Any help with: USB for videos/snaps SD for roms?

leefy

As the title says.

I want to use my decent 32gb for roms and a nice 32gb usb stick for snaps/videos...

Can't find anything out there to help. It's just all about rom transfer etc. I currently tried a way and it failed epically and copied all roms to the usb. I can't work this out alone...

Helps!!!?

TMNTturtlguy

@leefy I think there is a way to do this, but it is a little "hacky". ES will read your roms from the SD card. You can set up the the system to use a USB by using the USB Mounting method Docs: Running Roms for a USB Drive

This will tell ES to read the roms from the USB stick. It is easy to store your snaps/vidoes on the SD card and the roms on the USB drive as you just tell the gamelist to path to an created folder on your SD card. To do this the other way around is more complicated.

What i would do is follow the instructions on how to set up the USB rom drive. Then i would create a new directory at home/pi/.emulationstation I would call it something like sdroms so the path would be home/pi/.emulationstation/sdroms

I would then place all of my roms in their folders into this location, so for nes roms it would be home/pi/.emulationstation/sdroms/nes

Next you need to edit your es_systems.cfg for each sysetm. Be sure to create a copy of your es_systems.cfg file and placie it in home/pi/.emulationstation. Never edit the original in the etc folder. Do this for 2 reasons, keep the original es_systems.cfg file in case anything goes wrong, the pi will default back to this, and 2 if you every run an update the file in etc may be overwritten, the file in .emulationstation will not.

In your es_systems.cfg this should be your path: <path>/home/pi/.emulationstation/sdroms/nes</path> I know this works because i did this to create my symlinks folder when using @meleu custom system script prior to the new emulationstation release. Once you do this, ES will look to your sd card folder in .emulationstation for the roms. In your gamelist you can keep your path to the standard path <video>/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/nes/snap/005.mp4</video>

Again, this is a lot of work, and a little hacky, but it should work. I am not sure i would do it personally.

dankcushions

i think it would be much better to use symlinks.

TMNTturtlguy

@dankcushions How would symlinks work? They want to have the roms on the SD card and the images/snaps on the usb. Are you saying to create symlinks from the SD card to the usb drive? Sounds like a lot of work for basically the same results?

dankcushions

@tmntturtlguy setting up a symlink is a one liner, so you just repeat that for every system. the beauty of it is that you don't have to edit any configs - the issue is solved via the filesystem.

something like:

ln -s /media/usb/snaps/nes /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/nes/snap/
ln -s /media/usb/snaps/snes /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/snes/snap/
ln -s /media/usb/snaps/n64 /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/n64/snap/
etc

i think you'd have to make sure that the /home/pi/RetroPie/roms/nes/snap/ folder didn't exist beforehand.

(this is all from memory - perhaps someone can confirm/knows a better one-liner)

TMNTturtlguy

@dankcushions But won't ES look to the usb and the retropie-mount location for the roms first? So i looks for the roms folder on the USB which exists, but the roms are on the SD card, so now nothing will show up in your gameslist. You need to create symlinks to the roms on your SD card from your USB mount location.....correct?

dankcushions

@tmntturtlguy said in Any help with: USB for videos/snaps SD for roms?:

@dankcushions But won't ES look to the usb and the retropie-mount location for the roms first? So i looks for the roms folder on the USB which exists, but the roms are on the SD card, so now nothing will show up in your gameslist. You need to create symlinks to the roms on your SD card from your USB mount location.....correct?

you'd have to turn the USB service off. since OP only wants the USB to host snaps, then there's no reason for the USB service to be on anyway. their roms are all on the SD.

although, if you don't put anything in the USB's /retropie/ or /retropie-mount/ folder i don't think the usb service would do anything with the USB drive... still, i'd probably disable it :)

TMNTturtlguy

@dankcushions said in Any help with: USB for videos/snaps SD for roms?:

USB to host snaps, then there's no reason for the USB service to be on anyway. their roms are all on the SD

Got it! Good Point

leefy

yes....Great stuff.....Will have to try this out tomorrow night. I'll let you know how i get on. Cheers peeps