Gaming Is it a good idea to buy a 2nd external hard drive to back up your games?

robco7 · May 13, 2020

Now that the wiiuisos site is dead, I'm worried about something happening to my console, but also my external hard drive. I didn't think to get back ups of some of the games I got from that site, so now all I have is the stuff I installed to my external drive. Is it a good idea to get a 2nd hard drive, or SD card or USB stick, or whatever else you could store your installed injects on?

CMDreamer · May 13, 2020

It is for sure, hard drives are prone of failing at some point depending on many factors.

Cloning the hard drive would work on your case; as long as all it's identifiers are there, the WiiU should recognize it and use it without any problem.

CORE · May 13, 2020

Always have a Backup of a Backup.

The Real Jdbye · May 13, 2020

robco7 said:
Now that the wiiuisos site is dead, I'm worried about something happening to my console, but also my external hard drive. I didn't think to get back ups of some of the games I got from that site, so now all I have is the stuff I installed to my external drive. Is it a good idea to get a 2nd hard drive, or SD card or USB stick, or whatever else you could store your installed injects on?

No. Keep the installable .app/.h3 files instead. More useful to have in case you format the Wii U and the files on the HDD stop working, or someone wants you to hack their Wii U for them.

robco7 · May 15, 2020

The Real Jdbye said:
No. Keep the installable .app/.h3 files instead. More useful to have in case you format the Wii U and the files on the HDD stop working, or someone wants you to hack their Wii U for them.

That's what I thought, unfortunately some of the injects I have installed seem to be unavailable to download anywhere, since xs4all was the only one posting them, and all his stuff got taken down.

CMDreamer said:
It is for sure, hard drives are prone of failing at some point depending on many factors.

Cloning the hard drive would work on your case; as long as all it's identifiers are there, the WiiU should recognize it and use it without any problem.

Do you mean clone the external hard drive, or the console's NAND? I already have a backup of the system's hard drive, but I haven't done it recently.

MrCokeacola · May 15, 2020

I backed up my 500gb HDD with the Wii U itself as it lets you copy games to a 2nd HDD if you plug both in at the same time. Cloning the drive would be faster as the process on the Wii U took a whole day.

Jayinem81 · May 15, 2020

It doesn't hurt, but if your Wii U were to go out it wouldn't help at all because that external hard drive or the backup of it will only work on the Wii U it's formatted on. So if you lose your Wii U somehow you still lose your games. Better to keep a backup of your saves and of the installable files.

CMDreamer · May 16, 2020

robco7 said:
[...]
Do you mean clone the external hard drive, or the console's NAND? I already have a backup of the system's hard drive, but I haven't done it recently.

I meant about the external hard drive ofc.

Now that you have all the games you want already "installed", might be a good idea to have a backup of all that, so no to have to reinstall everything back again, which to be honest, takes way too long.

lafleche · May 16, 2020

CMDreamer said:
I meant about the external hard drive ofc.

Now that you have all the games you want already "installed", might be a good idea to have a backup of all that, so no to have to reinstall everything back again, which to be honest, takes way too long.

But as stated above... If your wiiu fails that backup fails on replacement wiiu.

Personally I have copies of all wud files (in wux format) on my Nas and USB drive.
Yes... It is a pain to reinstall but I guess it is of more use to have the source material.

V10lator · May 16, 2020

lafleche said:
But as stated above... If your wiiu fails that backup fails on replacement wiiu.

https://gbatemp.net/threads/wfsdump-pc-util-for-dumping-wfs-devices-wiiu-file-system.478480/ + FTPiiU Everywhere on the new console and that problem is solved, too. I never said it's fast through...

Sypherone · May 16, 2020

Normaly a hdd is best choise for holding data. A not in use hdd will hold them for more then over 10 years, if nothing special happens.

Keep games as Install files:
The price for a Backup HDD is very low. If u backup the wud files for reinstall on an 3,5" HDD, the actaul cost will be around 65€ for a 2TB ( seagate baracuda for example, or about 90€ for 4TB). A externel 2,5" USB3.0 ist more expensive.

Clone the Drive:
U can copy the Games from one Drive to another with the Wii U function.
Because of the own Format of the Wiiu u need a HDD with same Partition size of your Gamedrive, u cant select a specific Partiton on the Wiiu.

There a way of getting still the wii u games.
1. Using Wiiu USB Helper with aworkaround for getting Backups of your Games for new install
gbatemp.net/threads/working-fix-easy-install-wii-u-usb-helper-0-6-1-655.535214/

Jayinem81 · May 16, 2020

Desraptor said:
Normaly a hdd is best choise for holding data. A not in use hdd will hold them for more then over 10 years, if nothing special happens.

Keep games as Install files:
The price for a Backup HDD is very low. If u backup the wud files for reinstall on an 3,5" HDD, the actaul cost will be around 65€ for a 2TB ( seagate baracuda for example, or about 90€ for 4TB). A externel 2,5" USB3.0 ist more expensive.

Clone the Drive:
U can copy the Games from one Drive to another with the Wii U function.
Because of the own Format of the Wiiu u need a HDD with same Partition size of your Gamedrive, u cant select a specific Partiton on the Wiiu.

There are two way of getting still the wii u games.
1. Using Wiiu USB Helper with aworkaround for getting Backups of your Games for new install
gbatemp.net/threads/working-fix-easy-install-wii-u-usb-helper-0-6-1-655.535214/

2. Or using a different site for your Games. Google and [Edited] will help u.

You might want to edit out that last suggestion you can't list pirated sites here.

Gaming Is it a good idea to buy a 2nd external hard drive to back up your games?

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