I'm not talking about the dock, I'm talking about a stand which makes using the USB slot possible. It would be exactly like plugging the HDD directly into the USB slot, except you can stand it on a table.
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
Nintendo Switch could eventually support external USB drive. No limit on MicroSD size
- Thread starter CaVaYeRo
- Start date
I'm not talking about the dock, I'm talking about a stand which makes using the USB slot possible. It would be exactly like plugging the HDD directly into the USB slot, except you can stand it on a table.
fabricated backlash
Member
I'm not talking about the dock, I'm talking about a stand which makes using the USB slot possible. It would be exactly like plugging the HDD directly into the USB slot, except you can stand it on a table.
Didn't one of the leaked Hori Products have a stand for the Switch that would allow you to plug in a cable? It being USB C should allow to attach storage, no?
I'm not talking about the dock, I'm talking about a stand which makes using the USB slot possible. It would be exactly like plugging the HDD directly into the USB slot, except you can stand it on a table.
Ahhhhh, does it exist, though? I don't remember seeing it anywhere.
But I suppose it could work, if you are taking your hdd with you, an extra stand is easy enough.
I'm just saying, it's hardly an unsolvable problem. Does such a 20 buck product seem difficult to make and sell? I don't think so!
I'm confident we'll see 3rd party "portable docks" like that in the future.
BronzeWolf
Banned
HD + microSD seems like a great solution in the making.
Just transfer between them directly from the device before yougo on an adventure
Just transfer between them directly from the device before yougo on an adventure
External "fridge" USBs drives doesn't seem like a big hurdle to enable.
Nintendo selling cheaper stand alone Switches and 3rd party dock with things like Ethernet included would make things a ton better. Hope this can become true.
Nintendo selling cheaper stand alone Switches and 3rd party dock with things like Ethernet included would make things a ton better. Hope this can become true.
I'm not talking about the dock, I'm talking about a stand which makes using the USB slot possible. It would be exactly like plugging the HDD directly into the USB slot, except you can stand it on a table.
http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2017/01/hori_has_a_wide_range_of_nintendo_switch_accessories_on_the_way
Do you mean like the one in this link? It's just plastics, you can use anything lol. I wonder if an adapter could split the port to charge and use a HDD.
protomouse
Member
Inconsistent writes would be the problem here. Modern, journaling filesystems have gotten quite good at dealing with those. In the end though, as long as only static data (e.g. game installs and patches) gets written to HDD only at install/transfer-time (when the user is explicitly told not to touch anything), it's not really much of an issue.
D
Deleted member 125677
Unconfirmed Member
I so hope this thing will support the gamecube adapter when smash eventually gets ported :O
LegendOfFalcon
Member
It looks like right now the best value is the 200GB micro sdxc card. Hopefully by the time that gets filled up, we'll see similar prices for 1TB cards.
Well, it should, in the end, the adapter only needs two usb connectors.
Do they work on a pc?
See! It already exists!
everthustodeadbeats
Member
What's this eventually shit? Support USB drive right from launch Nintendo.
There's a USB 3.0 port on the back of the dock next to the power and HDMI ports:
If they could pull off a quick and easy way to transfer between an external HDD and system storage/microSD for digital games/content, it could work really well.
Back cover is some nice shit.
ultrazilla
Member
Good news. I have a nice 500 gig western digital external drive I have from my Wii U days, so I'll just be using that.
And cartridges! Glorious cartridges!
And cartridges! Glorious cartridges!
CrAzY FiNgErS
Member
Yep! Right now the most economical MicroSD solution is 128GB or 200GB cards by Sandisk. Even though you're paying more for for the 200GB version it might be the best bet right now.
Get one of those and a good quality economical external HDD and you'd be set.
I can't wait to get all this tech in place to be able to game anywhere. This system is going to be fun to take on the go.
Edit-LegendOfFalcon beat me to it, lol. What he said. Although earlier this morning the 200GB was $65.00 now it seems to be $68.00. The 128GB is $40.00. It's crazy how much it jumps in price when you get to 256GB though. $170 yikes!
Official Amazon Prices
fabricated backlash
Member
Lol I thought that was like a disgusting looking foot for stability.
Admiral Woofington
Member
hopefully the external HDDs come out soonish then.
Because MicroSD prices are already fucking ridiculous. The 256GB one is like 140 bucks. Fuck that noise.
Because MicroSD prices are already fucking ridiculous. The 256GB one is like 140 bucks. Fuck that noise.
The technology does exist, but I don't think they're on store shelves, yet.
Cool who made those and are they real considering the biggest companies done even have one made for 1TB?
There are prototype tests being done though
Maintenance
Member
If Nintendo doesn't enable it, the eventual homebrew will.
BronzeWolf
Banned
The highest rated sd cards are always a premium. When 512 GB sd cards become available, 256 will be less than double of 128 GB
JoeyJungle
Banned
What happens when you pull the Switch out of the dock when playing a game off the USB drive is probably is a major hurdle. Does the game shut down? What if you were in the middle of saving? How do they keep data from being corrupted? How does it resume? Do they need to have a million warning messages every time you play a game off the USB drive?
At launch they're going for a "Look, this is like Playstation's Crossplay but incredibly better. Turning the console into a handheld works incredibly easy, 100% of the time." Any type of "Well, if you're playing a game from USB, then you need pause, save, quit out of the game - make sure it's not suspended, and then after a couple seconds it's safe to remove the Switch" would totally destroy the concept. It changes from a simple "Just take it out" into "Well, under some scenarios, you can just take it out, but you'll never really feel safe doing it, because under other scenarios, that could wreck your save."
I don't think it's an impossible problem for them solve, and they might be able to have some type of solution eventually, but I can totally see why this is a feature that wouldn't be around at launch.
They could have a warning that states that taking the system from the dock while it's saving is bad. Like, "Please don't remove the system from the dock..." It's the same as "don't turn your system off or remove media while saving." They could also avoid this by not letting games run from the HDD, but I feel like it'll get to inconvenient having to move games back and forth from the internal storage to the HDD so often. I guess we'll see, but I want HDD support and day one if possible.
LegendOfFalcon
Member
The 200GB was on sale for $50 and the 128GB was $30 during the holidays. So hopefully either one goes on sale again sometime soon.
see here: https://slickdeals.net/f/9413351-sa...-ssd-sale-64gb-ultra-microsd-15-much-more?v=1
JoeyJungle
Banned
I mean that would be way more intrusive than the standard swirl that pops up in the lower right hand corner during autosaves, and would make it impossible to develop certain types of games that autosave more-or-less constantly (like Dark Souls).
That's true, but there wouldn't be a clean way to do it, because without some prompt, someone doesn't realize it's saving, picks up the NS from the dock and now their saves are corrupted. At least if there's at least a prompt or something, they know to wait until it stops saving, before removing the system from the dock.
Or the system could only allow games to run from internal storage. I think trying to manage the fridge everytime you want to play a game would be a nightmare.
JoeyJungle
Banned
Exactly, that's why I think that only allowing games to run from the SD card, and not allowing games to run off the USB, is a totally understandable compromise, especially at launch. After two or three years, when they've solidified what the system's image is going to be, I can see them adding some kind of opt-in "Hey, for the 1% of people who buy every game released and ONLY play games on the TV, here's an experimental feature for you!"
But I can not see this ever being a feature that they advertise much or something that comes out anywhere near the launch timeframe.
That's not the problem and that product is not the solution to the problem. The problem is as another user was getting at is that you can not seamlessly go into portable mode while playing a game of an external USB. This is actually impossible to solve.
Many people probably would not mind this drawback and Nintendo should just give you the option. Despite what another user said about Nintendo not giving any options to users, they have actually given the most options in terms of storage.
I also don't agree with people saying anything about save games is part of the problem why they don't have support for externals. Saving always has a warning not to power down during it and one line of text for undocking solves that issue.
In theory, there's nothing stopping them.
Leatherface
Member
Honestly I think this will end up not really being an issue for most of us with the option to add our own MicroSD as long as it's not capped at 64GB or something silly. In fact I prefer it.
CrAzY FiNgErS
Member
Thanks for the heads up, because I was just eyeballing a $46.00 deal on a Amazon Warehouse deal. Very Good condition, but don't know how reliable this would be being used and all. There's also one for $49.99 in like new condition. I wonder if I should take a chance on these?
Maintenance
Member
Stop bringing rational examples into this conversation.
LegendOfFalcon
Member
We still have some time until release and I don't think you'll fill up the internal storage on launch day right? So I'd hold off and wait for them to go on sale again.
Marty Chinn
Member
Can someone tell me what actually uses the USB ports at this moment? It has three ports, one especially in the back that gets neatly concealed, but I can't figure what they're actually used for by anything right now.
LegendOfFalcon
Member
I'm planning on using the hidden usb port for the usb to ethernet adapter.
andthebeatgoeson
Junior Member
Would love a hdd at the dock with a sd card to go. Although do we have an idea of typical game sizes? I think no, so the HDD may be necessary.
It's hard to imagine smash without gamecube controllers after the wii u made usb adapters for it.
JoeyJungle
Banned
I definitely think it's a combination of the two. The problem is
1) What happens when you undock when playing a game from USB?
2) What happens when you resume a game that was playing from a USB?
I would disagree about saving not being a part of those two issues. You can have a simple warning message at start that says "This is running off the USB, don't undock during play!" or something, and that might feel like you've solved it, but as a user that just creates a whole new issue. Then you've got to remember which games are on the USB drive and which games are on the SD card; which games you can safely undock, and which games you need to make sure you save and shut down.
That quickly turns undocking the Switch from "Hey, this is a neat thing that works 100% of the time" to "Shit, I wanna go to bed, is this game on the USB? Did it pop up a warning message when I started playing 3 hours ago? I just tapped A when started the game, maybe I just missed it? Is it safe to undock? Oh yeah, this game I bought when I was on the couch, so it must've downloaded to the SD card, so this one is safe to undock."
I can definitely see why some people want a USB drive, but for many users I think that would actively damage the overall experience by causing switching from console to handheld mode to change from something that seamlessly works 100% of the time for all games, to something that works most of the time but does not work at all for games that installed to a USB drive. Keeping track of install locations is just a complication that ruins the messaging of "Dock it, undock it, it works seamlessly in any scenario."
Especially during the console's early lifetime, Nintendo should not want users to ever feel at all concerned that it might not be safe to undock the device. That would be a massive failure for their entire messaging of the console, and cause long-term damage to the perception of the console.
Zelda is ~13GB (I think 13.4 but don't remember the exact number). I imagine most larger AAA games will be of a similar size, and jrpg's/indie games will be much smaller.
goldenpp72
Member
Nintendo just needs to make a locker app to fetch games from your external hdd through the system but still need to load them to the internal storage to play.
Maintenance
Member
I still need to see a good argument about how options for other people will hurt / "damage the experience" for the ones that won't be using it.
If you can't remember where you put your games, just don't use it. I hate using this argument but it is a case of simply not using it, you're not being forced. Buy cartridges or a bigger microSD.
If you can't remember where you put your games, just don't use it. I hate using this argument but it is a case of simply not using it, you're not being forced. Buy cartridges or a bigger microSD.
The Iron Yuppie
Member
Thanks so much for this thread. What size of cards it would support was high on my list on unanswered questions!
Solid SOAP
Member
The 32GB will be fine for launch, but I'm probably gonna need to upgrade in a year or so. It's a shame they're going for such a low amount of space :/
what happened when you popped the disc cover on a gamecube while it was running? they could do the same thing here, and as long as all save data is kept on internal flash there's no fear of corrupting those.