Hacking New to Wii U hacking, looking for any recommended portable hard drives

[anthonyplep]

First, if in wrong section please let me know

I'm a decently experienced modder at this point. I've modded tons of PS2s, PSPs, a few PS3s, tons of Wiis, tons of 3DS, you name it

Yesterday I dived into the world of Wii U modding and set my 5.5.1 Wii U to coldboot into haxchi/Mocha CFW, which was relatively painless and quite simple

As far as games go, I tried a few downloaders like NUSGrabber, Wii U USB Helper, and uTikDownloadHelper. I had a spare cheap 32gb flash drive laying around so I got some of my games I own on disc downloaded and sent them to my Wii U via the WUP Installer and everything worked perfectly

Now, I'm looking at this point to expand my storage, so I am going to look into getting a portable hard drive. When I used to do Wiis, the only hard drive I ever used was the Western Digital 'My Passport' brand. They were 100% reliable and every person I set a Wii up for had 0 issues whatsoever

Is this portable hard drive still a good fit for Wii U modding? Are there better alternatives? My main method for games will be to install them via WUP installer right to the portable HD, so obviously a good portable HD will be preferred. I know some hard drives have that shut off mode after around 10 minutes or so, and the WD hard drives I mentioned never did that, but am curious to know if there are better drives out there

Thanks!

 

[C0mm4nd_]

The only thing you must know is that the drive must be external-powered (Y-cable if the HDD hasn't a power supply)

 

[Deleted member 388531]

This HDD is better in my opinion:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B...f9-ee9f-54b5-a801-4eb626d4a3a4&pf_rd_i=595048

 

[anthonyplep]

The only thing you must know is that the drive must be external-powered (Y-cable if the HDD hasn't a power supply)

Hmm, got any you recommend in that case? I'll look around on the forum in the meantime and see others setups

and @SpiffyJUNIOR do you use this on the Wii U?

Edit: I'm seeing reviews on Amazon for the hard drive you linked, and many are saying it works great with the Wii U, as long as you use a Y-Cable. I have no experience in Y-Cables, so in theory any should work? I'm assuming all the Y-Cable does is allow the hard drive to grab power from both USB ports rather than just the one?

Soooo

This coupled with this should theoretically do the trick?

 

[ImmortalShadow]

Would never recommend a portable hard drive. They go bad so easily.

However, you could buy a plain naked hdd like this.

Then, buy any of your choice of HDD enclosures here.


Slide the HDD in, boom plug it in. I would recommend buying one with usb 3.0, a fan, and a power supply.

I never even tried hard drives with my wii yet, as I'm fine with a backup loader for my disc games and a 32gb micro sd to sd adapter.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

This HDD is better in my opinion:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B...f9-ee9f-54b5-a801-4eb626d4a3a4&pf_rd_i=595048

Nope. I had people that said that went bad within 2 months of daily use. Wouldn't recommend a portable HDD at all.

 

[Deleted member 388531]

After looking around this and this seem to be the best option and I even use it myself for USB loading.

 

[anthonyplep]

-snip-

I don't think I would be using this Wii U daily. Even with any mods installed, the Wii U will probably get less than casual use as it is, what with my 3DS and having the switch preordered

Hell, my portable for my Wii has had some pretty hardcore use over the past 6 years and it still works just fine

I'll still consider my options and look around though

 

[ImmortalShadow]

After looking around this and this seem to be the best option and I even use it myself for USB loading.

Pretty much what I said in my last post, but you choose different hard drives. You can buy an enclosure, I would highly recommend it over a cable because of the exposed circuits.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

I don't think I would be using this Wii U daily. Even with any mods installed, the Wii U will probably get less than casual use as it is, what with my 3DS and having the switch preordered

Hell, my portable for my Wii has had some pretty hardcore use over the past 6 years and it still works just fine

I'll still consider my options and look around though

Pretty much hit and miss with those portable drives. Some are crap, some are good. I can admit I have one somewhere that still works from 2009.

 

[anthonyplep]

Pretty much what I said in my last post, but you choose different hard drives. You can buy an enclosure, I would highly recommend it over a cable because of the exposed circuits.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------




Pretty much hit and miss with those portable drives. Some are crap, some are good. I can admit I have one somewhere that still works from 2009.

Would a Y cable still be necessary with this option? I'm guessing yeah? Unless I bought an enclosure with power?

 

[PaBo]

portable ssd

 

[ImmortalShadow]

Would a Y cable still be necessary with this option? I'm guessing yeah? Unless I bought an enclosure with power?

Sorry, I didn't mean that. Was talking about this cable and replacing it with an enclosure. https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-SAT...TF8&qid=1485730467&sr=8-1&keywords=HDD+to+usb

I would still recommend a Y cable and a enclosure with power. Make sure you purchase the right one! The power to the enclosure allows it to spin faster and give data faster. The y cable acts like combining two usb ports and making it faster, doubling the speed. You don't need the y cable, unless your thirsty for speed. My enclosure came with a y cable.

edit: honestly if you just used a y cable, it wouldn't be worth it. You need more power to the cable. You will just be using as much as the hard drive can go. Use both a y cable and a powered enclosure.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

portable ssd

If only I had the money.... Although, is the wii u even usb 3.0. Seems like a waste actually.

 

[Deleted member 388531]

Buy this,this,and this.

 

[punderino]

Oooor. Have a hard drive laying around, buy a $10 USB dock for it. Buying a nice expensive USB 3.0 HDD is useless. Just use a normal HDD in a USB 2.0 reader.

 

[GBA rocks]

1) seagate ultra slim 2TB in silver/gold at 2 platters is the slimmest 2TB available (7mm drive inside 9.6mm enclosure) and I can confirm it works (Y cable), not sure (if buying new) why one should go for thicker ones, unless there's a big price difference
2) portable drives failing in 2 months of course is BS
3) using both Y cable ("for double the speed") and external power of course is monumental BS (only one USB port is used for data at any time and only one half of the Y-cable is wired for data at all)
4) SSDs as rarely accessed external storage are a bit scary (if you're setting up a WiiU for the very long run) because we don't have the 30+ years of cold storage record to prove they'll be readable in 10years if left unpowered, also the WiiU filesystem wasn't made with SSDs in mind, Nintendo never mentions SSDs and results are unpredictable; remember a crash could cause a brick in some cold boot setups; I'm the biggest advocate for SSDs but for old consoles they could be more trouble than it's worth and for long term archival purpose they're uncharted territory
5) always double check if a particular USB hdd has a blinding activity LED before buying.

My advice (January 2017) is
- buy a seagate STEH2000101 (gold) or STEH2000100 (platinum), the only 7mm 2TB on the market
- buy a branded Y cable (like "Lindy dual power" series)
- velcro the HDD to the front part of the WiiU above the optical drive (where supposedly most of the heat isn't generated), with the micro USB port facing back
- connect the Y cable to the back ports and prop it up in a loop (with cable ties) if it's too long

this is the tidiest setup, doesn't add to the footprint at all, you can easily move your WiiU at a minute notice to wherever there's one free power plug

 

[kumikochan]

Buy a case. Y cables burn out a usb port after a while

 

[GBA rocks]

Buy a case. Y cables burn out a usb port after a while

There's no technical reason for that to happen if each port is used complying with USB specs.

 

[kumikochan]

There's no technical reason for that to happen if each port is used complying with USB specs.

I'm not saying it will but it can happen after a long time of use. I burned out a couple of usb ports in the past by using y cables. Always better to use a powered case instead of a y cable

 

[Sonic Angel Knight]

I got 2TB WD HDD with Ycable, works fine on my wii u, lots of stuff on it.

 

[Ichisuke]

Buy an 3,5" self powered hard drive. And keep it away from the console too because you could get wifi issue (has happened to me if the hard drive was placed right on top of the console).
I've also used and old 2,5" 80GB IDE hard drive with an Y cable without problems but then I've had problems with a more recent 2,5" and Y cable too. Sometimes I've got the "hard drive disconnected" error while playing(!), so even with the Y cable the hard drive wasn't receiving enough power, it probably depends on the hard drive model(or the usb-sata adapter), some are pickier than others, the hard drive itself is perfectly fine.
If you want to stay safe go with a 3,5" and you won't get any problems or look for reliable 2,5" that works correctly with an Ycable. Just don't buy any 2,5" that may not work.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Sorry, I didn't mean that. Was talking about this cable and replacing it with an enclosure. https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-SAT...TF8&qid=1485730467&sr=8-1&keywords=HDD+to+usb

I would still recommend a Y cable and a enclosure with power. Make sure you purchase the right one! The power to the enclosure allows it to spin faster and give data faster. The y cable acts like combining two usb ports and making it faster, doubling the speed. You don't need the y cable, unless your thirsty for speed. My enclosure came with a y cable.

edit: honestly if you just used a y cable, it wouldn't be worth it. You need more power to the cable. You will just be using as much as the hard drive can go. Use both a y cable and a powered enclosure.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------



If only I had the money.... Although, is the wii u even usb 3.0. Seems like a waste actually.

That's not how Y-cables work. The second port is only used for power, it's pretty much the same thing as having an externally powered HDD but instead of a dedicated power supply you just have another USB plug that's connected to power.
It won't spin faster or transfer data faster, that's not what it's for.
Using both an Y-cable and an externally powered enclosure is redundant, you're just providing more power than the HDD needs, not that it will hurt anything but it's a waste of USB ports.