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    Please do not post a support request without first reading and following the advice in https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/3/read-this-first

    Slow writing to external HDD

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    hddexternal hddslowsavestate
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    • P
      pamput
      last edited by

      Hello,

      Since I've installed an external hdd following this guide my life has improved significantly: more space, more games, more fun! Just one thing bothers me, whenever I do a savestate it takes AGES. A snes savestate takes 20s, a psx savestate takes roughly a minute! In comparison when I was using the micro sd the amount of time was 1/10th. What am I doing wrong?

      I'm running everything off a 3B+ with a 1T hdd formatted in fat32. I tried this same configuration off two different pis and two different external hdd with the same issue.

      Any help would be appreciated.

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      • mituM
        mitu Global Moderator
        last edited by

        Can you reproduce this 'slow write' manually - i.e. copying ROMs over the network or just from the CLI ? How is the HDD powered - does it draw power from the Pi or has it's own power source ? Please add more info as requested in https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/3/read-this-first.

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        • P
          pamput
          last edited by

          @mitu said in Slow writing to external HDD:

          copying ROMs over the network

          Yes and no. The copy over the network is quite slow (roughly 200KBps), but not as slow. But if it's a power issue, it might still make kind of sense, since when I copy stuff over usually I'm not playing. Still, the difference in speed even here is really drastic (a snes savestate is just a couple of megs, and it still takes 20ish seconds).

          does it draw power from the Pi or has it's own power source

          From the PI, I assumed since I was using the original Pi charger the board would be able to provide enough juice, I'll try with an external powered one and let you know.

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          • P
            pamput
            last edited by

            It's been a long time, but I finally figured what the issue was (sorry for the necro, but it may be useful to others).

            In my case it wasn't a problem of power to the HDD. I had video_threaded turned off.
            To fix this go to the the Retroarch options, go to video and turn this back ON.

            Solved.

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            • V
              VictimRLSH @pamput
              last edited by

              @pamput What exactly does that do? Will it increase speed of data throughput for other devices? I frequently plug large USB drives into my Pi and transfer to the 256gb SD card. The Pi 4 is much snappier about this but the 3 B not so much.

              System Config: Retropie 4.4 with full desktop, RPi 3B, 256gb SD, 5v 2.1A 5,200 mAH USB battery. EasyMSX controller mounted with Pimoroni Hyperpixel 4 (non touch). Also running 4.6 on a 4gb Pi 4 serving as my primary desktop computer now.

              mituM 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • mituM
                mitu Global Moderator @VictimRLSH
                last edited by mitu

                @VictimRLSH video_threaded is a RetroArch setting, it only affects the emulation, doesn't have any impact on USB connected devices (see https://retropie.org.uk/docs/Input-Lag/#video_threaded). It's set to on on RPI systems by RetroPie, so I don't know why for @pamput it wasn't set (3rd party image ?).

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                • V
                  VictimRLSH
                  last edited by

                  After finding out what that does I can see why it was slowing down things, the CPU was doing ALL the work...

                  System Config: Retropie 4.4 with full desktop, RPi 3B, 256gb SD, 5v 2.1A 5,200 mAH USB battery. EasyMSX controller mounted with Pimoroni Hyperpixel 4 (non touch). Also running 4.6 on a 4gb Pi 4 serving as my primary desktop computer now.

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                  • P
                    pamput @mitu
                    last edited by

                    @mitu said in Slow writing to external HDD:

                    I don't know why for @pamput it wasn't set (3rd party image ?).

                    Nah, I probably just fiddle with it and didn't set it back to ON.

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