Author Topic: What hard drive for Wii U do you recommend most?  (Read 14249 times)

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Offline Phil

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What hard drive for Wii U do you recommend most?
« on: March 28, 2014, 11:19:34 PM »
I've been looking at my options and Nintendo's own recommendations, but I'm not sure of the quality of each. Regardless, I'm looking for something that is relatively inexpensive and will work with my Wii U without problems.
« Last Edit: August 26, 2018, 02:35:41 AM by Wino »
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Offline ejamer

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Re: What hard drive for Wii U do you recommend most?
« Reply #1 on: June 30, 2014, 06:45:10 PM »
For what it's worth, I just bought a cheap enclosure and added a old laptop hard drive we had that wasn't getting used. Heard many people saying that would work... well, it works. But the speed is horrible and loading times are significantly longer playing anything from the hard drive.


Glad we didn't pay anything significant and I wouldn't recommend this approach to others. (Might work out well for you, might not. Point is that it's not a very consistent method so try at your own risk.)
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Offline Triforce Hermit

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Re: What hard drive for Wii U do you recommend most?
« Reply #2 on: December 21, 2015, 07:02:21 PM »
Going to hijack Phil's thread instead of starting a new one. Anyone have a cheap external HDD to recommend?

I don't need 1tb, 500 gb works fine as I'm trying to lean on the cheap side and I'm not going to download much as I am physical whore at heart. I just need for mainly the XCX data packs and Metroid Prime Trilogy. I keep seeing these USB powered external HDDs fairly cheap on Amazon, but I believe I need one with a power supply from a normal AC adapter so that games don't drag and load slowly.
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Offline NWR_insanolord

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Re: What hard drive for Wii U do you recommend most?
« Reply #3 on: December 21, 2015, 08:26:16 PM »
A USB powered drive is fine if you get a Y-cable, which is what I did. I've had no issues with that setup.
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Offline Triforce Hermit

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Re: What hard drive for Wii U do you recommend most?
« Reply #4 on: December 22, 2015, 08:44:49 AM »
Okay, thanks that helps me a lot  ;D
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Offline pokepal148

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Re: What hard drive for Wii U do you recommend most?
« Reply #5 on: December 22, 2015, 09:04:51 PM »
I believe I need one with a power supply from a normal AC adapter so that games don't drag and load slowly.
I'm using an AC connection myself and I only have chugging issues when i'm downloading something while playing off the drive. I'd suspect that it's the more reliable method performance wise for the enclosure route but I have no real expertise to base that on.
« Last Edit: December 22, 2015, 09:30:02 PM by pokepal148 »

Offline Shaymin

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Re: What hard drive for Wii U do you recommend most?
« Reply #6 on: December 22, 2015, 09:10:13 PM »
I'm using a 2014 Western Digital MyBook portable drive with a Y cable and have had no complaints aside from the fact that I'm down to about a third of the 500GB drive.
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Offline NWR_insanolord

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Re: What hard drive for Wii U do you recommend most?
« Reply #7 on: December 22, 2015, 09:28:33 PM »
The way the release schedule for the system is shaping up, that isn't likely to be a problem.
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Offline BiteThePillow

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Re: What hard drive for Wii U do you recommend most?
« Reply #8 on: December 23, 2015, 03:26:36 AM »
I had weird issues with a y-cable setup. Sometimes the hard drive would not boot up with the console, or it would seem to boot but with no connection registering on the Wii U. I would have to unplug, do a hard reset of the Wii U, then plug the HDD back in while the Wii U was on. Also there were some HDD issues when I had a controller charging on one of the other USB ports while the hard drive was connected. I don't have that Wii U anymore, but when I buy one again I will definitely use a HDD with its own power source. BTW this was a Toshiba HDD, not some generic. That being said, I do believe that there are good options out there either way based on the testimony of others. I guess the biggest thing for me would be having that extra USB port available or not.
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Offline NWR_insanolord

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Re: What hard drive for Wii U do you recommend most?
« Reply #9 on: December 23, 2015, 09:00:38 AM »
The thing's got four of them, so I don't worry too much about taking up two with the Y cable. It's kind of weird that it has that many, considering the PS4 and Xbox One each only have two.
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Offline Stratos

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Re: What hard drive for Wii U do you recommend most?
« Reply #10 on: December 23, 2015, 02:30:38 PM »
Maybe Nintendo did it because of the lack of storage space in the system and they actually thought of us core games by adding the extra two? I've hit my cap on storage space so I'm now in the market for an HDD.
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Re: What hard drive for Wii U do you recommend most?
« Reply #11 on: December 23, 2015, 03:01:00 PM »
If that was a concern they should have just made the ports USB 3.0 and then the Y cables and double plugging the GameCube adapter wouldn't be necessary in the first place.
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Offline Phil

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Re: What hard drive for Wii U do you recommend most?
« Reply #12 on: June 18, 2016, 04:48:15 AM »
Hasn't been posted in for at least 120 days? What are you going to do, spank me?


Could someone link to some good hard drives? I put it off because I had plenty of room still and could get by by deleting games, cleaning the fridge, etc. However, now I don't want to do that anymore. >:[
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Offline Kairon

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Re: What hard drive for Wii U do you recommend most?
« Reply #13 on: June 23, 2016, 01:38:06 AM »
Since launch I've been using a Western Digital 2TB Elements External Hard Drive which has its own AC cable (NOT using a Y Cable), and I have had zero reason for complaints.

It's an older model, so you probably won't find the exact same one I'm using readily available, but I chose it because reviews said it was simple, straightforward, no frills, no fancy software or anything, plug and play, etc.

Also, there's WAY more space in that 2TB HDD than the Wii U can even display icons for, so yeah, 2TB is definitely overkill since I'm barely a third into it and already hitting the Wii U Game Icon display limit.

I'd be surprised these days if you had to pay more than $60 to get what you want, and that'd be on the high end. The thing that gives me pause when browsing the newer models though is that many are USB 3.0 and I'd want to read a little more on what exact connection cables they come with and how they'd work with the USB 2.0 ports on the Wii U.
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Offline pokepal148

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Re: What hard drive for Wii U do you recommend most?
« Reply #14 on: June 23, 2016, 07:42:38 PM »
I can't even fill the old 200 gb drive I'm using although to be fair I have brought half of my games physically.

Offline Harrytex

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What hard drive for Wii U do you recommend most
« Reply #15 on: November 18, 2016, 06:16:31 AM »
Would you be gracious enough to tell us what the technical person explained to you that made everything so clear so that we may be enlightened too ?. Thanks..