Hardware What is the best External Harddrive for the Wii

maskedman · Apr 9, 2021

Good Evening

What is the best External Hard drive for Nintendo wii that will run both Nintendont and USB Loader GX games. I want to get a bigger storage so I can have more games. I know that the hard drive has to be 2.0 it order to run Nintendo Gamecube games. I want a hard drive that doesn't go into sleep mode or has led light. I did purchase a Hard drive the brand was SUHSAI 500 gb that hard drive died in two months and I ended up losing $30.00. I want to make sure I get the right one this time that will work 100%.

jeannotte · Apr 9, 2021

Hello,

Just a little info:

Get yourself an external hard drive of the brand "Western digital" (max 2 T0),

If however, you would like a hard drive beyond 2 T0, see this person, she will inform you correctly ==> @ca032769

in general these discs work very well with wii.
Format in fat 32 and can be used a Y cable for better connectivity.

Do not take discs of non-reputable sub brands, you will be disappointed.

ca032769 · Apr 9, 2021

jeannotte said:
Hello,

Just a little info:

Get yourself an external hard drive of the brand "Western digital" (max 2 T0),

If however, you would like a hard drive beyond 2 T0, see this person, she will inform you correctly ==> @ca032769

in general these discs work very well with wii.
Format in fat 32 and can be used a Y cable for better connectivity.

Do not take discs of non-reputable sub brands, you will be disappointed.

While I usually prefer HE / HIM, I always try to keep an open mind, LOL...

ca032769 · Apr 9, 2021

maskedman said:
Good Evening

What is the best External Hard drive for Nintendo wii that will run both Nintendont and USB Loader GX games. I want to get a bigger storage so I can have more games. I know that the hard drive has to be 2.0 it order to run Nintendo Gamecube games. I want a hard drive that doesn't go into sleep mode or has led light. I did purchase a Hard drive the brand was SUHSAI 500 gb that hard drive died in two months and I ended up losing $30.00. I want to make sure I get the right one this time that will work 100%.

Actually you can also use USB 3.0, 3.1 and SSD drives, they all work. As already mentioned by @jeannotte the Western Digital Hard Drives are the best choice.

You can pick up WD Passport drives for a reasonable cost. Over the last 14 years have never had a Western Digital drive fail on me. While it is rarely needed also get a Y-Cable for around $8. I switch back and forth between the regular single cable and Y-Cable all the time without issues, but it will depend on how strong (or weak) your Wii's USB power is. You can try it without and if needed always get the Y-Cable if you have problems. I always keep a few Y-Cables around myself just in case and I always use them when I set up a system for someone else.

The Passports do have a small LED light, but it is on the back side and barely noticeable when sitting on the Wii. Depending on your situation you can always cover it with black electrical tape if you want to completely eliminate the glow or flash that might be seen in a dark or dimly lit room. I haven't had to turn off the sleep mode on any of my drives, not sure what they are set to but I don't notice it or they always start back up for me without any issues. There is WD software utilities that can adjust/turn off the sleep mode, but I haven't had to use it.

A 2TB and under will be the easiest to setup, but it really depends on how may games you have or want to have on the drive. I have ALL the US Wii & GameCube titles, plus quite a few EU titles & some JP titles on one single drive which takes up about 4.5TB, so you'd want a 5TB drive to have everything in one place on one drive. See the last link in my signature if you want to more about using drives larger than 2TB and there are a few pictures at the end of that post.

maskedman · Apr 9, 2021

Thanks you for the responses is there a particular one that I can buy on Amazon or ebay. I don't really need a huge drive since I don't have a lot of games the minimum space I want is 500, but if I can get a 1tb for reasonable price that works as well. It must be 2.0 usb compatible.

Draxikor · Apr 9, 2021

WD Elements 1tb in fat32 compatible with all wii and gamecube games (emulators of course) using the only one USB cable the best option.

maskedman · Apr 11, 2021

Thank for the information is this the one you are talking about I want to make sure
https://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-Elements-Portable-External/dp/B06VVS7S94?th=1

urherenow · Apr 11, 2021

WD have always had short lives in my experience. I've had better luck (and better price per gb) with Seagate, myself...

Oh, and you will NEVER find a HDD that isn't USB 2.0 compatible. All USB devices work on all USB controllers (power requirements being the only real limitation, worked around with the aforementioned Y cable). The speed you get, depends on the max speed of both the device and the port.

Draxikor · Apr 11, 2021

@maskedman Yep that's the one i have

segashack · Apr 20, 2021

My experience is:

Internal: Western Digital
External: Seagate

Any internal Seagate or External WD drive had failed on me in less than a year.

Yoyal · Nov 22, 2022

@Draxikor Does the amount of storage effect the usage of the drive? (Like if I got the same USB drive as the one you have, but instead of it being 1TB, it being 2TB, 4TB, or 5TB?)

Draxikor · Nov 22, 2022

@Yoyal
It affects, if you use 1tb you don't need to do any extra configuration but with 2tb things get more complicated and you need to do extra steps to make it work well.

From 4tb onwards I understand that some have been able to make them work on the Wii (depending on the brand and model of the hdd) but they are only able to use 2tb even if the HDD has more space.

Sypherone · Nov 22, 2022

If the drive has 512b sector size (nativ or emulated) max the first 2 T on a drive can be used. Because the Wii cant adress more then this number on sectors and normaly MBR and fat32 also cant create drives bigger then that.

There exist two solutions.
A Adapter is needed which emulates 4096b (4k) sector size like a ASM1153/ASM1153E USB 3.0 adapter/enclosure. But the drive needs to have a SATA connection.
Or a new standard generation 2 " Advanced Format" (AF) 4kn drive will be needed. As the old generation 1 AF drives have nativ 4k sector size, but are forced to 512b emulate only.
With this 4k size fat32 can create drives up to 8TB(32k) or 16TB(64k). For more information check this thread

And yes there will theoretically a difference if using a small or big drive. As bigger the drive the bigger the allocated sector size should be choosen which reduces the access time. The drives have a filetable to store what is where, the more sectors with files, the bigger the table and slower the access time. And if the sector is to big, you will lose empty space as only one file can be stored in one sector. So for Wii homebrew 32k/64k is recommended.

Mikef1 · Nov 22, 2022

Try this one: This 2tb
I'm using the previous version of this drive.
It's been running on my wii for like 3-4 years.
Zero problems & no Y adapter either.

godreborn · Nov 22, 2022

Mikef1 said:
Try this one: This 2tb
I'm using the previous version of this drive.
It's been running on my wii for like 3-4 years.
Zero problems & no Y adapter either.

no offense, but I steer away from seagate. every hdd I have is a wd.

Mikef1 · Nov 23, 2022

godreborn said:
no offense, but I steer away from seagate. every hdd I have is a wd.

Actually the one I have has a Samsung Spinpoint inside. I'm guessing this one is really a seagate. Nevermind what I said above.

EldritchPenumbra · Nov 23, 2022

Well you could go to walmart, and buy one of those cheap hard drives that they offer, but should something go bad with the controller that communicates with the hard drive inside the caddy it comes with, you are not going to get your data back unless you buy another one of those hard drives, remove the new drive from the caddy, put in your old drive, etc.

Besides you would still have to buy a Y cable to replace the regular USB cable that comes with the drive, which is going to run you at least another $8.00 if you are America, or something like 4,000,000,000 Yen if you are in Japan.

Next there is the fact those store bought drives have the WORST USB connectors out there and they are prone to fail at some point, if not the cables that plug into them, so....

What you want to do is buy a self powered Hard Drive caddy off Ebay that uses a USB B connector from back in the day. Like most things from back in the day, it was designed to last as opposed to quickly wear away like the before mentioned USB Micro-B or just USB Micros in general.

The only alternative I can think of is to get a 2.5" External drive that has a standard female USB port as it's main port to plug into your Y cable which then in turn plugs into your Wii. You will of course need to track down a Male to Male USB Y Cable for use with it. The only advantage this will give is that you will not have to separately turn turn on your hard drive before turning on your Wii.

And there is the best answer you will get.

tbgtbg · Nov 23, 2022

Y-cables certainly can work, but I prefer to use a drive with its own dedicated AC adapter. I use a single fat32 1TB Verbatim external for my Wii, 360, and PS3 and it's worked without problem since those systems were current. My PS4 has its own 4TB Seagate drive formatted to whatever PS4 formats it to, but that's a different thing,

elk1007 · Nov 23, 2022

I like to use a USB-to-microSD adapter.

Tetsuo Shima · Nov 25, 2022

I use a Toshiba canvio basic 2tb and I have zero issues, no need for y cable and external AC adapter.

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