External Hdd Final Answer?

[Paradox]

my PSX ISO collection is starting to pile up..and is making my 1GB Sd card quiver in fear at the sight of it, i did a search, there are many threads on external strorage but none of them seem to give a definitive answer wether or not external HDD storage is possible.

from what ive read in the many threads though, it seems possible only if the device has its own power supply via usb?

does anyone have any more detailed information on how this would be accomplished?

 

[Vimacs]

it is not known yet, through it isnt looking as good anymore, it should be known in a few weeks.

 

[IsSuE]

shouldnt it be possible to just make more or less a "sd card to ide converter"
i havent read the sd card specs yet, but as i am going to get my gp2x soon, i wanted to try some hardware mods, and some external hdd would be my first one

 

[Reaperman93010]

how difficult would it be to replace the useless SD slot with CF?--it even looks like there is room in the case for it. They're not incredibly dissimilar...

From there it should be a matter of picking up an IDE/CF converter. Firmware shouldn't limit it to anything, but the source will be along soon enough anyway.

 

[BradN]

An IDE-to-SD adapter could probably be done with an FPGA if you've got good documentation of the SD protocol.

 

[God Ginrai]

how difficult would it be to replace the useless SD slot with CF?--it even looks like there is room in the case for it. They're not incredibly dissimilar...

From there it should be a matter of picking up an IDE/CF converter. Firmware shouldn't limit it to anything, but the source will be along soon enough anyway.

​

Why replace the SD slot when you could just use SDIO to get something like that 4-in-1 thing working?

 

[Chip]

how difficult would it be to replace the useless SD slot with CF?--it even looks like there is room in the case for it. They're not incredibly dissimilar...

From there it should be a matter of picking up an IDE/CF converter. Firmware shouldn't limit it to anything, but the source will be along soon enough anyway.

​

Why replace the SD slot when you could just use SDIO to get something like that 4-in-1 thing working?

​

Because the SD slot does not support SDIO. That is also why you couldn't hack together any kind of IDE-to-SD widget. The only way you could definitely interface with an external HD is with the EXT port. But even if you went to the extensive trouble of constructing a serial-to-ide conversion board and writing a driver for it, the transfer speeds would be abysmal. I'm talking a couple megs-per-minute slow. So slow there's no way it would be usable for ANYTHING.

A GP2X compatible external hard drive is not impossible. It IS infinitely improbable.

 

[Empyre]

Waht we want is something like this http://shop.01media.com/en/info.asp?ProductID=16517

 

[Paradox]

according to theoddbot on irc:

*regarding the USB being hooked up to the host chip*

theoddbot: criagix said he asked them yesterday and they rekon it should be connected

so apparantly it *is* a usb host..either something has gone completely wrong in the building process of the 2x or GPH dont know what theyre talking about... a bit more info from them on the subject would be handy

 

[nickspoon]

theoddbot: criagix said he asked them yesterday and they rekon it should be connected

So... GPH don't actually know what's going into their own hardware? Well, it is GPH... you'd expect them to be clueless.

Still, they'd have to know something about it, they assembled the damn thing. "reckon it should be" really isn't enough for a company that makes £130 game consoles.

 

[thetictacaddict]

Well, someone did get NFS working over USB (I can't find the post). I imagine you could use a PC or laptop for external storage.

 

[God Ginrai]

how difficult would it be to replace the useless SD slot with CF?--it even looks like there is room in the case for it. They're not incredibly dissimilar...

From there it should be a matter of picking up an IDE/CF converter. Firmware shouldn't limit it to anything, but the source will be along soon enough anyway.

​

Why replace the SD slot when you could just use SDIO to get something like that 4-in-1 thing working?

​

Because the SD slot does not support SDIO. That is also why you couldn't hack together any kind of IDE-to-SD widget. The only way you could definitely interface with an external HD is with the EXT port. But even if you went to the extensive trouble of constructing a serial-to-ide conversion board and writing a driver for it, the transfer speeds would be abysmal. I'm talking a couple megs-per-minute slow. So slow there's no way it would be usable for ANYTHING.

A GP2X compatible external hard drive is not impossible. It IS infinitely improbable.

​

Um.... Last I heard there IS SDIO support, just no Drivers which are software.

 

[Radek]

theoddbot: criagix said he asked them yesterday and they rekon it should be connected

So... GPH don't actually know what's going into their own hardware? Well, it is GPH... you'd expect them to be clueless.

Actually they might be and this isn't surprising - gp2x is made using the "SoC" (MMSP2 chipset) solution and there weren't much to know technically except the look and specs like memory size. You can outsource the design of pcb too - you can outsource everything so the core company might be actually almost completely clueless about the hardware it's selling. Isn't some other company making the Linux/firmware for gp2x too?

Still, they'd have to know something about it, they assembled the damn thing. "reckon it should be" really isn't enough for a company that makes £130 game consoles.

​

Technically making something like the gp2x isn't problem at all for a skilled electronic designer. There are tools, there are common components. It just matter of marketing that thing and fitting it in the market niche.

GPH got these thing very well indeed. The faults of gp2x... there are some still...

Imho it would be great if GPH would (among the complete gp2x) sell just the mainboard of GPH without any peripherals (stick, buttons and the rest). Then we could have a "clone market" with companies or even inviduals making many versions based on this design. It'd be awesome...

 

[melime]

Waht we want is something like this http://shop.01media.com/en/info.asp?ProductID=16517

​

I don´t think we really need this . cause the cf hd 4 gb thing with playing movies always starts to have a short mili secound pause every minute or something like that because the card is sooooo slow. and games take longer to load on the psp as well

 

[beanfarmer]

well according to maxconsole its faster than umd
http://www.maxconsole.net/?mode=news&newsid=5955
if this is the kinda thing you were thinking of

hope this helps beanfarmer

 

[G Morgan]

I assume, not having received my GP2X yet, that files can be transfered onto the SD card via your OS in the same way as a USB flash stick/mp3 player. If this is the case wouldn't it be possible to code some kind of synchronisation program. You could setup a database with a selection of folders and create profiles which copy 1 or more of those folders into various places on the SD card. It would simply require you to plug your GP2X into the machine, select a profile and click synchronise. Would be nothing new but would save a lot of work in terms of messing around and might be one of the few ways to comfortably enable it to handle large quantities of data.

Obviously not having seen the machine yet I could be talking a load of crap but I'd assume this should be comfortably posible.

 

[Zeon X]

I have an older mp3 player 30gb HD that i dont realy use that much for music. Instead i use it to transfer data. Its battery lasts almost 8 hours.

Would be perfect for a hd for the GP2X, if only it had a external HD driver.

 

[Squidge]

how difficult would it be to replace the useless SD slot with CF?--it even looks like there is room in the case for it. They're not incredibly dissimilar...

​

I wouldn't say the SD slot was 'useless'. It's far better than the Smartmedia slot we had on the GP32. In fact, I remember everyone back then preying for a SD solution, and now we have it, people want CF instead!

Should be able to wire up a small HD to the SD card slot no problem. If we hack up the kernel, we don't even have to support the full SD protocol, and can just invent our own. Otherwise we'll need to support GPH's bastardization of it.

USB Host *should* be possible also. Remember the only thing we have tried so far is back ported Linux code. We've not tried to access the hardware directly yet, so we don't know for sure if the code even works. Staying optimistic here is probably a good idea, for a few more weeks at least.

 

[GpDogg]

huh?

Why would you want a hard drive??!! i mean, fair enough if you got a psp, coz the cards are so expensive, and its a cheaper alternative than buying two 2gb pro duos.
But its bulky! Kind of takes the whole portable essence away from it. I want my gp2x to play nes games, not LOOK like a nes console!

I just think its a waste of time, you COULD just get a 4gb sd card... but if a HD is you thing then HEY! Who am i to stop you My 1gb card is becoming a bit limited now, not that i use it for much else other than videos (of borat!!!) and drmdx... there arent many other perfect things on the gp2x right now for me to enjoy filling the card up with stuff.
Hey who knows, that 4gb card may become an investment one day! But im fine with my 2 1gb cards, and a 521mb one. One for my DS and one for my gp2x.
Im perfectly happy right now just playing sega and videos, but sooner or later there is going to cps2!! i can only dream, but one day lads...one day...
Until then though im not stepping further than 1gb, because i feel that there is no need until things are perfected.
By the way, i also feel that the psx emu is a bit of a waste of time, but that me! So go ahead with your HD, i hope you have lots of fun with it

 

[BradN]

GpDogg, one word: movies. Could throw 300 divx onto a hard drive and have an impressive portable library, and if you rig up the hard drive enclosure to have a gp2x mounting spot of sorts to hold it at a viewable angle, it'd be pretty sweet.