MiSTer FPGA Forum

So, when I started installing the cdrom images for megacd, i noticed the space needed was quite large on my sd card. Does anyone have any good suggestions for a compatible external hdd? I have read in some posts that it should be powered. Is this true? And are there any special formating processes or types of formatting that works best? Any ideas are appreciated.

You can use anything really, big 3.5" hdd's probably need their own power supply, smaller 2.5" laptop hdd's should be fine running of a powered USB hub.
Personally i'm running a 2.5" 1TB SSD of a powered USB hub.

MostroW wrote: ↑Fri Dec 04, 2020 3:29 pm You can use anything really, big 3.5" hdd's probably need their own power supply, smaller 2.5" laptop hdd's should be fine running of a powered USB hub.
Personally i'm running a 2.5" 1TB SSD of a powered USB hub.

I have seen alot of portable laptop hdds. Are these not recommended? Also, how did you format your hdd drive what file structure did you use, ie fat, fat32?

I use a 1TB WD passport which is USB powered witch a USB powered hub. This drive spins down after 35 min and does not support commands to disable the spin down so I wrote a script to prevent it from spinning down by reading a block every 30 min. I used ext4 as a file system as it is native to Linux but exFAT seems to be used in general. Ext4 is case sensitive so you have to be careful when creating directories; it is not supported by Windows but it is not a real problem: I use the update script for the cores and I transfer ROMs from Windows to MISter using FTP. I can also make a backup of it using Ext2Fsd.
As mentioned by MostroW anything will do.

jca wrote: ↑Fri Dec 04, 2020 3:56 pm I use a 1TB WD passport which is USB powered witch a USB powered hub. This drive spins down after 35 min and does not support commands to disable the spin down so I wrote a script to prevent it from spinning down by reading a block every 30 min. I used ext4 as a file system as it is native to Linux but exFAT seems to be used in general. Ext4 is case sensitive so you have to be careful when creating directories; it is not supported by Windows but it is not a real problem: I use the update script for the cores and I transfer ROMs from Windows to MISter using FTP. I can also make a backup of it using Ext2Fsd.
As mentioned by MostroW anything will do.

Do you have any problem with the security features of the hdd?
What is the name of your script and where is it located?

I'm using an old Buffalo ministation 320gb that I had lying around, its not powered. It works for roms like Megadrive or NeoGeo etc but I have noticed stuttering music with MegaCD and ao486 does not work with it at all.

I have a 512GB MicroSD filled with ExoFlynn's ao486 top 300, the everdrive packs for all supported systems, and the entire MegaCD redump + megacd redump supplement catalogue (excluding a few unplayable games, horrible games, and extra revisions which are unnecessary), and the same for the PCEngine CD.

With the upcoming PSX core hopefully, if you want to be safe, I would get a 1TB-2TB external as that will be more than enough.

JWDog wrote: ↑Fri Dec 04, 2020 3:32 pm

MostroW wrote: ↑Fri Dec 04, 2020 3:29 pm You can use anything really, big 3.5" hdd's probably need their own power supply, smaller 2.5" laptop hdd's should be fine running of a powered USB hub.
Personally i'm running a 2.5" 1TB SSD of a powered USB hub.

I have seen alot of portable laptop hdds. Are these not recommended? Also, how did you format your hdd drive what file structure did you use, ie fat, fat32?

If the laptop HDD doesn't have it's own supplied power cable outside of the USB port, then it can potentially impose a pretty heavy draw of power occasionally on the MiSTer, which if you have a nice 4A mean well power supply like I do, you wouldn't be that worried about it, but if you don't, it could pull necessary power from the DE10-nano and other peripherals while loading, which could lead to instability.

JWDog wrote: ↑Fri Dec 04, 2020 4:15 pm Do you have any problem with the security features of the hdd?
What is the name of your script and where is it located?

I don't know about security features, but if you are referring to the spin down feature it can make problems like with saving games ... Personally I did not experience any problem but I think it is better to have the HDD spinning all the time, they do not like spinning down/up.
For the script look in the Newcomers Forum -> USB HDD Spinning down.

JWDog wrote: ↑Fri Dec 04, 2020 3:32 pm I have seen alot of portable laptop hdds. Are these not recommended? Also, how did you format your hdd drive what file structure did you use, ie fat, fat32?

I've formatted my drive as NTFS and then just copied the folder structure with software to the ssd and i'm keeping the cores on my sdcard.
Concerning the convential hdd's i don't think they're not recommend but can require a bit more fiddling to get what you want / need.
The ssd i bought because a platter based disk was only €15 cheaper in the end, i'm using a crucial M5 1TB by the way.

There's also the option to use SMB shares on your PC or NAS instead. That's how I have storage configured for my MiSTer.

I went overboard and decided to try to future-proof with a 4TB WD My Passport 2.5", and stuck it to the bottom of my case with velcro. I have the powered USB hub and haven't noticed any problems.

I bought a 1TB SEAGATE Portable USB 3.0 External Hard Drive, powered via the USB hub. It's formatted NTFS and I copied the games directory. It's also case sensitive on the directory names and compatible with PC for easy file transfer.

Thank you everyone for your replies. I will go out and purchase one and let you know the results.

So, guys... I bought a 5tb wd my passport external hdd. It is formated NTFS. I plug this into a powered usb hub, this powered usb hub is plugged into the usb port on the blister usb hub attached to the DE-10 nano. it is spinning however, i am not seeing any of the roms I copied from my sd card. the file organization is as follows example: /games/ATARI2600/(folders for organization of roms)/(roms .bin etc). when i load the core i get directory is empty. I removed this directory from my sd card, so that it would not see it on the sd card but still will not load. is this because i have a games folder on my sd card or can i split up the roms for the cores that I want. Any help will be appreciated.

Have a look at this thread, it may help:
viewtopic.php?f=23&t=166

May be your drive is to big
Can you FTP into MISTer and see the contents of your drive?

jca wrote: ↑Tue Dec 08, 2020 8:58 pm May be your drive is to big
Can you FTP into MISTer and see the contents of your drive?

I cannot ftp into MISTer. for some reason. any advice?

do you think it could be because there is a games folder still on the sd card?

On my system I still have the games folder and all of its sub directories (empty) on the SD card.
You should ftp into your mister and see what is /media/usb0/games. Do you see sub directories? Do you see anything in these sub directories?

the media/usb0 through ftp is empty even though my external hdd is connected.

When I said your HDD was too big I was only half joking, it could be the problem.
ssh into MISTer,
Type blkid, you get something like
/dev/loop0: UUID="b160ae92-70fb-417d-af21-a7bec18ff171" BLOCK_SIZE="1024" TYPE="ext4"
/dev/mmcblk0p1: LABEL="MiSTer_Data" UUID="985A-D432" BLOCK_SIZE="512" TYPE="exfat" PARTUUID="5123f7c3-01"
/dev/mmcblk0p2: PARTUUID="5123f7c3-02"
/dev/loop8: LABEL="rootfs" UUID="356e4b65-6863-4872-9649-633c109c607d" BLOCK_SIZE="1024" TYPE="ext4"
/dev/sda1: LABEL="MISTer" UUID="fd9bdf29-f845-4b26-9aa8-0502d0cd9792" BLOCK_SIZE="4096" TYPE="ext4" PARTUUID="c9214b85-01"
The HD is /dev/sda1
This will tell you if MISTer sees the HDD.

May be better to first use
fdisk -l

how do i ssh into MISTer?

I don't have a games directory on my HD.. i just have the folders inside the games directory copied to the root of the HD.. I still have a games folder on my sdcard, but it only contains the odd system files I want to run directly from the sdcard, like A0486 core HD files..

bazza_12 wrote: ↑Tue Dec 08, 2020 9:54 pm I don't have a games directory on my HD.. i just have the folders inside the games directory copied to the root of the HD.. I still have a games folder on my sdcard, but it only contains the odd system files I want to run directly from the sdcard, like A0486 core HD files..

i have tried both ways in a games directory on the hd, and just the core name directory with the rom inside. still no go.

jca wrote: ↑Tue Dec 08, 2020 9:49 pm May be better to first use
fdisk -l

where and how do i do this?

JWDog wrote: ↑Tue Dec 08, 2020 9:53 pm how do i ssh into MISTer?

You could instead use F9 on the KB to go to the console and type the commands after login.
To ssh I use Putty, the advantage is that I can copy the results of commands or scroll back to the beginning of the session.
For now just use F9
Use first the command fdisk -l
At the end of the list you should see Disk /dev/sda which is the physical disk and after that Device /dev/sda1 which is the partition.
If fdisk tells you that you do not have permissions use
sudo fdisk -l
I do not remember if you have to.

What is it asking at login?

Sorry for all of these noobie questions.

First I forgot to tell you: you have to do this on MISTer, not on the PC
login: root
Password: 1

Here are the results of the fdisk -l