MiSTer FPGA Forum

Posted: **Wed Nov 03, 2021 3:34 pm**

I am wanting to buy a large SSD to hook up to the Mister as my micro sd card of 400gb will not be enough for future cores like ps1 and saturn.

Can someone explaing what the advantage of an external USB SSD is compared to having all on the sd card?
Is it faster (the USB are 2.0 i think)? Or is it only the size price ratio that is better?

Posted: **Wed Nov 03, 2021 3:54 pm**

Using commodity HDDs or SSDs is generally orders of magnitude cheaper than using high-capacity Micro SD cards. The speed advantages of using SSDs over HDDs is also pretty negligible over USB 2.0 and these older systems only had very slow optical media drives anyway (1x CD transfer rate is only 150KBps) so using cheap external storage is absolutely fine.

I use a little 2.5" external USB enclosure with a spare 2TB HDD for Sega/Mega CD and PC-Engine CD. It performs great and I expect it will be getting plenty more use when those new cores drop.

Posted: **Wed Nov 03, 2021 4:06 pm**

HDD are much cheaper, SD cards wear out, speed is not an issue.

Posted: **Wed Nov 03, 2021 4:18 pm**

AngelicLiver wrote: ↑Wed Nov 03, 2021 3:54 pm Using commodity HDDs or SSDs is generally orders of magnitude cheaper than using high-capacity Micro SD cards. The speed advantages of using SSDs over HDDs is also pretty negligible over USB 2.0 and these older systems only had very slow optical media drives anyway (1x CD transfer rate is only 150KBps) so using cheap external storage is absolutely fine.

I use a little 2.5" external USB enclosure with a spare 2TB HDD for Sega/Mega CD and PC-Engine CD. It performs great and I expect it will be getting plenty more use when those new cores drop.

But today i can buy a 512gb micro sd card for the same price as a 500gb ssd. HDD is no option for me.

Posted: **Wed Nov 03, 2021 4:20 pm**

jca wrote: ↑Wed Nov 03, 2021 4:06 pm HDD are much cheaper, SD cards wear out, speed is not an issue.

that is a bit of a myth as the writing on mister will be never as much as it would wear out. also classic HDDs are subject to fail more often than a micro sd card.

Posted: **Wed Nov 03, 2021 4:28 pm**

neogeo81 wrote: ↑Wed Nov 03, 2021 4:18 pm
AngelicLiver wrote: ↑Wed Nov 03, 2021 3:54 pm Using commodity HDDs or SSDs is generally orders of magnitude cheaper than using high-capacity Micro SD cards. The speed advantages of using SSDs over HDDs is also pretty negligible over USB 2.0 and these older systems only had very slow optical media drives anyway (1x CD transfer rate is only 150KBps) so using cheap external storage is absolutely fine.

I use a little 2.5" external USB enclosure with a spare 2TB HDD for Sega/Mega CD and PC-Engine CD. It performs great and I expect it will be getting plenty more use when those new cores drop.
But today i can buy a 512gb micro sd card for the same price as a 500gb ssd. HDD is no option for me.

By all means go for the Micro SD card then.

Posted: **Wed Nov 03, 2021 4:28 pm**

jca wrote: ↑Wed Nov 03, 2021 4:06 pm HDD are much cheaper, SD cards wear out, speed is not an issue.

So I might bring bad luck to myself saying that, but I use full size sd cards with a micro sd to sd adapter and it works like a charm on my Mister. And I'll add that in my case, I have found full size Sd cards to be very reliable. Basically, all the ones I have since 2015 or so are still alive and kicking despite the fact that I use them weekly for raw file transfer of video footage.

My rule is that once a card turns 5 years old I reserve it for entertainment purpose.
So now I have 3 sd cards from sandisk that I use only for my Mister, as dedicated core cartridge and it works very well! No failure so far.
For comparison, I have 3 micro sd cards, and 2 of the 3 have writting errors, after 3 years of usage.

Take that as you will

Posted: **Wed Nov 03, 2021 4:38 pm**

neogeo81 wrote: ↑Wed Nov 03, 2021 4:18 pm But today i can buy a 512gb micro sd card for the same price as a 500gb ssd. HDD is no option for me.

You could also buy a regular 2TB hdd for the same money or less as that 512GB Micro SD...

Posted: **Wed Nov 03, 2021 5:16 pm**

using a 1TB MX5 ssd, cost me around 80€ back then when i bought it, might be around 100€ now because of shortages and whatnot.

Posted: **Wed Nov 03, 2021 6:16 pm**

Neocaron wrote: ↑Wed Nov 03, 2021 4:28 pm So I might bring bad luck to myself saying that, but I use full size sd cards ...

Full size SD cards seems to be a lot more reliable, I have many but the capacity is small. What size are yours or more exactly what is the maximum size availble?

Posted: **Wed Nov 03, 2021 6:47 pm**

jca wrote: ↑Wed Nov 03, 2021 6:16 pm
Neocaron wrote: ↑Wed Nov 03, 2021 4:28 pm So I might bring bad luck to myself saying that, but I use full size sd cards ...
Full size SD cards seems to be a lot more reliable, I have many but the capacity is small. What size are yours or more exactly what is the maximum size availble?

For the Mister I use 1 Sandisk extreme pro 128go for all consoles and arcade cores, and 1 256go Kingston Canvas react dedicated to the Ao486 core.
And while it is more expensive than hdds, the convenience to carry them around, drop them without stressing out makes them a must have for me.

They just don't want to die even after using them for years pulling terabites of data off them.

Regarding the size, they go up to 1to, but it's pricey ^^
I would argue, it's better to go for a 256go as many time as you need.

Posted: **Wed Nov 03, 2021 6:49 pm**

There are also Endurance versions of micro SD. Did anyone try those?

Posted: **Sun Aug 07, 2022 6:12 pm**

does the update all script still function correctly when using an SSD?

Posted: **Sun Aug 07, 2022 7:10 pm**

warham wrote: ↑Sun Aug 07, 2022 6:12 pm does the update all script still function correctly when using an SSD?

Yes works fine for me

Posted: **Sun Aug 07, 2022 8:35 pm**

warham wrote: ↑Sun Aug 07, 2022 6:12 pm does the update all script still function correctly when using an SSD?

it's not so much about it being an ssd but the location it's pointing to. (mounting entry)
for me for example it stores the cores on: /media/fat
and the games / bios / additionals are stored on: /media/usb0

if you run the update_all script and push up on the controller or keyboard you can configure these settings on where to store the data that is being downloaded, mind you keyboard is required to enter the path(s).

Posted: **Mon Aug 08, 2022 11:28 pm**

It's *supposed* to honor the path priority (which I think is /media/fat/cifs/games, /media/fat/usb0/games, /media/fat/games, in that order), but at least one core does not work that way. The AO486 BIOS will always download to /media/fat/games/AO486, no matter what.

I use symlinks in /media/fat, to be absolutely certain that ROMs and game files end up on my SMB share. Putting the 'config' dir on the SMB share, however, was a bad idea and gave me a lot of trouble. It's best to keep the 'config' dir, and all its contents, on the same filesystem with the main Mister binary. This is because a Samba share takes a few extra seconds to come up, and may not be available when the Mister binary looks for it after a cold boot. That makes it revert to defaults, and then return to normal settings after a warm reboot. It's very confusing.

Posted: **Tue Oct 04, 2022 3:08 pm**

I like the idea of using MicroSDs, but I'm afraid that the slot will be ruined over time.
What do you think is better in terms of quality and speed (access times)?
Use the MicroSD in a USB adapter? a flash drive? or an SSD hard drive?

Posted: **Tue Oct 04, 2022 3:42 pm**

there's micro sd extension available where you plug in the micro sd ribbon cable into the de10 and then use the extended adapter for your cards.

not sure if there's an speed / performance degradation though, there must be people in here who've already done this and can fill in the potential blanks.

Posted: **Tue Oct 04, 2022 7:58 pm**

MostroW wrote: ↑Tue Oct 04, 2022 3:42 pm there's micro sd extension available where you plug in the micro sd ribbon cable into the de10 and then use the extended adapter for your cards.

not sure if there's an speed / performance degradation though, there must be people in here who've already done this and can fill in the potential blanks.

Works just fine.

Posted: **Tue Oct 04, 2022 8:52 pm**

neogeo81 wrote: ↑Wed Nov 03, 2021 3:34 pm Is it faster (the USB are 2.0 i think)? Or is it only the size price ratio that is better?

Storage speed questions are answered via this testing:

https://misteraddons.com/blogs/news/mis ... d-shootout

Posted: **Sat Oct 21, 2023 1:05 pm**

jca wrote: ↑Wed Nov 03, 2021 4:06 pm
HDD are much cheaper, SD cards wear out, speed is not an issue.

you can get a 2TB SSD for a very reasonable price these days..SSDs wear out yes but that's nothing to worry about compared to physical hard disk drive unreliability and sensitiveness.physical hard drives fail very easily.I have many SSD drives some being used for years and have yet to see one of them fail.
for Mister they're going to be used just to load (read) so even less likelihood of "wearing out".
mechanical hard drives are 60 years old ancient technology and should have been obsolete long time ago.
at this point they only make sense if 8TB+ capacity is needed and only for file storage.

Posted: **Sun Oct 22, 2023 6:41 pm**

neogeo81 wrote: ↑Wed Nov 03, 2021 3:34 pm
I am wanting to buy a large SSD to hook up to the Mister as my micro sd card of 400gb will not be enough for future cores like ps1 and saturn.

# BIG FAT WARNING

AliExpress is offering fake storage devices HDD/SSD/M.2/NVME.
I've seen advertised sizes as large as 64TB, which of course is total bs

Make sure if you buy from China to compare it to the average prices in your country and deduct VAT+shipping. This would give you a reasonable idea if you are being scammed or not.

2cts

Posted: **Mon Oct 23, 2023 7:41 am**

Akuma wrote: ↑Sun Oct 22, 2023 6:41 pm
neogeo81 wrote: ↑Wed Nov 03, 2021 3:34 pm
I am wanting to buy a large SSD to hook up to the Mister as my micro sd card of 400gb will not be enough for future cores like ps1 and saturn.

# BIG FAT WARNING

AliExpress is offering fake storage devices HDD/SSD/M.2/NVME.
I've seen advertised sizes as large as 64TB, which of course is total bs

Make sure if you buy from China to compare it to the average prices in your country and deduct VAT+shipping. This would give you a reasonable idea if you are being scammed or not.

2cts

My comment was 2 years ago mate. A lot has changed and i think all of us are clearly aware to not buy 64TB SSDs for 15 bucks on Aliexpress.

Posted: **Mon Oct 23, 2023 6:17 pm**

Oh really? I did not pick up on that

Posted: **Tue Oct 24, 2023 10:01 pm**

I just mount the GAMES folder with SMB and it works great. Just share it off a PC elsewhere in your home... Easy.

Posted: **Wed Oct 25, 2023 6:43 am**

rcade wrote: ↑Tue Oct 24, 2023 10:01 pm
I just mount the GAMES folder with SMB and it works great. Just share it off a PC elsewhere in your home... Easy.

But if you want to travel with your misters or take them to your colleagues to play you are fkd

Posted: **Wed Oct 25, 2023 7:04 pm**

neogeo81 wrote: ↑Wed Oct 25, 2023 6:43 am
rcade wrote: ↑Tue Oct 24, 2023 10:01 pm
I just mount the GAMES folder with SMB and it works great. Just share it off a PC elsewhere in your home... Easy.

But if you want to travel with your misters or take them to your colleagues to play you are fkd

Yeah, I guess. Or take a laptop with you.

Posted: **Thu Oct 26, 2023 7:32 am**

rcade wrote: ↑Wed Oct 25, 2023 7:04 pm
neogeo81 wrote: ↑Wed Oct 25, 2023 6:43 am
rcade wrote: ↑Tue Oct 24, 2023 10:01 pm
I just mount the GAMES folder with SMB and it works great. Just share it off a PC elsewhere in your home... Easy.

But if you want to travel with your misters or take them to your colleagues to play you are fkd

Yeah, I guess. Or take a laptop with you.

i am meanwhile complete on sd card again with my 2 misters. don't need more than 512GB each.

Posted: **Thu Oct 26, 2023 12:27 pm**

SMBv3 has decent enough encryption for it to function over the internet. Even MS themselves offer it as a service on Azure. Samba and MiSTer both support it.

Posted: **Sun Oct 29, 2023 11:21 pm**

My setup has been using a MASE - MiSTer Attached SATA Enclosure from Retro Frog (available at https://stoneagegamer.com/mase-mister-a ... -frog.html), along with a 2TB SSD I picked up during the Amazon Prime sale earlier this year to replace a 2TB mechanical drive I was using. Works great and I have no complaints. Good luck!

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