This guide details advice for people seeking to use or buy an external storage device with a homebrewed console. For the purposes of the guide, an external storage device is an SD card or a USB disk and/or drive.
Space Needed for Storage
When considering buying or using an SD card or USB device, it is worth considering the things that you will be using a storage medium for. Different uses can take up varying amounts of space, some common examples of which are shown below:
Switch
- Information needed -
3DS
- Information needed -
Wii U
- Information needed -
Wii
- Wii Backups: The largest Wii games (dual-layer DVD) are up to sizes of 9GB, more normal games are closer to sizes of 4GB or lower. The average user for a Wii backup device would probably want 128GB or more of space.
- GameCube Backups: The largest GameCube games reach sizes of up to 1.3GB. ISO sizes are normally this size regardless of the game, but can be considerably lower if NKIT is used as a format instead. The average user for a GameCube backup device would probably want 64GB or more of space.
- General Emulation: There are a wide variety of emulators available on the Wii, with PS1 games taking up the most space and being generally still playable. Because the size of different game ROMs differ dramatically, the average user for an emulation drive would probably want 32GB or more of space.
- General Homebrew: For homebrew, the average user would want 2GB or more of space.
- NAND Backups: For backing up your NAND with BootMii, the average user would need a minimum of 512MB of free space, but sizes of 1GB or more are recommended.
- Exploit only: The minimum amount of space to run an SD-card compatible exploit on a Wii is 128MB.
SD Card Buying Guide
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SD cards 2TB or larger currently do not exist, anyone attempting to sell you one is trying to rip you off. |
SD cards come in various sizes, form factors, and speeds.
Form Factor
The primary form factors for SD cards are SD, Mini SD, and Micro SD. Mini SD is effectively nonexistent in the present day, while full size SD is still used in applications, while micro SD is ubiquitous and is generally just used with a full size SD adapter if needed. For speeds, there are four parameters to worry about:
Storage Size
Sizing on SD is determined by its specification, usually shown on the front of the card.
- SD (1999) - Original specification of Secure Digital, supports up to 2GB.
- SDHC (2006) - Secure Digital High Capacity, supports up to 32GB.
- SDXC (2009) - Secure Digital Extreme Capacity, supports up to 2TB.
- SDUC (2018) - Secure Digital Ultra Capacity, supports up to 128TB (no cards on the market for this specification).
Speed
Deciphering SD card speeds can be complicated, but beneficial depending on your application. There are four speed parameters that are helpful to know:
- Bus Rate - Essentially determines maximum throughput on a card as speeds higher than a card bus can handle will simply translate to being "busy".
- Speed Class (C symbol) - Translates to minimum sequential writing speed in MB/s, as-is. A speed class of C2 would be 2MB/s, C4 would be 4MB/s, so on and so forth.
- Ultra Speed Class (U symbol) - Translates to minimum sequential writing speed in MB/s, multiplied by 10. A speed class of U1 would be 10MB/s, U3 would be 30MB/s, so on and so forth.
- Video Speed Class (V symbol) - Translates to minimum sequential writing speed in MB/s, as-is. A speed class of V30 would be 30MB/s, V90 would be 90MB/s, so on and so forth.
Buying a Card
When buying SD cards, it is generally recommended that you stick to well-known brands the more expensive and larger capacity that you get. While you can buy a generic 2GB SD card and most likely be safe, the same cannot be said for something like a 512GB SD card. General current pricing for SD cards is around 10-20 USD for 256GB and below, whereas 512GB is around 40 USD. When buying off of Amazon, make sure that your card is either `Sold by/Shipped by Amazon` or `Sold by [brand], Shipped by Amazon`. Be wary when buying storage on eBay.
Recommended brands:
+ Samsung (EVO Select, EVO Plus, PRO Plus)
+ SanDisk (Extreme, Ultra, etc)
+ Lexar (E-Series, Professional)
+ Silicon Power ("3D NAND" cards, higher capacity usually better value)
+ PNY (Elite, Elite-X, etc)