MiSTer FPGA Forum

I get that the rather small file sizes of most ROMs used on a MiSTer along with the native load speeds of the machines being replicated
but other than that can the MiSTer make use of the extra read spead of a slightly better class of SD card?
For instance there are cards than offer a read of up to 100MB/s, upto 160MB/s or upto 170MB/s for instance?
Is the MiSTer able to reach a max read speed of above 100 MB/s for instance making the difference worthwhile?

Talking of SD cards - what's the largest card you have in a MiSTer?

My set-up location would not suite the wires and extra hadware of an external HDD for those future space requirements so I am contemplating a larger SD card.

500gb possibly. Maybe if the ebay listings I am running atm hit an amazing high I might even go 1tb...

Are you planning to use your computer to pre-load the card with data ? This would be by far the biggest target for saving time.

If you're concerned about load times of data from the card into MiSTer, you might want to explain your use cases.
For example, most cores just load a ROM, and most ROMs for systems of this generation are a couple of megabytes or less (with some specific exception systems). So in this case, it won't really matter whether it's a fast or slow card.

On the other hand, if you are planning to use the ao486 core for computing, you may notice a bottleneck when doing file transfers. (But I'm not sure whether MiSTer implements all of the SDCard fast-access protocols to take advantage of all possible speeds).

For size, I'm currently using a 400GB SD..

dshadoff wrote: ↑Tue Aug 25, 2020 5:07 pm Are you planning to use your computer to pre-load the card with data ? This would be by far the biggest target for saving time.

If you're concerned about load times of data from the card into MiSTer, you might want to explain your use cases.
For example, most cores just load a ROM, and most ROMs for systems of this generation are a couple of megabytes or less (with some specific exception systems). So in this case, it won't really matter whether it's a fast or slow card.

On the other hand, if you are planning to use the ao486 core for computing, you may notice a bottleneck when doing file transfers. (But I'm not sure whether MiSTer implements all of the SDCard fast-access protocols to take advantage of all possible speeds).

For size, I'm currently using a 400GB SD..

I would FTP ROM data to the card inside the MiSTer & only use inside the PC to burn Mr-Fusion's installer to the card.

If there's no way of kniwing if MiSTer implements all of the SDCard fast-access protocols or not then maybe just sticking to a 'middle speed' cart from a reputable manufacturer is the best way forwards.

Do you kow of a limit on the size of a card with regard to MiSTer? 1TB cards (expensive!) are available.

I'm sure there's some way of knowing, but I don't personally know. But I do know that my computer is faster for initial bulk-load.

I was also looking to find the maximum size of the SD card. I'm currently using a 128Gb card and want to start using a 1Tb card, but this doesn't seem to work. I can use the windows installer without problem, but one inserted in MiSTer it will not boot. I now have 512Gb card on order to test.

MiSTer supports ROMs from USB storage automatically already long time. So you don't need to use expensive big SD cards. Just use USB stick storage - it should work the same.

USB HDD/SSD is definitely slower than using internal microSD. My Lexar 512Gb card runs pretty fast for Windows 98 on AO486. External 256Gb SSD is noticeably slower, which is a bummer. I had hoped the SSD would cope better with simultaneous r/w's than MicroSD.

Before anyone says I'm a fool for using an SSD, it's just an old one I replaced from my PC anyway.

I'd use a cheapo USB drive for most ROM's & ISO's as that's fast enough, and a cheap but fast microSD for when faster stuff like VHD/HDD images are needed. I'm currently using a 128gb Sandisk microSD for VHD's, cost £15 so if I wear it out no big deal.