A Hard Drive Is Completely Useless

As for the SD speed that's up to users even now. If someone wants to shell out a few more bucks they can get a faster SD card that will speed up copying over data. Most users just go for the 1gig under ten dollars or 2gig under 15.

I don't know what the maximum speed is for the SD slot. I'm not exactly sure how I'd go about that either lol

If Nintendo wanted to make an add on that was solid state I'd be more in favor of that.

Jaysonguy

Since the Wii only accepts 2GB max on SD cards, it's most likely a SD version 1.1 slot. That being the case, the maximum theoretical speed for the SD would be a 150x card, which is about 22MB/s.

Thanks for the info, but the question was whether it's possible for a firmware update to allow games to be played directly from an SD card by increasing the transfer speed. I have no doubt that a firmware update could allow hard drives to function.

[QUOTE="Davey_B"]It should be. All it's doing is pulling the VC game from the card and caching it into the Wii's memory (of which there's more than enough for all VC games, even Neo-Geo games).JordanElek

What about WiiWare games? The max is 43MB, I believe.

Yes. Metal Slug is around 73MB, so a 43MB WiiWare game is well within the limits of the Wii. Assuming that the Wii dashboard reserves a small portion of memory for itself, you'd still probably have practically 90% of the Wii's internal memory free for games. Again, that's just a guess, but if it's 90% free, that's 460MB of memory to play with, more than enough for WiiWare, VC, etc. Just a guess on the dashboard part though.

Although now that I think about it, perhaps the dashboard is loaded back into memory from an EEPROM on the PCB of the Wii considering it shows that "Wii Channels" splash screen (black screen with white Wii channel screens that appears for a second or two) when you exit back to the Wii menu. If that's the case, it could be possible to use all of the Wii's internal memory for cache. Again, these are just assumptions since I have no idea how the Wii handles the dashboard or what it's doing when it shows that splash screen. It could be that it's just unloading whatever you just played or used from memory to free up that memory again.

Thanks for that, Davey.

So it seems that one problem is possible to fix. The other is the transfer speed. Nintendo isn't going to make us dish out the big bucks for new SD cards that transfer faster. As it is, we would have to wait at least five minutes to play a WiiWare or large VC game (since that's currently how long they take to transfer from the card to the Wii), if I understand your explanation correctly. That's unacceptable.

Thanks for that, Davey.

So it seems that one problem is possible to fix. The other is the transfer speed. Nintendo isn't going to make us dish out the big bucks for new SD cards that transfer faster. As it is, we would have to wait at least five minutes to play a WiiWare or large VC game (since that's currently how long they take to transfer from the card to the Wii), if I understand your explanation correctly. That's unacceptable.

JordanElek

Yeah, like I said, it should be possible to fix. Will it be fixed? That remains to be seen. 150x SD cards (currently the fastest they make I believe) currently go for around $40-$50 for a 4GB one and have a max transfer speed of around 22MB/s. For $30 extra dollars, I can get a 320-500GB USB drive with much higher transer speeds. HD failure isn't really a concern because most times if the harddrive isn't DOA, it should work perfectly fine for years. Not to say that they all do, but the more respected brands like Western Digital, Seagate, Hitachi, and Maxtor should easily last the life span of a typical console. Actually, they should last the lifespan of two or more consoles. On the flip side, anything mass produced with moving parts is eventually going to fail. How fast it fails depends on various factor such as use, environmental conditions, how well it's taken care of, etc.

Just release a patch that makes the 2 USB slots in the back compatible with Flash Drives, problem solved,flash drives are owned by many people and are fairly cheap. My 8GB will be more than enough. Or they could just allow games to run off the SD card. a HDD is not needed and it would cost Nintendo $$$. Releasing a pathc can be much better,SMR-Venom

Why would it cost Nintendo money? Just make a patch to allow a USB HD. Your VC games are still encoded to your specific Wii, so it's not like you can copy them to someone elses. The cost would be on the consumer as to what size they wanted to buy. If Nintendo *was* worried about pricing and keeping cost down, they could limit the size of the attached harddrive to a certain size, like say 120GB or so. A 120GB drive is about $70. Not very much at all considering the amount of storage you get.

[QUOTE="SMR-Venom"]Just release a patch that makes the 2 USB slots in the back compatible with Flash Drives, problem solved,flash drives are owned by many people and are fairly cheap. My 8GB will be more than enough. Or they could just allow games to run off the SD card. a HDD is not needed and it would cost Nintendo $$$. Releasing a pathc can be much better,Davey_B

Why would it cost Nintendo money? Just make a patch to allow a USB HD. Your VC games are still encoded to your specific Wii, so it's not like you can copy them to someone elses. The cost would be on the consumer as to what size they wanted to buy. If Nintendo *was* worried about pricing and keeping cost down, they could limit the size of the attached harddrive to a certain size, like say 120GB or so. A 120GB drive is about $70. Not very much at all considering the amount of storage you get.

Just thought I'd help your argument by bringing up that I bought a 500 GB external for $80. They're very affordable.

Nintendo simply needs to include a firmware update that'll allow us to hook up any external hard drive we like. Whatever Nintendo decides to do to solve the storage problem, I know we'll be satisfied.

I don't know where you got your info. But HDD's are fine. the only problem is when they are written on. It would be better to find a different solution, yes, but what you say is not all exactly correct.

Now the way that Nintendo has tied everything to the Wii that means for a large chunk of users a failed hard drive means games lost forever. Even today people don't register their Wii at Nintendo.com and ask questions about what happens if your Wii dies. Adding a storage device that is shown to fail no matter what would only cause problems for the user and the company.

Jaysonguy

I'd like to point out that this statement is false. If an external hard drive on the Wii were to fail, the games would not be "lost forever". The Wii is still functional, and all their games are tied to their Wii Shop Channel account. If someone is foolish enough not to back up their data, they would still have the opportunity to redownload everything again.

[QUOTE="Jaysonguy"]

Now the way that Nintendo has tied everything to the Wii that means for a large chunk of users a failed hard drive means games lost forever. Even today people don't register their Wii at Nintendo.com and ask questions about what happens if your Wii dies. Adding a storage device that is shown to fail no matter what would only cause problems for the user and the company.

Rocky32189

I'd like to point out that this statement is false. If an external hard drive on the Wii were to fail, the games would not be "lost forever". The Wii is still functional, and all their games are tied to their Wii Shop Channel account. If someone is foolish enough not to back up their data, they would still have the opportunity to redownload everything again.

Yes, if the Wii is still working they'd just lose the drive

Also foolish? The Wii is full of foolish users as seen HERE

Yes, if the Wii is still working they'd just lose the drive

Also foolish? The Wii is full of foolish users as seen HERE

Jaysonguy

So you are calling Wii owners foolish for not backing up data that is on memory that you said cannot fail?

Also foolish? The Wii is full of foolish users as seen HEREJaysonguy

People have no reason to back up their files. According to your own argument, the Wii's internal flash memory has no moving parts, so it won't fail. Why would you call people foolish for not worrying about something that they don't need to worry about?

[QUOTE="Jaysonguy"]Also foolish? The Wii is full of foolish users as seen HEREJordanElek

People have no reason to back up their files. According to your own argument, the Wii's internal flash memory has no moving parts, so it won't fail. Why would you call people foolish for not worrying about something that they don't need to worry about?

Yes, solid state is bullet proof, there's no argument there.

On the other hand the Wii itself is not bullet proof lol

As for no reason? Considering the problems that Nintendo has had with it's consoles since launch there's a really big reason.

It's got three problems that Nintendo shares openly (retail units sold to customers accidentally, heatsink being misplaced, and optical drive) where for the most part it's plug and play to get a new Wii.

As I said in another thread though anything that happens to the board itself will not be fixed, that means if your video burns out there goes the Wii. They do not repair it under those circumstances, it's cheaper and easier to give you a new Wii.

That's not even taking into account the stolen Wii's in shipping (which has happened since they were so rare), simply losing your package, damage in transit, etc.

It's got three problems that Nintendo shares openly (retail units sold to customers accidentally, heatsink being misplaced, and optical drive) where for the most part it's plug and play to get a new Wii.Jaysonguy

But if any of those things happen, you can back up your information before you send it in. None of those problems renders the Wii absolutely useless. The heatsink problem causes artifacts on the screen - you can still transfer files. Broken optical drive means you can't read discs - you can still transfer files.

The only thing that would prevent you from transferring files before sending your Wii in for repairs is if the graphics card completely melts or something happens that makes the Wii stop functioning altogether. This is an extremely rare situation.

And if Nintendo decides to send you a new Wii, then your old game saves that you backed up will be useless anyway. The VC and WiiWare games should be able to be retrieved if you're in dialogue with Nintendo, though you know more about that than I do.

It's like calling someone foolish for driving their car, because something might happen. Well.. that's life. Like I've said many times now, we can't go around worrying about all the things that might go wrong when there's such a small chance that they will.

Oh and I'd also like to inform people on how hard drives are made and sold since this thread needs it.

It's going to go over a lot of people's heads so this is optional reading lol

Drives are not created flawless, it's impossible.

Back in the day a drive maker would show you the list of defects in your specific drive. It would clearly have the sectors that were flawed on the drive from the onset. What users would do is tell the computer not to write any information to any of the flawed sectors and that way they'd lessen the chance of losing data.

Then came smart drives where a drive would see if it could write to a sector and if it was bad it would write someplace else. The problem comes in when the drive grows new defects over use (as all hard drives do) Then the data is still written to the spots but the drive doesn't know if it's bad until your data is read again, by then it's too late.

Drives don't start off perfectly fine and they don't stay in that condition when used

If you're still awake click HERE to check out this and a lot more facts on hard drives

And if Nintendo decides to send you a new Wii, then your old game saves that you backed up will be useless anyway.

JordanElek

No, the game saves can be used on any Wii.

The first party and the third party ones, as long as a game can be saved they can be played on any Wii.

[QUOTE="JordanElek"]

And if Nintendo decides to send you a new Wii, then your old game saves that you backed up will be useless anyway.

Jaysonguy

No, the game saves can be used on any Wii.

The first party and the third party ones, as long as a game can be saved they can be played on any Wii.

Then disregard that point and respond to the others. ;)