In the style of one of my bad habits, the too detailed essay writing has been in my drafts. So I’ve decide to discard it and writing from the scratch again, making things simpler and shorter. While this may leave out information or tacit details I know, I guess you could learn them from other sources or just ask from me.
On the topic, basically my views on the different storage devices for the DS- storing games, applications, music, homebrew, backups etc..
MK5
The first card I bought was Ultra N-Card, called UNC by my sellers. It was recommended by my friend, saying that it was “cheaper” as no external memory cards (CF, SD, Mini-SD…) and its card readers were needed. So the way of copying files in/out from the pc basically needs connecting using a USB via its slot-2 (GBA slot).
The downside:
Drains battery while transfering.
Slow transfer rate ~ 600kb/s
Now looking up this product on the net leads me to many other names DSLinker (classical to some china products), but its seems the best site for this card calls this MK5 GIGA Cart NAND Flash.
The OS on boot starts the fat system looks for all runnable applications in the card. This takes a considerable amount of time from ~15s depending on how packed is the card. The OS then shows a graphical screen with 2d/3d icons which you can select with the stylus (a plus point).
So far, common homebrew seems to run, but access to file system is only read-only due to their current DLDI support.
Regarding stability, I experienced hangs in games, crashes in the cards, corruption of fat system, which requires formating of the card. Until a point my card totally could not be recognised by the pc, I returned it to the shop.
So far, the plus points are that running it wouldn’t kill the battery much, and that the hope of developments in their firmware are active. I place only stuff I wouldn’t need transferring much in it.
My recommendation: Not really.
Supercard Lite
Due to the many break downs in my card, I decide to get a supercard, one of the reasons it could be used a “memory extension” and better homebrew support. I initially thought I would get a supercard rumble edition, but at least my seller (from supercard.sg, now closed) recommended the lite edition as the rumble edition as he said it was “bad design” I guess it didn’t contain the “ram” for GBA support.
So the sc lite uses a TF or a MicroSD card, and it goes into slot-2. Without patching the DS firmware, a slot-1 card called PassMe or SuperKey is needed to run DS applications from the GBA slot. So one of the downside is that battery drains quicker, either because the need to power slot 1& 2 and perhaps because of its “ram”.
Their OS boots quickly, but the interface for loading roms basically is a text-based menu, you navigation is by buttons without stylus. Backup roms would require you to use their software to patch before you can use them.
Homebrew support, without it, I wouldn’t consider buying this. So far, almost all applications seems to work for it (of course after patching with DLDI). Things that require quick transfer between my pc and the ds would go into my 1GB kingston micro-sd card. Pulling out and placing into my card reader ensures high speed transfer without draining my batter during transfer.
Recommendations: Not too bad.
Of course the 2 choices I had might and wouldn’t be the best for you. Infact there are other more attractive and advanced solutions around. I recommend you look at these few alternatives.
R4 - Slot 1, using micro-sd. Seems pretty good. Around about over a year..
M3 Solution - Slot 1 & 2. Slightly pricer if you want their support for movies, nes roms, gba..
upcomings:
Ninjapass Evolution X9 SLOT-1 Pretty good features too.
G6 Real DS flash - pretty attractive features.
Anyway here are the factors to look out if you are consider 1.
1. Reliability- to work and last
2. OS- Homebrew friendly? ROMs require patching? Customisable? Skinnable? ROM Compressions? Auto DLDI patcher? Does OS get supports and updates?
3. Type of storage device and the method of transfering.
Lastly, if storage device gave you the impression it was a physical storage device for ds, see this crystal casing
and rubber/silicon casing .
For mine? After testing out a couple of those nds casing protectors, I settled with this crystal case with silicon padding inside. A decision you might make for your phone or pda too..
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