Hardware Using a Sata HDD with a Wii?

[ablebodyoungman]

Hi there. I'm modding a old wii and need a cheap storage solution as I don't need 1 terrabyte of storage and don't really want to spend $80 of a new external HDD.
I only need 200-300 gigs and have recently found out getting an old Sata drive and buying an enclosure for it. I've seen some dudes on Youtube set them up and it seems pretty straight forward.
I've seen a bunch of hard drives for $20-30 and it looks like a good idea.

So my questions are.

1.Will this work with a Wii?
2. Will the harddrive need its own power supply? or can the Wii power it?
3. What is a good brand of HDD to get and a good encloser to get? and more importantly what brands should I avoid.
4. Is there any other important info I should know before buying one?

 

[wicksand420]

old wii doesn't require a powered hdd all you need is a hard drive, a enclosure, and a sd card, there are compatibility lists for hard drives, you can google it.

 

[ablebodyoungman]

old wii doesn't require a powered hdd all you need is a hard drive, a enclosure, and a sd card, there are compatibility lists for hard drives, you can google it.

Cool. Thanks for that. Do you need a Y Cable? I had to get one for my WiiU when I plugged my HDD into it to get adequate power.

 

[wicksand420]

Cool. Thanks for that. Do you need a Y Cable? I had to get one for my WiiU when I plugged my HDD into it to get adequate power.

Nope, there is no y-cable needed with wii, installing the cios makes the back port USB 2.0

 

[ablebodyoungman]

Nope, there is no y-cable needed with wii, installing the cios makes the back port USB 2.0

That's great news. Thanks!!

 

[wicksand420]

Just make sure if you find a nice hdd with enclosure, check the compatibility first before purchasing it, you wouldn't want to buy a hdd that didn't work on the wii.

 

[ablebodyoungman]

Just make sure if you find a nice hdd with enclosure, check the compatibility first before purchasing it, you wouldn't want to buy a hdd that didn't work on the wii.

Will do. Does the enclouser have any compatability needs with the Wii? or is it just the HDD

 

[wicksand420]

Will do. Does the enclouser have any compatability needs with the Wii? or is it just the HDD

i don't think the enclosure matters, but google it to make sure.

 

[migles]

Cool. Thanks for that. Do you need a Y Cable? I had to get one for my WiiU when I plugged my HDD into it to get adequate power.

depends on the enclosure and drive.
usually you don't need the cable, some enclosures just need the extra power cord to start up the drive
some enclosures need an ac adapter
but if it's a 2.5 inch drive you probably won't need either

installing the cios makes the back port USB 2.0

it doesn't make the port us2.0, it gives support for the loader to use the usb ports

 

[DinohScene]

If you really want to spend some money on it, get a Sundriver SATA.

It replaces the DVD drive and loads the games in as it where original discs.
Kinda an internal ODDE solution.

 

[wicksand420]

depends on the enclosure and drive.
usually you don't need the cable, some enclosures just need the extra power cord to start up the drive
some enclosures need an ac adapter
but if it's a 2.5 inch drive you probably won't need either


it doesn't make the port us2.0, it gives support for the loader to use the usb ports

the cios's have a patch for 2.0 support

 

[ablebodyoungman]

I've checked the compatibilty list and ebay and so far I've found

Western Digital 160 GB WD1600AAJS

 

[wicksand420]

I personally use a 1TB western digital drive, but you have to be careful buying one that is used, because it comes with a program that makes a partition on the disc that cannot ever be erased, and it has password protection, if they didn't install it than it would be fine, but if it is in fact installed to the drive, you wont be able to use it on wii, I'd suggest if you want a western digital drive, to buy it new, not used. The one you linked to should be fine though, but you might want to think about a larger hdd because 160 will fill up fast

 

[ablebodyoungman]

I personally use a 1TB western digital drive, but you have to be careful buying one that is used, because it comes with a program that makes a partition on the disc that cannot ever be erased, and it has password protection, if they didn't install it than it would be fine, but if it is in fact installed to the drive, you wont be able to use it on wii, I'd suggest if you want a western digital drive, to buy it new, not used. The one you linked to should be fine though, but you might want to think about a larger hdd because 160 will fill up fast

To be honest I'm trying to do it pretty cheap and a new 1tb will blow out my budget and finding anything that isn't 1tb is hard. Heck even finding a 500gig is hard here.
Mostly it just needs to hold all the 8-16bit systems, a collection of compatable ps1 games, mame and then the rest is for GC and Wii. But not really looking for a complete collection of wii/gc.

It's kind of a prototype project as I have a box full of old Wii's I'll probably mode and do the same thing with.

 

[wicksand420]

To be honest I'm trying to do it pretty cheap and a new 1tb will blow out my budget and finding anything that isn't 1tb is hard. Heck even finding a 500gig is hard here.
Mostly it just needs to hold all the 8-16bit systems, a collection of compatable ps1 games, mame and then the rest is for GC and Wii. But not really looking for a complete collection of wii/gc.

It's kind of a prototype project as I have a box full of old Wii's I'll probably mode and do the same thing with.

You can play all your vc games from SD emunand, so you can save your HDD for Wii games