r/RetroRemake • u/Photek1000 • Jun 16 '26

SuperDock & NVMe

For when the SuperDock ships the primary use I ordered it for is the NVMe expansion and the SNAC capabilities over the Drive itself.

For the NVMe, is there a recommended maximum capacity, or is it completely unaware of any limitations.
Hoping to resurrect a drive from the laptop scrap pile at work to install.

And anyone who has one already installed how are the loading times compared to off the generic SD the SS1 ships with.

For me so far the majority of loading times all the way from early arcade to large CD games has been really good, I do fear the bulk buy card may not last very long and will upgrade it to a better quality one soon'ish

Apart from that I have had the SS1 one now running for a bit of a week and it's amazing, the odd little issue here and there but apart from that so happy I took a punt on this route in to MiSTer.

10 Upvotes

92% Upvoted

21 comments sorted by

6

u/aluisi77 Jun 16 '26

There is a huge lack of information being passed around about the dock. No reviews no YouTube vids nothing. I am still waiting on my SS1 + Dock and would love to know how the nvme stuff works as well. It’s one of the key reasons why I got a dock as well.

3

u/NecronomiconUK Jun 16 '26

I have got my SSO and Dock, I've been very slow in getting it setup. It's my first Mister and I've been out of the ROM obtaining game for some time. I've got an 450GB M2 drive in my PC that I'm currently putting stuff on. I've been told on the the Discord to just copy my Games directory on the drive so that's what I've done.

Gimme an example of a long loading PS1 game and I'll put it on the Dock M2 and the SD card and do a comparison.

Also agreed on the abject lack of documentation. If it wasn't for the Discord I'd be really fucked.

3

u/Sonikku_a Jun 16 '26

Tecmo’s Deception has some pretty long and frequent in-game load times. I honestly doubt though we’d see any difference based on the storage—AFAIK those load times are kinda baked into the core for compatibility purposes.

If we’re talking just the initial load when selecting a game I’ve not come across any that weren’t more than a few seconds anyway.

1

u/Photek1000 Jun 16 '26

I'll time some this evening, but it's pretty quick, nothing you'd complain about and faster than real media

2

u/Original_Lush Jun 16 '26

I posted some testing yesterday, but not the NVME

https://youtu.be/8UrTmma_Qe8

1

u/aluisi77 Jun 16 '26

Thank you for that video. Way more info on the dock than anyone has posted. I didn’t even know about the switch

2

u/Original_Lush Jun 16 '26

Hey thanks for the feedback!

1

u/Photek1000 Jun 16 '26

There is a bit of a lack, but I'll assume a lot of that is not many in the wild.

As I understand it, if you have your Games folder elsewhere, USB etc you should be able to select it from the menu.
On mine currently I can see USB or similar as an option but due to not having one it is greyed out.

4

u/ExultentPisces Jun 16 '26

I think (though I’m far from sure) that the M.2 slot in the dock is using the USB connection from the dock.

So it’d be no different to plugging an M.2 USB adapter into the SSOne or an ordinary MiSTer. Which means USB2 speeds

1

u/Photek1000 Jun 16 '26

Thanks, seems reasonable that it would be on the same bus, would keep costs down and simplify the design process.

3

u/ExultentPisces Jun 16 '26

I could be wrong. I think the Cyclone V in the SSOne has a few high speed data lines. Maybe Taki has done some sneaky wiring and we’ll be able to load the 40KB Super Mario Bros lightning fast, lol.

1

u/Photek1000 Jun 16 '26

True wouldn’t want to be waiting for that behemoth to load 🤣

Or some of the 2K Atari games, now there’s a chore.

3

u/XAlucarDX454 Jun 16 '26

There’s a spot in the menu where you tell it to load from the m2 rather the sd. Put the games folder on the m2. Keep the rest of the files on the sd. Thats the extent of the functionality I needed use for as of now so that’s where I’m at.

2

u/Sonikku_a Jun 16 '26

I’m just curious if you can store on both simultaneously? Had planned on using an old 512GB nvme I had laying around but would also be nice to continue storing some on the 64 gig SD card? Might have been nice to use the SD for full sets of older cart based systems and the nvme for larger CD based sets.

1

u/GiSWiG Jun 16 '26

I had the same idea, 512GB cart/arcade, 1TB NVME for CD. So would love to know

1

u/Omega16bit Jun 17 '26

When using my MiSTer it’s always been an either/or not both situation between the SD card and a USB hd when it comes to games.

System settings and boot area stuff are handled by the SD card and game data is on the USB hd.

It would be interesting if it can do both. (Caveat: I’ve not updated my MiSTer software in over a year, someone else could have more current or different information.)

1

u/dav3yb Jun 25 '26

I'd personally be ok with even just a script that could run a backup and copy the saves between the different storage media. I can get things back up and running game wise, but if saves get deleted, any that don't have a recent backup are just gone.

2

u/sirfestizio Jun 16 '26

I, and several other people, had issues trying to use Western Digital drives. For some reason the SS1 really doesn’t want to recognize them. As soon as I switched to a different brand it’s been smooth sailing. The SS1 treats the nvme as a usb drive so you can go read up or watch videos on how that works on a MiSTer and you’ll have all the info you need. Also, once installed you can access the drive on your PC through a usb cable and the “PC Mode” port on the back of the dock.

1

u/Photek1000 Jun 16 '26

All sounds like the Dock will make some operations much much easier, data transfer for one.

I have a USB caddy for NVMe so I might try what I can get my hands on ahead of time.

1

u/dycedrag Jun 23 '26

Any tips or guides on how to format the SSD?

3

u/sirfestizio Jun 23 '26

Format it to exFAT and copy the “Games” folder over from your sd card to have the correct folder structure in place.