Topic: Recommended SD Card size for Wii?

[davidctaylor]

I haven't seen this covered anywhere, so I'm curious what everyone thinks.  I know that the Wii will have 512MB internally but I'm wondering how quickly this might fill up and how big of an SD card I should get.

I've got an extra 512MB laying around.  But, I could get a 1GB from Newegg for ~$18.  One thing that concerns me is that there is only 1 SD slot.  If I fill up my internal memory and my SD card, how would I go about copying information onto a new (bigger) SD Card?!  could I do it from my PC?  That is one reason I'm thinking it might be wise to start with as large of an SD card as possible.  I'm sure Nintendo has thought of this, but I don't see how copying from card to card will work.

Does anyone have any insight into this?

Thanks!
David Taylor

[croenyit]

Hi,

You can do it on your pc if you buy an USB SD Card Reader.  Put your old SD card in and copy the files to your hard drive.  Then, take out your old SD card and put in your new larger SD card and copy the files off your hard drive to your new SD card.  I'm assumming it's that easy.

[BigJim]

Yeah if you have a card reader, the card will look like a drive. Copy stuff over to your HD, and then back to the new card, and you're good. The readers are really cheap too. $5 on Newegg.

As for size, damn, I can't fathom filling up a 1 GB card plus the system's 512MB myself (although the Wii channels and UI are likely taking up a portion of that 512).  But there are 2 GB cards for $30 on that site too. Wouldn't miss the extra money too badly for the "insurance."

[Spak-Spang]

We won't really know the answer to this question until we understand how the Wii24connect works.

The memory inside the Wii is enough to save several NES, SNES, and Cube games without trouble, and game saves.  However, if patches, demos, and other Wii24Connect downloads take alot of space then you will obviously need more space.

My personal plan is to buy either a 128MB SD card or 256MB SD card (depending on price) and putting all game saves and virtual console downloads onto that SD card.  (Then I can take my virtual console on the go.)  The Wii memory will only be used for the Wii24Connect information.

[couchmonkey]

My plan is to wait until I have to buy one.  Unless Nintendo is expecting to use all that internal memory for Channel upgrades and such, in which case I'll probably resort to using one of the cards from my digital camera and once that gets pretty full I'll look for whatever is a good deal on the market at the time.

If you play a lot of sports games and/or plan to use the virtual console a lot, then you'd probably want a 1 or even 2 GB card.  I think even the 1GB will probably last a couple of years, but who knows?  Give developers more space to save and they'll always use it.

[Arbok]

Quote
Originally posted by: couchmonkey
My plan is to wait until I have to buy one.

That'll be my approach too. Like most computer related parts, it's always nice to wait. SD cards are only going to get bigger and cheaper as time goes on, after all.

[davidctaylor]

"My personal plan is to buy either a 128MB SD card or 256MB SD card (depending on price) and putting all game saves and virtual console downloads onto that SD card. (Then I can take my virtual console on the go.) The Wii memory will only be used for the Wii24Connect information."

I think that they will be tied to YOUR account on YOUR Wii.  That is my understanding.

Also, for all we know the Wii will use a different file system not compatible with PCs.  I mean...this might keep people from doing hacks/homebrew that Nintendo doesn't want to happen.  THAT makes sense to me.  So...I'm not counting on the fact that I can back them up on my hard drive.  

[nitsu niflheim]

that shouldn't be a problem, just because your pc doesn't know what it is, doesn't mean you can't store the info on there anyways!  

[Neodymium]

I think I'll be going with one gig, which are at the moment the best price.

Obviously anything less than 512 MB is just way way way too small to be practical, but 2GB+ cards go for a lot -- more than they're worth, probably.

I'm sure 20GB+ cards will be under 50 dollars by the end of the Wii's life cycle.

[nitsu niflheim]

if you can transfer data between the 512mb flash and the SD cards then that's your easiest solutions, just swap between the two like you would 2 memory cards in GCN or PS2.

[AnyoneEB]

Spak-Spang: Can you buy 128MB or 256MB SD cards? I remember someone saying you can get 1GB ones for as low as $12. I would not surprised if you could get a 256MB card for free off someone upgrading to a larger card.

davidctaylor: As nitsu niflheim said, you can dump the entirity of a card to your hard drive regardless of format, but that is annoying if you want to do any kind of file management. Writing an entire 1GB card to get one VC game would be a pain. Anyway, if Nintendo expects you to be sharing SD cards with your camera (as they do have a photo channel), then it would make sense for them to use files on a FAT filesystem (which is how flash cards usually come formatted anyway).

... and if Nintendo does come up with their own filesystem, it will be cracked within a few weeks of the release of the Wii anyway. :-D

[Strell]

Just go to dealnews.com or newegg.com and get a gig minimum, but I'd recommend a 2 gig.

I'll prolly throw down on a 4 gig since they are dropping in price so quickly.

Has there been any word on how large a card the Wii can recognize?  I'd hate to think they capped it somewhere...

[couchmonkey]

Ha ha, but they did have a problem along those lines with a large third party memory card, didn't they?  I wouldn't be too surprised if they went with the assumption that nobody will ever try to use more than an 8 gig card.

[nitsu niflheim]

Nintendo had a problem themselves with their large first-party memory card not working with some games!

[Nick DiMola]

Has there been any confirmation of being able to play VC games without an internet connection? If you do need an internet connection it would make sense that your VC Games aren't even stored locally but downloaded each time you play, at least for anything up to N64 games because they are so small. Nintendo is so hardcore on piracy I could see them doing this. Anybody know anything particular about the VC?

[couchmonkey]

I think on PGC's own live blog of the NY event last week, Pale/Mike commented that the games are downloaded and stay on your machine "forever".  You can also redownload any content you've already payed for, I think (in case your Wii breaks).

[Kairon]

Why the rush? Unless you're willing to spend like $200 on VC titles in your first couple months with the Wii, the internal 512 MBs should suit you just fine.

And when you DO need to buy an SD card, you'll be able to get a better deal because you waited a little longer and the prices will have dropped.

~Carmine M. Red
Kairon@aol.com

[Ian Sane]

"Has there been any confirmation of being able to play VC games without an internet connection? If you do need an internet connection it would make sense that your VC Games aren't even stored locally but downloaded each time you play, at least for anything up to N64 games because they are so small. Nintendo is so hardcore on piracy I could see them doing this. Anybody know anything particular about the VC?"

I hope it's not like this because then years from now when Nintendo has disabled the service you can't play the games you paid for anymore.  That's why above all else I'm a big supporter of having physical copies you the buyer own so that no matter what happens you can still play your game.  Regarding the VC I would consider saved games on your SD Card to be the same thing as a physical copy.  All that matters is that no one can permanently "turn off" your game for whatever reason.

[RickPowers]

In terms of the size, 1GB is the best value.  Plus, if you have a computer, you can back up your games.  (You can't give them to anyone else, as they are supposedly tied to your Virtual Console account and/or Wii serial number, similar to how Xbox Live Arcade works).  With 1GB, you could theoretically store 32 32MB games, and if that's not enough storage, you can offload infrequently played games to your computer and store more on the blank card.

Under $20 for a 1GB card is a rockin' deal.  Personally, I'll probably get a bigger card for my digital camera, and use the old 512MB card for the Wii.

Edit: Something else to consider ... you'll probably want to put game saves on the SD card as well, so that you can back them up and/or upload them.  Perhaps a 2GB card would not be unreasonable.

Quote
Originally posted by: Strell
Just go to dealnews.com or newegg.com and get a gig minimum, but I'd recommend a 2 gig.

I'll prolly throw down on a 4 gig since they are dropping in price so quickly.

Has there been any word on how large a card the Wii can recognize?  I'd hate to think they capped it somewhere...

You can't use more than a 2GB card unless the Wii supports SDHC, the new high-capacity SD cards.  Supposedly, they are electrically identical, but require some devices to have a firmware update to support them.  Wii could probably use them, but I certainly wouldn't bet on it.

[davidctaylor]

"if Nintendo expects you to be sharing SD cards with your camera (as they do have a photo channel), then it would make sense for them to use files on a FAT filesystem (which is how flash cards usually come formatted anyway)."

YEP!  I thought of that after I posted.  Very good point.  

[BiLdItUp1]

Slickdeals.net has a deal on SD cards almost everyday. Here's the most recent one.

[Ceric]

$66.99 for a 4 GB 150x thing of Flash memory.  Yeah... I want to not have to wait for things to load.

[jasonditz]

SD cards are virtually free anyhow... go to a site like dealmac.com and you'll see several deals a day where you can get 2 GB cards for the price of a single current generation memory card.

I'd wait until launch though, personally, to see if Nintendo puts any limitations on their SD support.

[RickPowers]

Here's a link to some estimates of how much you'll be able to store in the Wii's internal memory.

http://web.mac.com/stewart.lawrence/iWeb/wii/VC%20Stuff.html

But here's the good stuff.

"Seven hundred and fifty dollars (USD), 25 N64 games, 31 SNES games, 50 NES games, 376Mb!"

[JonLeung]

I am so glad the digital camera (a Kodak one) I decided to buy for my trip to E3 uses SD cards.  I had been contemplating one that uses CF cards, since I have another device that uses them, but eventually made, apparently, the right choice.

Then I lost the cable that lets you transfer images from the camera directly to the computer, so instead of buying a replacement, I bought a card reader/writer, which is also apparently a good choice because now I'll be able to back up whatever I save on the card(s) from the Wii.

(It also means I can abuse the Wii's Photo Channel with all that porn I have...  >_>)

1 GB is a pretty good standard starting size.  I guess 2 GB and 4 GB is good if you can get a good deal on them, why not?  I saw an 8 GB one that was ridiculously expensive, but maybe that was a CF card.

The Wii's OS is upgradeable, so unless there's a physical limitation, the Wii can be upgraded to handle larger cards in the future, can't it?

EDIT: BTW I found the article that Rick linked to fairly interesting.  If that's really the case then maybe you can hold off on the SD cards, depending on how much space is used for other things, like Wii game saves and whatnot.