MiSTer FPGA Forum

I much prefer just keeping everything on the MiSTer SD card, and syncing it to a backup on my PC hard drive via the network. Any issues with the SD card, I can just recopy the data from the backup (or worst case, copy to a new card).

Haven't experienced any SD related issues in five years of MiSTer usage though. Did upgrade from 256GB to 512GB once; copying the data from backup to new card worked perfectly.

One beauty of using an external USB HD is that, if you want to copy lots of large ISOs, you can just unplug it from the Mister, plug it straight into your PC, and copy over the files. Really fast, no network to deal with, and your SDCard can be used purely for the OS.

I'm currently using a 1TB Micro SD card for MiSTer. It works like a charm. No issues.

Bristles wrote: ↑Mon Jan 15, 2024 2:08 am

One beauty of using an external USB HD is that, if you want to copy lots of large ISOs, you can just unplug it from the Mister, plug it straight into your PC, and copy over the files. Really fast, no network to deal with, and your SDCard can be used purely for the OS.

But you can literally do the exact same thing with the SD card as well?

Hi,

im also running a 1TB micro SD card without any issues.
But ist not fully loaded ( 755 Gig )

kind regards

antibolo wrote: ↑Mon Jan 15, 2024 4:15 am

Bristles wrote: ↑Mon Jan 15, 2024 2:08 am

One beauty of using an external USB HD is that, if you want to copy lots of large ISOs, you can just unplug it from the Mister, plug it straight into your PC, and copy over the files. Really fast, no network to deal with, and your SDCard can be used purely for the OS.

But you can literally do the exact same thing with the SD card as well?

No, not as far as I'm aware. The External HD is formatted to NTSC, so it's readable on a PC. The SDCard, only a small partition is readable, not the partition with the games. Plus, I can just unplug the HD, it's USB, so easy. The SDCard is hard to get to as my Mister is cased, and I would need some tweezers to get the thing out, sod that for a laugh.

Bristles wrote: ↑Mon Jan 15, 2024 10:49 am

The SDCard, only a small partition is readable, not the partition with the games.

This isn't true; games, cores, configuration files, filters etc. are all directly accessible on the SD card when inserted into a PC.

Still using the same 1TB SanDisk I posted about here almost 2 years ago with no issues. Have added N64 and the Saturn CHD files (English only) and still have 150mb free. Also have the AmigaVision collection, eXoDos 300 collection, MacPack.

Every month or so after updating I remove it, connect it to my desktop and run a robocopy job to make a backup.

I did try SSD briefly but went back to micro sd because I have no other use for it than Mister, and it is a little bit faster.

Bristles wrote: ↑Mon Jan 15, 2024 10:49 am

antibolo wrote: ↑Mon Jan 15, 2024 4:15 am

Bristles wrote: ↑Mon Jan 15, 2024 2:08 am

One beauty of using an external USB HD is that, if you want to copy lots of large ISOs, you can just unplug it from the Mister, plug it straight into your PC, and copy over the files. Really fast, no network to deal with, and your SDCard can be used purely for the OS.

But you can literally do the exact same thing with the SD card as well?

No, not as far as I'm aware. The External HD is formatted to NTSC, so it's readable on a PC. The SDCard, only a small partition is readable, not the partition with the games. Plus, I can just unplug the HD, it's USB, so easy. The SDCard is hard to get to as my Mister is cased, and I would need some tweezers to get the thing out, sod that for a laugh.

No, the partition where MiSTer stores the majority of its files is ExFat.

And "NTSC" has nothing to do with filesystems...

An SD card attached via a Micro SD card reader works well if you just want to tack on a little extra storage. Having just switched to an SSD connected via USB, I can’t recommend that enough.

mrtomato wrote: ↑Sun Oct 04, 2020 5:46 pm

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.

yea 1 and 2 tb overhere too are still not equally priced for the gigs you get comparted to 512/256, personally i went back from a 512 card to a 128 (was cheaper than a 64) and use CIFS (samba) now loading it all from a mechanical drive on some scrap metal i screwed together into a post-apocalyptic-punkNAS with one working memory bank and a broken hdmi output (but it works) psx isos and everything dont seem to lag out, the smaller ones obviously dont, its not an option for everyone but much preferred now (mechanical drive btw, not an ssd that would be absolute overkill and also more expensive) - 2TB wester digital or the likes arent all that money anymore, they actually come down cheaper per GB than 1terabyte or 512gb drives (sadly b/c i prefer smaller drives in case of crash you lose less data at once)

"a bit offtopic" maybe but if you have some spare parts and a utp cable certainly worth exploring