Wii-U thoughts so far

[alienjesus]

If I want to plug an external disk drive to my Wii U, can I use any disk drive or do I need a specific type that is compatible with the system ?

Pretty sure any up to 2TB in size will work, but it think it needs to be used exclusively for the Wii U. Nintendo themselves recommend a HDD with it's own power adaptor for best performance, and I have some vague recollection of them also recommending ones with dual USB connections if possible.

[disrupture]

If I want to plug an external disk drive to my Wii U, can I use any disk drive or do I need a specific type that is compatible with the system ?

Pretty sure any up to 2TB in size will work, but it think it needs to be used exclusively for the Wii U. Nintendo themselves recommend a HDD with it's own power adaptor for best performance, and I have some vague recollection of them also recommending ones with dual USB connections if possible.

Alright, thank you I'll check what's for sale

[disrupture]

Do you think I could plug a USB flash drive ? I've got a 32gb flash drive that I don't use.

[Ziggy]

FWIW...

I just got this HDD for my Wii (not U) and I love it. It has worked perfectly so far, and I love the small size of it. The 1TB version is only $13 more right now, so it's definitely the better bargain if you need that much space.

If you read the reviews and Q&As for that, people report using it successfully with the Wii U, you just need the Y cable.

[Ziggy]

Do you think I could plug a USB flash drive ? I've got a 32gb flash drive that I don't use.

You CAN, but Nintendo doesn't recommend doing so.

Nintendo cites that flash sticks have a much lower read/write life cycle then mechanical HDDs. And it's true, you can get really cheap USB sticks these days, and I'm sure they wont last nearly as long as other more expensive sticks. Definitely not as long as a HDD. With the price of HDDs right now, such as the one I linked above, I'd definitely recommend just getting a HDD over using a stick.

[disrupture]

I just got this HDD for my Wii (not U) and I love it. It has worked perfectly so far, and I love the small size of it. The 1TB version is only $13 more right now, so it's definitely the better bargain if you need that much space.

If you read the reviews and Q&As for that, people report using it successfully with the Wii U, you just need the Y cable.

That's about what I'm looking for.

I already have a LaCie 1TB drive that I currently don't use but it seems to require some sort of installation disc or something like that. I'll do some more research.

[disrupture]

Do you think I could plug a USB flash drive ? I've got a 32gb flash drive that I don't use.

You CAN, but Nintendo doesn't recommend doing so.

Nintendo cites that flash sticks have a much lower read/write life cycle then mechanical HDDs. And it's true, you can get really cheap USB sticks these days, and I'm sure they wont last nearly as long as other more expensive sticks. Definitely not as long as a HDD. With the price of HDDs right now, such as the one I linked above, I'd definitely recommend just getting a HDD over using a stick.

Alright well I won't try then, I don't want to damage anything. Thanks

[Ziggy]

Alright well I won't try then, I don't want to damage anything. Thanks

Well you wont damage anything. It's just that if your USB stick fails you'll lose any data that was on it.

[ZenErik]

Portable drives also work fine. Dual USB connectors on the cable are recommended. With a standard cable it may not receive enough power. Depends on the drive.

[Sarge]

Well, flash may not be the greatest long-term solution, but I don't see why it would cause a huge issue unless the Wii U uses the flash drive to constantly stage data during play (meaning lots of writes). If you're not constantly changing what's in a memory cell, you're not impacting your write cycles, and saves go on internal memory (which is also flash). Reads from flash memory are free.

Now, it could be that using cheap flash drives impact your read/write speeds negatively. You're just not going to get quite the throughput that a HDD will, so maybe that's the root of it. I know that Microsoft does much the same thing on the 360, testing the speed of the device to see if it's okay. I've got a few sticks that are fine with the system, and a few that test poorly.