 850 GB total. This includes all English Playstation, Sega CD, Turbo-CD, etc. If my library grows significantly (not likely), I'll just move to USB SSD.

I'm using a MisterAddons aluminum case. The SD card slot on the case makes it very difficult to remove the SD card. I use plastic tweezers to very carefully eject it and extract it. Just take your time so as not to damage the SD card, you can see the circuitry on the card and it could easily be damaged.

Also, it's a good idea with any size SD card to organize your small rom files in zip files. One zip per system or subfolder or however you organize, for all those super tiny files less than 4kb each. It makes copying back and forth much faster.

[Wave]

I also use a 1TB micro SD, it's good.

Also, it's a good idea with any size SD card to organize your small rom files in zip files. One zip per system or subfolder or however you organize, for all those super tiny files less than 4kb each. It makes copying back and forth much faster.

Yes, excellent point. And beyond copy speed, another reason to collect numerous small files into single zips is to reduce space wastage due to the large filesystem cluster size you'll use with such a big SD card.

Here is a 7zip command line I came up with that turns every top-level subfolder it encounters into a .zip archive. Before copying ROMs to the micro SD, I ran this at the top level of each ROM folder to convert all subfolders into single zips, greatly reducing the number of individual files on the micro SD's filesystem.

[aberu]

I've used some 480-512GB ones before. I noticed that they were more prone to corruption, despite being Samsung and SanDisk brands (the best brands typically). My thinking is, that as you get higher density then the risk of corruption might increase, but I don't have any hard evidence.

[Wave]

Eek. Thanks for the reminder that I ought to devise a backup system. I'd been thinking about perhaps trying to wrangle SyncThing. But actually, in scenarios where file corruption is a possibility, I wonder if maybe that's not the best fit (as it could accidentally sync corrupted files).

[bonko]

Sorry to resurrect such an old thread.. but has anyone tried a 1.5TB MicroSD card in their MiSTer?

In particular I'm looking at the SanDisk 1.5TB Ultra micro SDXC UHS-I

Any guidance would be appreciated.

[AngelicLiver]

It should work but I don't understand why anyone would spend $200~ on a micro SD when you could buy a USB drive (even an SSD) in much larger capacities for far cheaper.

[redsteakraw]

1TB are very overpriced - that way I could get 2x 512GB cheaper. I have 512GB and wondering if will be option to use IO Board's sd slot as additional storage, but I heard that it is not possible.

I don't know about that was reliably able to get a Lexar play 1TB for $60-$70 using it for my steam deck. Will probably get one for the MiSTer but right now 512 is able to hold pretty much all the US Sega CD, Turbo CD, N64 , PSX and earlier console libraries, am out of space and made some compromises on the PSX but not much. Only don't have space for the saturn.

[rhester72]

@bonko I'd assume so, my 1TB equivalent is fine.

@AngelicLiver Ease of transport and higher speeds than flash drives.

[antibolo]

It should work but I don't understand why anyone would spend $200~ on a micro SD when you could buy a USB drive (even an SSD) in much larger capacities for far cheaper.

Anyone who doesn't want a USB drive dangling off their MiSTer?

It's not that hard to understand.

Any storage method that MiSTer supports (SD card, USB drive, network share) has advantages and drawbacks.

[Armakuni]

I have been using a Amazon Basics 1TB MicroSD card in my MiSTer for over a year now and had zero issues. Still have a good 300gig free too
I picked it up cheap in the Black Friday sale that year

2TB MicroSD cards are being released now and for not silly money

[AngelicLiver]

It's not a knock, by all means go for it! There are pros and cons to all these solutions! I just think USB storage is a great deal more versatile and trustworthy; I've had so many high-capacity, "high-quality" cards fail over the years.

[akator]

^ Agreed. For systems that the OS has to be on µSD, I learned a while back to use smaller µSD cards for the OS and store the data on large USB device. It saves an awful lot of headache.