Switch custom firmware adds USB mass storage support

AETOS said:

Damn..I wasn't expecting this! And this solves the issue of only working in docked mode. Good stuff.

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The issue was not about it "only working in docked", but the problems around how it would work as you undock/dock it without interruptions, without corrupting data, etc.

Plugged directly as pictured, how would you dock it while playing a game? Then undock it if you have to go?

In theory you could quit the game, unplug everything, then plug it back and start again. But then, they would need to add constant prompts on screen to remind people to do so, to avoid any damages. The player would need to create save states before quitting the game as suspend would be useless.

KALOSMANI said:

Hackers are killing it. Great emulation support, a built in cheat device manager for less grinding in some games. And now this. I'm glad I hacked my Switch

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Explain this, please?

That's cool but there isn't much use of it on my hacked Switch since it's a dedicated homebrew emulator machine and there isn't much to use up the space. Still SX progress is very fast, ftp was just released

TeHi & BuSp said:

Why is the topic on SX OS allowed? they did not steal code from the hacking scene and they made money?

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And they're a straight up piracy group. All their solutions seem to be about making piracy easier.

Foffy said:

Explain this, please?

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kinda like cheat engine, you load cheats file or find your own cheat.

Elven_Star said:

Yeah, sure. The point is it's possible. Why on earth isn't it an option on the official firmware? More options for the customer is always good, isn't it?

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If the option is potentially volatile for users that aren't careful then not necessarily, no.

And if prioritizing a niche option means diverting effort from options with more business value on their roadmap, also no.

rdbaaa said:

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Hey look it's my lime green Gameboy color

Elven_Star said:

SX OS 2.2 Beta was released today, and it allows the use of USB mass storage devices. Just connect the hard drive to the dock and get access to as many terabytes of data as you wish.
I have no idea why Nintendo doesn't include stuff like this in the official firmware. All that does is tempting people to use the custom firmware.

Edit:

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Kind of defeats the purpose of pickup and play lifting out the dock if I have to eject the usb device properly (plus quit any open game that might be using it) then lifting it out the dock..

More power to all the people that want to do this though, options on custom firmware are kind of the point..

PS4 throws a fit if you turn the thing off at the wall from standby on its internal HD (with no games open) and throws a double rebuild database fit if you have an external HD and have a power cut..

Removable storage on a dockable portable device.. not a good idea...

Hackers do things to prove they're possible. They don't have to be extremely useful, or even convenient. This, for instance, while cool, is very cumbersome if you're not playing docked. You also run the risk of accidentally disconnecting the HDD playing portable.

This would be a joke if it were official, and y'all know this. Their voice chat solution shows that.

Woodsey said:

Works with an OTG adapter in portable mode

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Can you charge while doing this? And does that mean it's also powering the drive?

Woodsey said:

Works with an OTG adapter in portable mode

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Who would do this lmao

OP stop making threads about piracy and piracy groups, like wtf?

Woodsey said:

Works with an OTG adapter in portable mode

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How to burn out your USB-C for 300$ Alex.

This is literally a stupid idea.

What happens when you undock the switch while it's reading or writing. Or if you get a power outage(or someone flips the power switch) and the switch stays on but the dock and effectively the harddrive shut off.

Kolma said:

What happens when you undock the switch while it's reading or writing. Or if you get a power outage(or someone flips the power switch) and the switch stays on but the dock and effectively the harddrive shut off.

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Any number of things could happen. Depends on the operation that is interrupted. If its drawing power from the Switch, for instance, it could overdraw and fry the Switch's USB-C connector and effectively destroy the unit.

Yeah, this is something that will never be added officially to Switch. And it never should.

Cool.

Man, do I hate the hybrid nature of the switch. It's "compromises, the console". Good thing Nintendo will probably just something different altogether moving foward.

Woodsey said:

Works with an OTG adapter in portable mode

Mod edit - Image of pirated content removed

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Wait, a picture that has a rom/custom firmware isn't allowed?

What about the Emulator screenshot threads and any pictures of a Raspberri Pi UI?

justiceiro said:

Cool.

Man, do I hate the hybrid nature of the switch. It's "compromises, the console". Good thing Nintendo will probably just something different altogether moving foward.

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Aside from some form factor updates and spec bumps, I can't imagine Nintendo moving away from the Switch concept anytime soon. This is their hardware identity these days.

OrangeNova said:

Wait, a picture that has a rom/custom firmware isn't allowed?

What about the Emulator screenshot threads and any pictures of a Raspberri Pi UI?

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He had a scene dump in his picture. Literally caught showing off warez.

it doesn't make sense to add it officially. you have an external drive connected to the dock, you're playing something off of it but want to take the system out of the dock and play in handheld mode, what will happen then?
i don't think it's an issue for people who aren't interested in piracy anyway. storage is cheap, and it's gonna get cheaper and cheaper (plenty of people have 256 gb cards now), there's a LOT you can fit on that card. this seems like something specially meant for pirates who can download a couple terabytes of games for free.

ColdSun said:

We intend to crack down on piracy discussions in homebrew and emulation threads moving forward. As long as a hack can be used for legitimate homebrew and/or legal emulation, we will not be permitting derails about piracy. Anyone not observing this rule after this post will be actioned accordingly.

If you have questions about this, please contact the staff privately.

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good rule. feels like switch hacking threads are barely about homebrew stuff anymore.

Lol That's pathetic. A home brewer can go in and do Nintendo's job for them.

Philly Cheesesteak said:

Lol That's pathetic. A home brewer can go in and do Nintendo's job for them.

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Only if you have zero understanding of the risks involved with doing something like this, and why its not integrated into the OS by default and the issues it can cause.

But thanks for the uninformed drive-by shitpost.

Ridley327 said:

Aside from some form factor updates and spec bumps, I can't imagine Nintendo moving away from the Switch concept anytime soon. This is their hardware identity these days.

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Nintendo always do what none of us imagined.

Philly Cheesesteak said:

Lol That's pathetic. A home brewer can go in and do Nintendo's job for them.

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why is this nintendo's job?

Vena said:

But thanks for the uninformed drive-by shitpost.

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that's his MO. anytime i see him in a nintendo thread he's there to shitpost and concern-troll.

Elven_Star said:

Yeah, sure. The point is it's possible. Why on earth isn't it an option on the official firmware? More options for the customer is always good, isn't it?

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And what happens when you take the Switch out of the dock, game crashes or worse. Its not just a good option, obviously. Its clear why Nintendo don't integrate this in the firmware.

I just successfully hacked my Switch this week. Link now has a Sword of Omens as his main weapon, and I've added Project AHO (a free mod that's like a separate quest DLC) to Skyrim, as well as a convenient little mod that skips the Bethesda video to ever so slightly speed up the game load, and I've been looking into alternate storage options to make the constant drudge of shuffling out my SD card less of a thing. I'm using hekate instead of SX, though, so I can't try this update out. :/ It's a bit of a shame, as I'd really like to be able to install new mods and get my saves onto my laptop as effortlessly as possible, and a portable drive might have been useful here. Looks like ftp is still my default option (though it weirdly breaks at times).

Say, I did a search and didn't find anything; is there a community for this in Hangouts? I'm in the honeymoon phase of having installed this, so I'd be pretty stoked about chatting it up and helping others figure it all out.

mazi said:

why is this nintendo's job?


that's his MO. anytime i see him in a nintendo thread he's there to shitpost and concern-troll.

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Aww, that's cute that you remember me enough to call me shitposting.

Vena said:

Only if you have zero understanding of the risks involved with doing something like this, and why its not integrated into the OS by default and the issues it can cause.

But thanks for the uninformed drive-by shitpost.

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Please. This is no different than Sony or MS allowing mass storage support. Trying to say, "Well it may fry the system" is a cop out unless Nintendo comes with receipts and explicitly says attaching a mass drive to the Switch will harm it. Until then, it's all hearsay and people like you defending Nintendo from giving people options. But thanks for the uninformed drive-by ballwashing. Ignored.

Philly Cheesesteak said:

Please. This is no different than Sony or MS allowing mass storage support. Trying to say, "Well it may fry the system" is a cop out unless Nintendo comes with receipts and explicitly says attaching a mass drive to the Switch will harm it. Until then, it's all hearsay and people like you defending Nintendo from giving people options. But thanks for the uninformed drive-by ballwashing. Ignored.

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you have no idea what you're talking about, this isn't comparable to ps4/xbo. you're literally ignoring the whole point of the hybrid nature of switch, which is that you can just take the system out of the dock and resume your game in handheld mode. you can't do that if you're running a game from external memory connected to the dock.
it's not about harming the system by connecting mass drives to it.

Philly Cheesesteak said:

Aww, that's cute that you remember me enough to call me shitposting.

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it's hard not to remember it when your shitposting and console warring is that obnoxious.

Elven_Star said:

Yeah, sure. The point is it's possible. Why on earth isn't it an option on the official firmware? More options for the customer is always good, isn't it?

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And what happens when you take the Switch out of the dock, game crashes or worse. Its not just a good option, obviously. Its clear why Nintendo don't integrate this in the firmware.

Philly Cheesesteak said:

Please. This is no different than Sony or MS allowing mass storage support. Trying to say, "Well it may fry the system" is a cop out unless Nintendo comes with receipts and explicitly says attaching a mass drive to the Switch will harm it. Until then, it's all hearsay and people like you defending Nintendo from giving people options. But thanks for the uninformed drive-by ballwashing. Ignored.

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Who on earth is defending Nintendo from offering it as an option? All I see here and what I've been talking about is merely explaining why they don't just snap their fingers and add it right now, with little more than common sense. The Switch is unique hardware and requires different solutions from those that you'd find on a traditional console. Those are just facts.

How do you play portably?

Drksage said:

When hackers do a better job than you

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Stupid comment lol

Aside from worrying about the switch coming out of the dock while a game is running off the hard drive, keep in mind what could happen if you experience a power outage for even a few seconds. To your switch, no longer receiving power or data from the dock, it's the same thing as being undocked.

So very risky even if you never undock your switch.

Philly Cheesesteak said:

Please. This is no different than Sony or MS allowing mass storage support. Trying to say, "Well it may fry the system" is a cop out unless Nintendo comes with receipts and explicitly says attaching a mass drive to the Switch will harm it. Until then, it's all hearsay and people like you defending Nintendo from giving people options. But thanks for the uninformed drive-by ballwashing. Ignored.

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This has nothing to do with mass storage solutions (SD cards are themselves mass storage solutions, just of a smaller capacity than the largest HDDs). The issues are two fold: state of the software in memory when you unplug the game and possible corruption of data on either the Switch itself or the hard-drive when the game is improperly disconnected from the HDD.

You can mitigate risk to the HDD by making it read-only operations but this makes the whole thing pointless because then the Switch cannot write to it and the only way to get games onto the HDD would be by pirating them. You could code it to only be read-only when running a game, but then what prevents/happens if someone undocks while a game is being downloaded? The number of conditionals becomes a fractal, and you would still never make it idiot proof leading to cases of outright disc or system corruption.

The other issue is the over-draw and work on the USB-C interface which is not used for reading/writing nominally in the Switch, it is used only as a streamline of data for video/audio output, some low-draw connections like a Gamecube adapter or controller, and charging. If you over-draw the USB-C by doing, for instance, the stupid thing the OP quoted before it was deleted for showing off warez by attached an external (non-powered) HDD to the USB-C connection (something which you'd by default allow if the dock can ever talk to an HDD) you would risk destroying the USB-C connection on an over-draw from the HDD drawing power from a port not designed to deliver power.

There is no good in this. Its stupid. It has a "neat" feature to it in a homebrew sense but even there its largely pointless because what exactly are you homebrewing to need an HDD? 20MB roms?

Vena said:

There is no good in this. Its stupid. It has a "neat" feature to it in a homebrew sense but even there its largely pointless because what exactly are you homebrewing to need an HDD? 20MB roms?

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yeah exactly, if every little feature that hackers come up with was added to the official system software it would be an absolute mess. this kind of thing is cool for hackers i guess but this one isn't a feature that many are demanding. there are other stuff nintendo should add tho, the current OS is by no means perfect. they have to start with offline save backups.

PCPace said:

Aside from worrying about the switch coming out of the dock while a game is running off the hard drive, keep in mind what could happen if you experience a power outage for even a few seconds. To your switch, no longer receiving power or data from the dock, it's the same thing as being undocked.

So very risky even if you never undock your switch.

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You run the same risk with a regular console. Power goes out, your save data and information possibly gets corrupted.

Philly Cheesesteak said:

You run the same risk with a regular console. Power goes out, your save data and information possibly gets corrupted.

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i love how you keep ignoring the "taking the system out of the dock while a game is running from the external memory" point.

mazi said:

i love how you keep ignoring the "taking the system out of the dock while a game is running from the external memory" point.

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Some games could be marked as archive while the switch isn't connected to the drive. Maybe offer a suspend point for the game on the system.

justiceiro said:

Nintendo always do what none of us imagined.

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They're under new management now though

Smash Kirby said:

Some games could be marked as archive while the switch isn't connected to the drive. Maybe offer a suspend point for the game on the system.

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You can already move game data off the SD card if you want. This would really only work if the HDD was purely for archiving and simply made the process easier. I don't think playing games off the HDD would ever be allowed

Will wait a while to see how well it works and make sure there's no major issues with it but could be a great option for loads of storage space and cheaper than a smaller capacity SD card.

808s & Villainy said:

You can already move game data off the SD card if you want. This would really only work if the HDD was purely for archiving and simply made the process easier. I don't think playing games off the HDD would ever be allowed

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this can work, so when you archive a game instead of deleting it from the memory it creates a backup on external menory, and when you want to play you move it back to the sd card. would be good for people with bad internet/data caps.

808s & Villainy said:

This would really only work if the HDD was purely for archiving and simply made the process easier. I don't think playing games off the HDD would ever be allowed

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Sounds good to me. Make it so, Nintendo.

feroca said:

Better would mean them finding a way to magically access the HDD docking/undocking it, without corrupting, losing access, or anything.

Right now is a glorified SD card that you can use either docked or undocked, not constantly, no swapping.

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But it's a nice option to have. I'm not talking about using it constantly. Right now Xbox and ps4 support external drives, and why people use them? As backup. Store save files, games, apps, etc.

EloquentM said:

Stupid comment lol

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Ditto

Drksage said:

But it's a nice option to have. I'm not talking about using it constantly. Right now Xbox and ps4 support external drives, and why people use them? As backup. Store save files, games, apps, etc.

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If Nintendo does support drives, I'm going they support it like MS. Game installs can be copied to another machine for no fuss.

This really shouldn't require CFW.

Elven_Star said:

I really don't get these "what if the HDD is disconnected" comments. Just don't disconnect it? It's like saying driving a car is bad, because "what if I want to drive blindfolded." I'm exaggerating, of course, but you know what I mean.

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it just doesn't make sense with the way the device is designed and marketed. it's cool that it's added in a hack but people aren't being realistic if they expect this in an official update.
it's like if your pc/console had a prominent "turn off HDD" button, and people where like just don't push it. there are so many things that can go wrong and your hdd/system memory/saves can become corrupted. people put their switch on sleep all the time without saving or exiting the games. just forgetting and picking your system out of the dock while a game is running off of HDD will be like pulling your consoles plug mid-game.