Right filesystem for game backups (TinyWiiBackupManager feature draft)

[mq1]

Hi, do you think a feature like this (drive info card) could be useful to users?

the comments are:

let fs_comment = match info.fs_kind() {
    FsKind::Fat32 => "✓ optimal choice for game backups and homebrew apps",
    FsKind::Ntfs => "⚠ will work for game backups, but not for homebrew apps",
    _ => "⚠ won't work for game backups and homebrew apps",
};

and the link is https://gbatemp.net/threads/usb-loader-gx-troubleshooting-guide.617564/#fs

this is a draft btw, I'm open to suggestions

[playerjmr]

NTFS barely even works at all, I would go as far as to say "partially compatible with loading backups"

[mq1]

@wiidev do you think I should add/change something here?

[wiidev]

USB Loader GX will soon completely drop NTFS support in favor of exFAT, so "will work for game backups" wouldn't apply to all of the USB loaders anymore and you'd need to change the wording.

Nintendont already supports exFAT, and in time I'm also going to update some other homebrew apps and the HBC to support exFAT. However, that isn't really critical, since I usually recommend that people keep their homebrew on an SD card formatted as FAT32 and store their backups on a USB storage device. And I recommend this setup because more homebrew supports it, and the Wii can access an SD card faster than it can spin up and mount a USB hard drive.

[mq1]

given that wiiflow lite doesn't support exfat, should we be more conservative and just recommend fat32?

// something like this
let fs_comment = match info.fs_kind() {
    FsKind::Fat32 => "✓ optimal choice for game backups and homebrew apps",
    FsKind::Ntfs | FsKind::Exfat => "⚠ limited support for game backups and homebrew apps",
    _ => "⚠ won't work for game backups and homebrew apps",
};

also, I added a label for allocation granularity / cluster size

let optimal_allocation_granularity = if info.total_bytes() <= 32 * 1024 * 1024 * 1024 {
    info.allocation_granularity() == 32768
} else {
    info.allocation_granularity() == 65536
};

let allocation_granularity_comment = if optimal_allocation_granularity {
    "✓ optimal"
} else {
    "⚠ not optimal, but will work"
};

could this be useful, or would it just confuse users?

[wiidev]

given that wiiflow lite doesn't support exfat, should we be more conservative and just recommend fat32?

For the time being you might want to stick with that, but once I've released my update I'll be recommending exFAT much more widely, especially after I've added exFAT support to some other apps and the HBC.

could this be useful, or would it just confuse users?

IMO it should be avoided, since what's recommended for one file system isn't recommended for the other. For example, a 5TB USB HDD that's using exFAT shouldn't use 32KB or 64KB.

I still need to do more testing with GameCube games, but with the upcoming USB Loader GX update you won't need to worry much about cluster sizes anymore. This applies to both FAT32 and exFAT.

[mq1]

IMO it should be avoided, since what's recommended for one file system isn't recommended for the other. For example, a 5TB USB HDD that's using exFAT shouldn't use 32KB or 64KB.

this label is currently shown only if the drive is fat32, so it should be fine (?)

btw, I'll try to keep twbm aligned with your recommendations for usbloader_gx 👍🏻

[wiidev]

this label is currently shown only if the drive is fat32, so it should be fine (?)

It's probably safe to assume that, but I haven't tested various cluster sizes on large (3TB+) FAT32 partitions yet. That said, it's always been a bit messy to force such large drives to use FAT32, so going forward I'd recommend using exFAT with a GPT partition scheme anyway.

btw, I'll try to keep twbm aligned with your recommendations for usbloader_gx 👍🏻

I appreciate that, since the last thing we want is to be giving people conflicting information.