Hard time getting a HDD with AC, I'm about to buy a 256gb USB key instead, is it ok?

[Volt26]

I softmodded my cousin's WiiU. I tried to find a cheap external HDD with AC adapter to host the WiiU games but they seem to be harder to find in my area at a decent price. My cousin doesn't want to old terrabytes of games, I will barely put 160gb so I figured that a USB key would be a better bargain.

I saw posts that claim it is not safe to use a USB key while others claim they've been doing it for years with no issue. I'm very confused right now. I set my eyes on on a Patriot SuperSonic Rage Lite 256gb : https://www.amazon.ca/Patriot-Supersonic-Rage-Flash-Drive/dp/B09KYD56QH

What do you think? This is for casual gaming. I figured any key should work when I tested on a cheap 16gb and it worked just fine.

I would like to avoid ordering a key that doesn't work or cause technical issues in the future. If I absolutely need to go for a HDD with external AC power. Would some of you have store links that still sell that stuff? My searching leads me to overpriced stores such as TheSource and when I checked, these drives were not in stock anyways.

 

[StringIsNullOrEmpty]

Have you tried looking for an external HDD enclosure to go with a bare drive?

 

[Shadow#1]

I softmodded my cousin's WiiU. I tried to find a cheap external HDD with AC adapter to host the WiiU games but they seem to be harder to find in my area at a decent price. My cousin doesn't want to old terrabytes of games, I will barely put 160gb so I figured that a USB key would be a better bargain.

I saw posts that claim it is not safe to use a USB key while others claim they've been doing it for years with no issue. I'm very confused right now. I set my eyes on on a Patriot SuperSonic Rage Lite 256gb : https://www.amazon.ca/Patriot-Supersonic-Rage-Flash-Drive/dp/B09KYD56QH

What do you think? This is for casual gaming. I figured any key should work when I tested on a cheap 16gb and it worked just fine.

I would like to avoid ordering a key that doesn't work or cause technical issues in the future. If I absolutely need to go for a HDD with external AC power. Would some of you have store links that still sell that stuff? My searching leads me to overpriced stores such as TheSource and when I checked, these drives were not in stock anyways.

Get a external HDD with y-cable add on

 

[Volt26]

I have a external drive lying around but I have no idea if a Y cable addon would work on it. All I know is my external enclosure is a kingston SNA-DC/U with a old OCZ 120GB SSD inside. I tried plugging it with the USB cable provided with it but as expected, the Wii U hangs on it (probably due to lack of power).

Its plugged with a mini-B (external enclosure) to Type A (in the Wii U)

 

[zxr750j]

It should work just fine!

 

[lolorlofl]

It's not recommended. It'll work but your mileage may vary. It could work for a while, it could fail after a week. USB flash drives aren't suited for the type of data transfers that happen with booting backups.

EDIT: You can try this but you will have to provide your own hard drive: https://www.amazon.ca/UGREEN-External-Enclosure-Adapter-Housing/dp/B076WQHK2G/
or you can get something like this which contains a hard drive https://www.amazon.ca/Western-Digital-External-Drive-USB-3-0-WDBBGB0080HBK-NESN/dp/B01LQQHL2G/

 

[Videomanman87]

As as been mentioned, I wouldn't. The problem is two fold. First there is a lot of rewrites going on and you will burn through write cycles of the flash drive fairly quickly. The second problem is the Wii U can draw/take power from the ports at times and it may not have enough power at some point causing the whole drive to become corrupted. There is no way to predict this, it can be find for months or even a year then all at once the drive is trashed.

The only way to be certain is to have a external with AC power. A lot of people say a Y cable is enough, but personally, I have my doubts. It is tough to find one these days but there are external enclosures around that still have AC, but only online. I can't find them in local stores any more.

Personally I like using my own enclosure. That way I can replace the drive or pull data or even clone it with ease if I need.

 

[V10lator]

A lot of people say a Y cable is enough, but personally, I have my doubts.

And you're right: A Y cable gives 1 mA max but there are drives spiking higher than that (Seagate says 2 mA max for external HDDs, for example).

A bit of topic but there's a hardware mod available: https://gbatemp.net/threads/wii-u-s...-vs-sd-card-with-adapter.554701/#post-8957149 (this is easily adaptable to the front USB ports, too. In fact all my USB ports are unlimitted and I'm using a HDD without a Y cable nor external power supply).