Build a better VMU?

[Tomlo]

One thing that bothers me is having to swap several vmu's to try and find one save. So why not try and make a vmu with more space. I know there are larger capacity ones in stores, but buying one wouldnt be any fun now would it. I can think of two options, one unreasonable but would be sweet and one that may be possible.

1. To moddify a vmu to read off some type of flash memory card.
2. To remove the flash chips from a third party "memory card" and add them to a vmu somehow.

Would any of this be possible?

[semicolo]

I don't know if a huge vmu would be supported by games, 2x and 4x vmu usually use a switch to swap between 2 or 4 virtual 200blocks vmus.
I think that a "4000 blocks vmu" would need to be cut in 20 times 200 blocks and would still be a pain to find your savegame.
But maybe I'm wrong about those bigger vmus.

[Tomlo]

The vmu itself is what chops the flash memory into fragments and it is very easy to change them. As you can see here is the format of a normal vmus memory.

http://mc.pp.se/dc/vms/flashmem.html

Blocks 200 - 240 are not used and they can easily be unlocked with VMU Tool.

http://bswirl.kitsunet.org/vmutool/index.php?lg=en

So that is proof positive that a vmu can have more than a 200 block segment.
Now if I knew how to attach a flash card like a SD card then I could "reformat" the VMU and a cheap 64mb sd card could be a (64,000,000 bytes / 512 bytes) 125,000 block vmu plus the 241 blocks that are on it. This would be like having a Hard Drive for saves.

[Tomlo]

I looked at the back of a SD card today and noticed it requires 3.3v DC, isnt that the same as what the controller feeds a vmu?

EDIT

I see that the vmu is limited in space now, not by 200 blocks but by 128kb.

[kohan69]

If the vmu uses flash memory, inst it possible to fuse a memory stick in there?
(so the flash ram is connected to both, the vmu and DC and to usb via the stick's controller

[Tomlo]

Ya you could plausably add more flash memory but as I discovered it wouldnt help much since you would have to constantly switch between the many different (I guess you could say Partitions) since the vmu is limited by 128kb at a time. It would be easier to just change vmus.

[kohan69]

I understand about the uselessness of adding more flashram,
but since it's flashram wouldn't it be nice to have a usb-interface using the guts of some cheap ol' thumbdrive?

what 'file system' does that thing use anyway?

[Tomlo]

The filesystem is or atleast is very similar to FAT16, They couldnt have made it easier to format a VMU drive in windows, In fact every USB card I have ever recived already came formated in FAT16, I Belive after cards much higher than 2GB are released then companys will be forced to use FAT32.

To have a USB attachment would be much easier that any thing else and would most certinly be a major function of any prototypes.

[kohan69]

so the vmu is nand flashrom, right?

[Elven6]

I think this is a great idea, using those 8mb cards and having to switch the button just to look for a single save is a big pain. Mabye we can try something with the Maple Bus, like have a USB cable connector type thing.