Hardware Thoughts and advice

[Flaya]

I'm looking to upgrade my HDD for my Wii.

If I understand the basics of hardware correctly, A flash drive is more reliable and lasts longer, than the common mechanical HDD's. <--- Correct me if I'm wrong.

So I looked around for a good brand, but still affordable SSD drive to fit my backups. I have all my homebrew on my SD card, so the USB drive is solely for games.

I found a Kingston SSDNow A400 240Gb drive for about 50$. I've not decided if I'll buy it, as I'm not 100% certain if theres any benefit compared to the mechanical HDD's,
besides the fact that there's no moving parts (since an SSD is basically a USD stick).

Anyhow; I'll drop the specs here for all to inspect.

Spoiler

Form factor: 2.5"

Interface:
SATA Rev. 3.0 (6Gb/s) – with backwards compatibility to SATA Rev. 2.0 (3Gb/s)

Capacity: 240GB

Controller: 2Ch

NAND: TLC

Baseline Performance1:
Data Transfer (ATTO):
240GB — up to 500MB/s Read and 350MB/s Write

Power Consumption:
0.195W Idle / 0.279W Avg / 0.642W (MAX) Read / 1.535W (MAX) Write

Storage temperature:
-40°C~85°C

Operating temperature:
0°C~70°C

Dimensions:
100.0mm x 69.9mm x 7.0mm

Weight: 41g

Vibration operating:

2.17G Peak (7–800Hz)

Vibration non-operating:
20G Peak (10–2000Hz)

Life expectancy: 1 million hours MTBF

Warranty/support4:
Limited 3-year warranty with free technical support

Total Bytes Written (TBW)5:
240GB: 80TB

 

[GreyWolf]

Using an SSD would really be a waste of resources. The drive only needs to be capable of the same read speed as the optical drive.

Actual USB flash drives (thumb drives) are definitely not recommended for Wiis.

 

[Flaya]

So a old fashioned mechanical HDD is the best way to go?

I killed mine, due to power spikes on boot. Only have a cabinet with Y-cable, no external power source.. It lasted 5 months, so I got a new thru warranty, but decided to put it in my laptop instead.

I really don't mind wasting resources, as I have plenty, but I got the idea that an SSD would withstand the power spikes on boot better.

Perhaps this one is better?
Western digital elements 1tb usb 2.0
Just 6$ more.

 

[Maeson]

I keep reading that USB Flash drives "cause problems", but I've yet to suffer from using them (which I've been doing for years); beyond stupidly plugging it on USB slot 1 one time, and a single game going to black screen in a certain moment, which formatting the device to another format and changing the IOS used solved. That said, I use Toshiba or Sandisk stuff. If you were to use mediocre hardware like, I don't know, no-name pendrives from Aliexpress, I can see giving you problems (but to be fair, it would give you problems anywhere, some of them don't even recognize certain versions of Windows).

But that's just me. Most people would probably just get a HDD to have it all together, and as of today they've become quite affordable. 1 Terabyte would be more than enough for anything related to the Wii. I've heard good things about the WD My Passport 1TB, but you rather wait and see the opinions of other users, specially ones that actually use HDDs. One thing to consider, if I remember right is that the HDD does not enter a "sleep mode" or "auto spin down", that can screw you up when playing games.

SDD truly seems like a waste for this. Besides the limit of the DVD reader, Wii games in general don't have as much stuff to read compared to current games, and I can't remember a game with long loading times like the PS2; not to mention that GC games are usually pretty fast too.

 

[slaphappygamer]

I went with an sd card. Found a 256gb for cheap....Black Friday cheap. You might want to look into a 2.5” hdd. One that needs no external power. I think that is where the voltage spikes most likely to occur.

 

[Flaya]

So I'm choosing between these two;

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00TS6JL4S/ref=cm_cr_arp_mb_bdcrb_top?ie=UTF8

https://www.amazon.com/Elements-Portable-External-Drive-WDBUZG0010BBK-WESN/dp/B00CRZ2PRM

In Sweden they're both ~70$, so the price isn't the deal breaker.

 

[GreyWolf]

If you're going to get something that's powered by the USB bus instead of an external power supply you should go ahead and order a Y-cable for it, too. They're cheap and you may need it.

For what it's worth, I use one of these with a 1TB WD Caviar drive in it. It's a really old, weird enclosure that also has an Ethernet port on it. It works great, though. I paid like $2.00 for it at the Salvation Army and threw away the dead HDD that was in it.

 

[Flaya]

Well, here they come with enclosure. Yeah, Y-cable I've got plenty. Was kind of hoping I wouldn't need one, tho. Guess I'll be buying a USB hub with external power.

Edit: I decided to go with neither.

I got myself a docking station instead along with a wireless nunchuck. Since I have plenty of old 3.5" HDD's laying around, and I have other uses for the dock, it seemed like the better route. And it fits 2 drives, so that's a plus.