Topic: WiiU external hard drive

[NeoThunder]

Has anyone tried it and had success? I've tried 2 different drives I've had and it never does anything when I'm trying to format them. It just says "checking USB storage device..." And nothing ever happens, and there's never any drive activity while during this process.

[Disco Stu]

Mine actually freezes up completely every time I try to use mine.  I had to unplug it from the wall to make it turn off.  I'm also using a bus-powered drive which Nintendo doesn't officially "recommend."

[ShyGuy]

if you are using bus powered are you using dual usb plugs?

[Razorkid]

I'm using a Toshiba 1TB drive that has an AC adapter that plugs into the wall. I didn't have any issues last night when I set it up with the system and installed NSMBU onto it.  This morning, I moved my whole setup to my bedroom and played NSMBU for the first time and had no issues until about 30min in when everything froze on me, sound included.  I turned off the GamePad, but the system wouldn't shut off.  When I went to power it down manually, it wouldn't work so I had to unplug the system.  When I turned it back on, NSMBU  was gone from the menu on my GamePad. Turns out the harddrive some how became disconnected to the system.  I checked the connections, power cycled the drive and then everything has been fine.


Just posting my experiences so far.

[Disco Stu]

if you are using bus powered are you using dual usb plugs?

I'm not right now.  I can't seem to find a cable from Toshiba that would plug into my hard drive.

[Razorkid]

I noticed that when I power on my system, the harddrive comes on too, but it takes a few minutes after I've logged into my account and am at the WiiU screen for it to boot up register on the system. So when I initially get to the home screen, there aren't any downloaded games or the little USB icon at the bottom indicating a drive is attached. When I wait a few minutes, or go to another menu and come back, it pops up along with my games. Just an FYI for other folks who have harddrives attached and may be freaking out when their drive and downloaded games don't show up immediately upon boot up. I'm hoping Nintendo fixes this in an update, but as long as I know it's not a hardware failure on the WiiU or harddrive end, I can wait a few minutes to have my stuff pop up. 

To those who own a 3DS, it's like when you boot back into your home screen from a game and all the downloaded software doesn't show for a few seconds before populating back into their places.

[Kairon]

I got a Western Digital 2 TB Desktop Elements Drive. I intentionally chose that model as it sounded very simple, with no/few frills like special software or etc., and because it had a dedicated outlet power cord. It arrived in the mail yesterday and pretty much worked right out of the box after a 3 step setup process for the HDD and like, a 10 second setup on the Wii U side to format the brand new drive. Transferring data from my Wii U's memory to the HDD's memory was also pretty speedy, definitely MUCH faster than downloading!

I proceeded to play the rest of the night, with Mighty Switch Force HD that was stored on the HDD, and with Nintendo Land which had an update stored on the HDD.

[MrPhishfood]

I think USB hard drives tend to have a power saving mode where if its not being used then the magnetic disks stop spinning and it takes a while for them to start up again. Its probably the Wii U that's not accounting for the startup spin and thus it doesn't recognise the drive on the first attempt.

[Kytim89]

Can you use USB flash drives without any issues for the Wii U?

[azeke]

Can anyone confirm that partitioning the disk indeed won't work? It would be a waste to use all of my 600Gb hard drive just for a dozens Gb actually needed for Wii U games.

If not i will just use my two old ass 150Gb IDE-hard drives with IDE to USB connectors. It's not gonna look pretty though.

[leahsdad]

Can anyone confirm that partitioning the disk indeed won't work? It would be a waste to use all of my 600Gb hard drive just for a dozens Gb actually needed for Wii U games.

If not i will just use my two old ass 150Gb IDE-hard drives with IDE to USB connectors. It's not gonna look pretty though.

That brings up a good question.  Anyone try or have issues with sticking old hard drives into hard drive enclosures yet (you know, the enclosures you can get for like $20 on Newegg?)?   I have an old 300 GB IDE drive (that's right, IDE) in a $20 Rosewill enclosure, but I have yet to try it out because my Wii U is still "in the shop" up in Redmond.  I figure, as MrPhishfood pointed out, that since enclosures are cheap and "no frills,"  my chance of success is high.

[Oblivion]

What's an enclosure? I know what a partition is, but I'm not sure.

[RedBlue]

What's an enclosure? I know what a partition is, but I'm not sure.

An enclosure is for making an internal hard drive into an external usb hard drive

[Louieturkey]

It should work.  The enclosure has its own circuitry to make the computer (or Wii U) recognize it as an external HDD.

[leahsdad]

What's an enclosure? I know what a partition is, but I'm not sure.

An enclosure is for making an internal hard drive into an external usb hard drive

I brought it up, so I'll try to be a bit more descriptive.  It's basically this little metal box that you stick any old hard drive into.   Great way to repurpose an old harddrive that has outlived its usefulness for you in your main computer.

If you have an older drive (let's say, under 500 gb) then it's most likely and IDE drive (connector is about 2 inches wide).  If you have a newer drive (1 tB or more) then it's most likely a SATA drive (connector is a tiny little red thing).

Enclosures tend to run between $20 to $40.  Very easy to set up (literally, pop it open, stick in old hard drive, connector wire, close it up, you're ready to rock).  Here's the one I plan to  use:

You should also be warned that enclosures come in 2 general flavors, 2.5 and 3.5.   3.5 inchers tend to be for old, normal sized hard drives you'd find in your PC.   They need to be plugged in with a separate AC adapter for power.   2.5 inchers are smaller harddrives for notebook computers.   They don't need an external power source, as they come with those little y-shaped usb cables (1 for data, 1 for power).  But according to Nintendo, these are not recommended for Wii U use.


As Louieturkey said, these SHOULD work.  I just wonder if they really will, since these can used just about any hard drive you have lying around.

[Louieturkey]

As Louieturkey said, these SHOULD work.  I just wonder if they really will, since these can used just about any hard drive you have lying around.

They could have a problem with them being IDE drives instead of SATA drives.  But as long as the controller in the enclosure does a good job of converting the signal from IDE to USB, it shouldn't have any problem.

[leahsdad]

As Louieturkey said, these SHOULD work.  I just wonder if they really will, since these can used just about any hard drive you have lying around.

They could have a problem with them being IDE drives instead of SATA drives.  But as long as the controller in the enclosure does a good job of converting the signal from IDE to USB, it shouldn't have any problem.

Finally got my Wii U back from Redmond yesterday, and I'm happy to say that my external enclosure works perfectly, even though it's just a super-old IDE drive.   I would highly recommend this method if you've got any old harddrive lying around and you want to save some money for your Wii U storage solution.

[NWR_insanolord]

Has anyone found a bus-powered drive that works right with the Wii U? Electrical outlets are at a premium for me, and I'd rather not have to take one up with this if I don't have to.

[leahsdad]

I would also add that data transfer rates seem fast....very fast for a Nintendo product.   I moved Zombi U, nearly 6 gigs, onto my USB enclosure in about as many minutes (5 or 6).   I still remember fridge cleaning on the Wii OG.  Man, just transferring 10 VC NES games seemed to take forever!

[BranDonk Kong]

Has anyone found a bus-powered drive that works right with the Wii U? Electrical outlets are at a premium for me, and I'd rather not have to take one up with this if I don't have to.

Any drive should work in theory. I have a 2.5" 320GB HDD on my original Wii and it's only powered by a single USB cable. If the Wii can do it, I'm sure the Wii U can do it.

[leahsdad]

Has anyone found a bus-powered drive that works right with the Wii U? Electrical outlets are at a premium for me, and I'd rather not have to take one up with this if I don't have to.

I had read somewhere that those were not recommended by Nintendo...something about the spin rates of the platters affecting the way the Wii U accesses data?   

And is it me, or is there no way to just keep the save data on the Wii U internal memory....the Wii U seems to just move everything wholesale onto the USB disk, which is kinda lame, because on the off-chance that my USB hard drive fails one day (which is certainly possible), I'd rather not lose my save data as well as my game file.

[NWR_insanolord]

Has anyone found a bus-powered drive that works right with the Wii U? Electrical outlets are at a premium for me, and I'd rather not have to take one up with this if I don't have to.

Any drive should work in theory. I have a 2.5" 320GB HDD on my original Wii and it's only powered by a single USB cable. If the Wii can do it, I'm sure the Wii U can do it.

Yeah, I know that was the case, and Nintendo's warnings are likely them being their usual overly-cautious selves, but I don't have a drive lying around and if I'm going to spend a decent chunk of money on one I'd prefer to have something that's already been tested and been shown to work.

[leahsdad]

I would also add that data transfer rates seem fast....very fast for a Nintendo product.   I moved Zombi U, nearly 6 gigs, onto my USB enclosure in about as many minutes (5 or 6).

Whoa, I think I have to amend my previous statement.   Data transfer from Wii U to USB storage is very fast.  The other way around, however.....

I changed my mind, decided to just keep my games on the Wii U internal storage for the short term, and thought "Hey, I'll just pop it back onto the internal storage."   30 MINUTES LATER, still moving Zombi U back, at about 80% complete.   I don't know whether the bottleneck here is my USB hard drive's read speed, or the Wii U's write speed.   But the difference is huge.  Literally, about 1 gig per minute leaving the Wii U.  Coming back to the Wii U...I'm guessing Zombi U will take about 40 to 45 minutes.

Anyone else experience this?  Is it just my crappy USB hard drive, or a poor Nintendo engineering decision?

[Gamejunkie]

Has anyone found a bus-powered drive that works right with the Wii U? Electrical outlets are at a premium for me, and I'd rather not have to take one up with this if I don't have to.

I had read somewhere that those were not recommended by Nintendo...something about the spin rates of the platters affecting the way the Wii U accesses data?   

And is it me, or is there no way to just keep the save data on the Wii U internal memory....the Wii U seems to just move everything wholesale onto the USB disk, which is kinda lame, because on the off-chance that my USB hard drive fails one day (which is certainly possible), I'd rather not lose my save data as well as my game file.

I don't think Nintendo have ever said that regards bus powered hard drives. They do recommend you use hard drives that have their own power supply. However they've said USB bus powered drives should work just fine but you may have to use a USB Y cable connected to two of the Wii U's USB ports in order to provide enough power.

[Razorkid]

I would also add that data transfer rates seem fast....very fast for a Nintendo product.   I moved Zombi U, nearly 6 gigs, onto my USB enclosure in about as many minutes (5 or 6).

Whoa, I think I have to amend my previous statement.   Data transfer from Wii U to USB storage is very fast.  The other way around, however.....

I changed my mind, decided to just keep my games on the Wii U internal storage for the short term, and thought "Hey, I'll just pop it back onto the internal storage."   30 MINUTES LATER, still moving Zombi U back, at about 80% complete.   I don't know whether the bottleneck here is my USB hard drive's read speed, or the Wii U's write speed.   But the difference is huge.  Literally, about 1 gig per minute leaving the Wii U.  Coming back to the Wii U...I'm guessing Zombi U will take about 40 to 45 minutes.

Anyone else experience this?  Is it just my crappy USB hard drive, or a poor Nintendo engineering decision?

I have all my WiiU games on my USB harddrive and performance is fine when loading up games and playing them (no slower loading from disc vs harddrive). I'm curious, why are you transferring your stuff back onto the internal storage? The bottleneck is certainly the WiiU's internal storage write speed for transferring stuff, but I doubt it affects loading time negatively for games.