Hacking 3.5 VS 2.5 HDD for USB Loader

[Yawa]

I wanna know which one has better transfer speed?
Do the console can endure when it always powering an External 2.5 HDD for a very long time?

3.5 is always good when it comes to speed but it only works directly to PC (SATA/IDE Cables).
Since both of device use USB 2.0 port I believe the result will be the same???

 

[shortz1994]

yes they will be the same. as far as i know the wii doesn't support 3.0 usb devices(yet). it will work still, just will use the 2.0 side of the hdd. just as when 1.0 usb ports were becoming 2.0 ports. ( downgrade, step down) . as far as it using computer if your port is a 3.0 it will still see the hdd as a 3.0 an transfer games an apps,just as it supposed to. i have a western digi 3.0/2.0, an have had no problems.

 

[DeadlyFoez]

yes they will be the same. as far as i know the wii doesn't support 3.0 usb devices(yet). it will work still, just will use the 2.0 side of the hdd. just as when 1.0 usb ports were becoming 2.0 ports. ( downgrade, step down) . as far as it using computer if your port is a 3.0 it will still see the hdd as a 3.0 an transfer games an apps,just as it supposed to. i have a western digi 3.0/2.0, an have had no problems.

The wii will NEVER support USB 3.0 because it does not have the hardware to do so and there will be no more revisions of the wii because Nintendo is trying to sell off the last of the stock since they are coming out with their new console next year.

There is not really much (if any) difference in speed from a 2.5" drive to a 3.5" drive, but one big difference is that most 2.5" drives are able to be powered only by USB, so when you turn off your wii the hard drive will shut off too. Some 3.5" drives have an auto sleep function, but not all do and I still don't have faith in it anyways.

Just go with a 2.5" drive.

 

[Yawa]

So 2.5 is the choice lets hope I can find that use only 1 usb port >_< coz Im going to use the other port for usb keyboard, thanks

 

[DeadlyFoez]

Most of the ones that you get now do use only one USB port. I actually haven't seen one that requires 2 USB ports since the days when the hard drives were still IDE, or from the USB 1.1 days. Anything you get now will only need one port. I like the Seagate GoFlex drives or the Western Digital Passport drives.

 

[zizer]

i use 3.5 2Tb

 

[Taleweaver]

I actually haven't seen one that requires 2 USB ports since the days when the hard drives were still IDE.

Erm...what?

Is this a fancy way of saying "there never was one"*...or did there used to be some sort of "IDE-to-2-USB ports" convertor-plug thingy on the market?



In any case: @OP: external powered hard drives don't have any advantage of wii-powered ones. The latter just requires less cables.






*for the record: if this is the case...I think it's hilarious.

 

[DeadlyFoez]

Erm...what?

Is this a fancy way of saying "there never was one"*...or did there used to be some sort of "IDE-to-2-USB ports" convertor-plug thingy on the market?
In any case: @OP: external powered hard drives don't have any advantage of wii-powered ones. The latter just requires less cables.
*for the record: if this is the case...I think it's hilarious.

The older drives required the second USB plug for extra power because just one USB port could not provide enough power to power up the hard drive. It's considered as a 'Y' cable.

I actually have one of those drives that I use on my wii. Funny thing is, on my wii I can get away with just one USB plugged in, ut on my PC I need them both plugges in. It was bought as just an enclosure many many years ago, and then someone just gave it to me. It came out in the first year or 2 that usb 2.0 was out, and it also used an IDE drive.

IDE drives require more power than SATA drives... in general.

 

[Yawa]

I see, I didn't know IDE type drives require extra power. So if external powered drives doesn't have any advantage over wii powered ones. What about the safety of the Wii hardware to keep powering in long term operation? Did anyone know about blown or inoperable USB Port??

 

[DeadlyFoez]

What about the safety of the Wii hardware to keep powering in long term operation? Did anyone know about blown or inoperable USB Port??

I have NEVER heard of a wii's USB port dying from anything besides from user error, which is still very rare.

Don't confuse what Wever said at all. He is only saying that 3.5" dont offer any benefits over the 2.5" drives (besides more space and slightly lower price), but 2.5" drives do offer more benefits over a 3.5" drive.

 

[Yawa]

OK thank you, DeadlyFoez, shortz1994, Wever, zizer

2TB of wii games thats insane

 

[DeadlyFoez]

OK thank you, DeadlyFoez, shortz1994, Wever, zizer

2TB of wii games thats insane

I agree. I dont see a need at all to have that big of a library when %70 of the games are shovelware or just complete crap. Even on my 80gb drive, I still only use up about 35gb of space for wii games and I have about 25gb free space that I just use for data transfers. And I only recently put on more games on my drive. My family only uses about 8 games often, and that was really less than 5gb. I only added more games just to be abe to show people what the wii is capable of doing before I show them how easy it is to do using modmii... even though modmii does not get the games for you.

 

[Skater4599]

In all my tests with different hdd its been my finding that there is indeed a slight speed difference in 2.5 drives but only the 5400 rpm ones. I tested a USB 3.0 2.5 inch drive and while of course the wii didnt use USB 3.0 it was identical in speed to my 3.5 hdd. Most likely because it runs at the same 7200 rpm

 

[Yawa]

To me, I think the RPM of HDD only matters if use directly to PC (SATA/IDE Cables). The only thing this device holding its true potential was the tech behind the USB 2.0 port the speed is good but better than the 6X speed DVD Drive of Wii. Maybe SSD will perform better when it comes accessing the data within the drive but still if it use USB 2.0 the result may still be the same.

 

[obcd]

Drive rotation speed is not the only thing that influences data transfer speeds. The drive cache size and caching algoritms are important as well.
On USB 2.0, the usb speed is usually the speed limiting factor. An usb port should be able to provide 0.5 Amps to a connected device.
The power consumption of most 2.5" drives fluctuates around this. If a device has multiple usb ports, usually the supply is simply shared by the different
ports. As long as the total requested current consumed on both ports doesn't exceed "0.5 Amps * the number of ports".

In case of the Wii, this means that the total current can be up to 1 Amp.

The most power hungry item in a harddisk is the platter motor. At startup, that motor can create a small power peak.
7200RPM motors consume more power than 5400RPM motors. (In case people might wonder why there still are 5400RPM harddisks)

A bus powered USB hub only provides 0.1 Amp power on it's downstream ports.
The idea is to have 0.1 Amps for the hub electronics and 0.1 Amp for 1 of the 4 downstream ports, bringing the total again to 0.5 Amps.

A 3.5" harddisk has it's own power adapter. If it goes into suspend after a period of inactivity (normally the motor is switched off), it can give problems
on the wii because it takes time to resume. If it doesn't, you will need to remove the power yourself every time you turn the system off. Some disks will
power down if the usb power dissapears (like in case of the wii). On a pc this doesn't always work. Some pc's leave the usb power on, so that usb keyboards can keep working, giving them a way to turn the pc on.
A 2.5" harddisk can have an annoying suspend feature as well. As those are meant to be connected to a laptop, more power consumption is an important feature to enhanced battery life.

http://gbatemp.net/t280043-joyflow-a-mod-o...low?&st=420

Here Xflak describes the Seagate Goflex drives. It's a 2.5" drive with a removable usb interface. You can buy a usb 3.0 interface for it if you need the speed and your pc supports usb 3.0, and you can buy it with the cheaper usb 2.0 interface for wii interfacing.

I am no representative of seagate, and I don't use that system myself, but I did have my part of misery finding a compatible drive for the wii.
If Xflak says that these work very well, I believe him....