Topic: I'd like Switch dock to support an external hard drive

Inside the Dock's back cover is a USB 3.0 port. I'd like to be able to permanently connect a large external hard drive to it, and it be manageable by software settings so that users can move games back and forth between the external drive and the Switch's internal 32GB and/or microSD. That way for people that never undock there Switch they can just purchase a big external hard dive and play there games that way instead of having to purchase these over priced micro-sd cards, and for other people that use the switch as mostly a portable console they could use the external hard drive to store all there purchase games instead of having to download them everytime they wanted to play them. That way they can pick which games they want to take with them, and not have to repeatedly buy more microSD cards each time unless they wanted to. It'd be a useful feature, and also maybe then Nintendo would let you game capture more than just 30 seconds of game play footage then.

That would be awesome on all points you hit on it. The Wii U supported external hard drives didn’t it? Probably something they’ve thought about doing for us at some point. There’s really no reason not too if they want to say it’s a home console first.

@mowerdude I seriously doubt that is gonna happen. Nintendo is doing everything the can to keep you from being chained to the dock. I think an alternative solution would in the inevitable Switch update that we eventually get, the Switch having 2 or even 3 microSD slots.

Further, as to your overpriced comment, microSD cards are dropping rapidly in price. Cards that were over 100 bucks last year are down to 75 or even 60 this year, and will be cheaper still next year. Bigger cards are coming out every year as well. I'd estimate that by 2020 there is a 1TB card on the market. It'll probably cost 500 bucks, but it will happen, then by 2023 it'll be 120 bucks and bigger cards yet will be on the market.

@Heavyarms55 everything to keep you chained from the dock? They do say they want it to be a home console first. The performance is increased while docked. Why not add hard drive support?

@DTMOF84 Because of what @SanderEvers said.

I could see that as an issue. I would still like to see support added for at least backups. Transfer your game to the hard drive to clear up space on the Switch. Transfer it back to play it instead of downloading again.

@SanderEvers ...but only for those who were using the feature.

@gcunit ... which is a majority of people, at least once in a while.

I've been thinking about this as an idea since possibly before the Switch was even revealed. Certainly before the January Direct last year. And every time I think about it I struggle to think of how it could realistically work. The only way I think it could make sense, given the portability of the Switch, would be if it was managed in the same way the Wii's SD card slot worked for storage expansions.

Basically if you were docked and had a HDD connected the Switch could automatically copy all of your game and patch data to the external HDD (not save data). It could do this pretty easily given it's all data with verified copies on the internet there's no risk of the data being corrupted and one HDD could even carry game data from more than one Switch. Then when you want to bring back software you have archived you could copy it from the HDD rather than having to redownload it from the internet.

I think that would be a great idea. Even if you can’t run software from external dock it would be nice to have an option when archiving a game to move software to the external hardrive instead of deleting it. That way you can redownload it straight from the the hard drive instead of from the internet as it would be much quicker. I’d say just come out with a dock with an internal hardrive or solid state drive built into it.

@Jbee02 This idea I like in the long term, as the idea of eventual loss of support for Switch services is very unappealing. Obviously for the Switch, that is probably more than a decade away, but, eventually like the Wii and DS, it is likely the Switch would follow. Then anything you don't have downloaded, is just gone.

Then again, in a decade or more, there will probably be 2-4 terabyte SD cards on the market for 100 bucks so...

If Nintendo were to release a docked-only "Switch" (a Switch Home, if you will), then I can certainly see them supporting external hard drives, but in its current state, absolutely not, especially with the complications that can result from removing the Switch from the dock while it is running software from an external hard drive.

That won't happen. What's the point when there are 1TB microSD cards on the market? And people can simply buy more/larger microSD cards as they need them. Nintendo aren't going to waste the limited physical space of portable hardware for the extreme minority of people who want to carry around 3TB of software on their console at all times.

Necro post to a topic three years old with a post unrelated to the topic from a user created at the same time the post was made? That's a paddling

Been under the rock for some time? 1tb is already out....what your talking is 2tb.

@mowerdude I would say they could do that but then again were would you stow the ext. Drive? There is now place to attach the drive or secure it from moving or being dislodged from the connections. And how are you going to access the drive when you take it out of the Dock.

Don’t speak to the bots pls

Also this topic is old, lemme close it.