Wii U Storage Question/Discussion

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What would be the best thing to store additional data on the Wii U?

Thanks to Club Nintendo and other rewards, my Wii U is finally full... so I was looking to expand the memory.

I'd like to know the pros and cons of

- External Drive

- Thumb Drive

- SDHC

As far as I can tell, External Drives might be overkill due to really not buying that much digital content

So how would a thumb or SDHC stack up?

I was told if you use an SDHC card reader attached to a USB port, it will be read like a Thumb/External drive.. which might actually be the cheapest route depending on pricing at this moment.

 
SD cards are only for storing games from the wii.  I use a flash drive, and it works great.  I have a 64 gb one, about 7 wii u games (monster hunter 3, Super mario 3d world, the free mario kart games, Donkey kong country returns Tropical freeze), the 3 wii games they've released, 20 VC games, and 3 wii u ware games.  I have the base model (8gb), and have about 12 gigs left on my flash drive.  I'm probably upgrading to a 128 gb soon.  Oh, yeah, you can only have one external drive used on the wii u at a time

 
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Gden said:
SD cards are only for storing games from the wii. I use a flash drive, and it works great. I have a 64 gb one, about 7 wii u games (monster hunter 3, Super mario 3d world, the free mario kart games, Donkey kong country returns Tropical freeze), the 3 wii games they've released, 20 VC games, and 3 wii u ware games. I have the base model (8gb), and have about 12 gigs left on my flash drive. I'm probably upgrading to a 128 gb soon.
Click to expand...
You missed the point about an external card reader for SDHC working with the Wii U to play Wii U games off an SDHC

However this is what I was looking at

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/sandisk-cruzer-blade-128gb-usb-2-0-flash-drive-black/3194012.p?id=1219573002616&skuId=3194012

 
AFAIK, a straight flash drive is faster than a SD card attached to a USB slot, and flash would be faster than a HD, but, obviously, a HD would hold more.  Also that looks fine for an external storage for your wii u.

 
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I didn't know that an SDHC card in a USB-to-SD converter would be read as a flash drive. I have a USB SD card reader and a spare SDHC card, so I'll have to test it out.

To answer the question in the OP though:

External Drive

Pro: lots more storage space... 5TB external drives exist for $150, whereas mainstream flash drives top out at 256GB or so. You can get a 250-320GB drive for probably $30-35. The 500GB drive for $35 (or 1TB for $45) at Best Buy right now + a $7-10 drive enclosure is probably the cheapest available right now for what is still probably way more storage than you'd ever need.

Con: takes 2 USB ports for a 2.5" drive, if you get a 3.5" drive it will probably need to be plugged into an AC port for power.

Flash drive
Pro: takes only 1 USB port, small in size. If you have one laying around you can probably easily repurpose without spending any $$$

Con: could be too slow, constant read/writes can hurt flash drives (not sure how long the lifespan would be), capacity tops at 128-256GB for a reasonable cost.

SDHC in USB adapter
Pro: close in size to flash drive, cheap, 64/128GB cards aren't too pricey, you might already have a 32 or 64GB card laying around.
Con: Lots of SDHC cards are slow (UHS-1 or UHS-3 cards are probably the only ones good for this), constant read/writes will probably kill the card faster, I haven't seen verification that this would work even if it's supposed to (I haven't looked though).

A flash drive would probably be the simplest solution but I'd be concerned with some flash drives not being fast enough to be read. The Sandisk Cruzer line of flash drives is known for being slow on the read/write speeds. It probably doesn't matter much but it's something to think about. Best Buy doesn't list the read/write speeds for that drive so I'd be a little concerned. For ~$30 though you can probably get a 250GB or 320GB or even 500GB external drive. The only catch being you would then need to use up 2 USB ports on the Wii U instead of 1 with a flash drive.

Personally, I'd probably go the hard drive route (and I probably will with my Wii U when I run out of space). It would really depend on how much space you think you'd need though. You might be overkill with a 128GB flash drive so a 250+GB hard drive would be an even bigger waste.


Gden said:
AFAIK, a straight flash drive is faster than a SD card attached to a USB slot, and flash would be faster than a HD, but, obviously, a HD would hold more. Also that looks fine for an external storage for your wii u.
Click to expand...
Not necessarily. It's all in the read/write speeds of the drives and/or adapters. If you have a slow flash drive plugged into a USB port, but a fast SDHC card (UHS-1 or UHS-3 class speeds) in a fast card reader, the SDHC card would probably be faster. I'm guessing though that the limiting factor in speed is more the Wii U ports and not the devices: I believe the USB ports are USB 2.0, so the upper range is only like 60MB/s. Even the Samsung Pro SDHC cards that write at 90MB/s would be limited by the USB port then.

 
Physio said:
I didn't know that an SDHC card in a USB-to-SD converter would be read as a flash drive. I have a USB SD card reader and a spare SDHC card, so I'll have to test it out.

To answer the question in the OP though:

External Drive

Pro: lots more storage space... 5TB external drives exist for $150, whereas mainstream flash drives top out at 256GB or so. You can get a 250-320GB drive for probably $30-35. The 500GB drive for $35 (or 1TB for $45) at Best Buy right now + a $7-10 drive enclosure is probably the cheapest available right now for what is still probably way more storage than you'd ever need.

Con: takes 2 USB ports for a 2.5" drive, if you get a 3.5" drive it will probably need to be plugged into an AC port for power.

Flash drive
Pro: takes only 1 USB port, small in size. If you have one laying around you can probably easily repurpose without spending any $$$

Con: could be too slow, constant read/writes can hurt flash drives (not sure how long the lifespan would be), capacity tops at 128-256GB for a reasonable cost.

SDHC in USB adapter
Pro: close in size to flash drive, cheap, 64/128GB cards aren't too pricey, you might already have a 32 or 64GB card laying around.
Con: Lots of SDHC cards are slow (UHS-1 or UHS-3 cards are probably the only ones good for this), constant read/writes will probably kill the card faster, I haven't seen verification that this would work even if it's supposed to (I haven't looked though).

A flash drive would probably be the simplest solution but I'd be concerned with some flash drives not being fast enough to be read. The Sandisk Cruzer line of flash drives is known for being slow on the read/write speeds. It probably doesn't matter much but it's something to think about. Best Buy doesn't list the read/write speeds for that drive so I'd be a little concerned. For ~$30 though you can probably get a 250GB or 320GB or even 500GB external drive. The only catch being you would then need to use up 2 USB ports on the Wii U instead of 1 with a flash drive.

Personally, I'd probably go the hard drive route (and I probably will with my Wii U when I run out of space). It would really depend on how much space you think you'd need though. You might be overkill with a 128GB flash drive so a 250+GB hard drive would be an even bigger waste.



Not necessarily. It's all in the read/write speeds of the drives and/or adapters. If you have a slow flash drive plugged into a USB port, but a fast SDHC card (UHS-1 or UHS-3 class speeds) in a fast card reader, the SDHC card would probably be faster. I'm guessing though that the limiting factor in speed is more the Wii U ports and not the devices: I believe the USB ports are USB 2.0, so the upper range is only like 60MB/s. Even the Samsung Pro SDHC cards that write at 90MB/s would be limited by the USB port then.
Click to expand...
See, I have a Masters in this crap and still it baffles me....

I always thought a thumb drive access would be faster than any non solid state HD as long as they are the same connection speed.

Can the Wii U even use 3.0 technology?

All memory devices have a limited read/write life time, just the better companies you will probably never hit it. This includes hard drives, however I've never really heard of such a problem with a thumb drive.

Also I never planned to get that many digital gamesa outside virtual console, but then BAM stuff like the cheap Punch Out, Prime Trilogy and Galaxy came out and I had to buy them, along with all the games on my Club Nintendo after years of saving points and platinums.

 
I'm about 90% sure the wii u doesn't have USB 3.0 slots.  Yeah, I just checked, and they are USB 2.0

 
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The Wii U has USB 2.0 ports.

The speed issue depends on what the bottleneck is: USB 2.0 spec, the speed of the hard drive, the speed of the SD Card/USB Flash drive.

Playing around with it I've tried each:

- Micro SD Card in USB reader (64GB SDXC Class 10; USB reader I think was a limiting factor here as it wasn't very fast)

- SSD

- 2.5" HDD 5400RPM

I can tell you that at no point was there any noticeable difference from one to the next. I think the limiting factor is the Wii U / USB 2.0.

I'd say that the easiest thing is to get a 2.5" USB HDD, hook it up to the back and power it either off of the 2nd USB port or off a separate USB wall charger. It's cheap and you get a lot of space and you're not going to see any real difference in loading speed.

While they recommend against USB flash storage, I don't see a problem with multiple writes. They use SD/Micro SD cards in the 3DS and don't complain about that. While SD Cards / USB drives and SSD drives, for that matter, have a limited number or writes, that number is pretty freaking huge. You likely have an equal chance at the HDD going out, if not more so because of the moving parts.

One thing that, to me, seems neat and tidy is something like a 128GB Micro SD Card and a small micro SD reader:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00M562LF4/ref=ox_sc_sfl_title_9?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER

http://www.adafruit.com/products/939?gclid=CMnB0_aW4sQCFUgkgQodlp4A-Q

In that case the 128GB SDXC card is faster than the reader and the reader is slower than the USB 2.0 standard but, again, I really didn't see any difference in speed in loading. The neat thing is that it just becomes a little storage nub on the back of your Wii U. The downside is that if you download all of your games, depending on how many games you own, you may run out of space on it.

 
Jiryn said:
See, I have a Masters in this crap and still it baffles me....

I always thought a thumb drive access would be faster than any non solid state HD as long as they are the same connection speed.

Can the Wii U even use 3.0 technology?

All memory devices have a limited read/write life time, just the better companies you will probably never hit it. This includes hard drives, however I've never really heard of such a problem with a thumb drive.

Also I never planned to get that many digital gamesa outside virtual console, but then BAM stuff like the cheap Punch Out, Prime Trilogy and Galaxy came out and I had to buy them, along with all the games on my Club Nintendo after years of saving points and platinums.
Click to expand...
I've never hit the memory limit on a flash drive (and I have a 512MB drive I got back in 06-07), but I am pretty sure I've hit the limit on SD cards several times. Either that or Kingston SD cards like to kick the bucket all on their own within about 2 years.

I'm sure for something like the Wii U the difference in most devices will be minimal, if it even exists.

If you want to use a flash drive, there was a 128GB USB 3.0 HP flash drive on TigerDirect for $30 today. Even though the Wii U can't take advantage of the USB 3.0 feature, I'd probably get that drive over the Sandisk because Cruzer drives are known for being slow. I didn't realize when I bought one a couple years ago and it's absolutely painful to use sometimes.

Unfortunately all the advice in here has basically said that it's going to come down to personal preference and whichever you want to do is going to be the best option :p. If you have a spare of any of the 3 laying around, that would be my suggestion first obviously, but if you don't, I'd still probably recommend a hard drive. Even though Club Nintendo is dead you never know if there won't be something that makes you want to download digital games in the coming months/years to where you run out of space on a 128GB flash drive or 64GB SD card (speaking of which, the UHS-I Samsung cards are $30 for a 64GB card right now, I'll have to find the link).

 
Physio said:
I've never hit the memory limit on a flash drive (and I have a 512MB drive I got back in 06-07), but I am pretty sure I've hit the limit on SD cards several times. Either that or Kingston SD cards like to kick the bucket all on their own within about 2 years.

I'm sure for something like the Wii U the difference in most devices will be minimal, if it even exists.

If you want to use a flash drive, there was a 128GB USB 3.0 HP flash drive on TigerDirect for $30 today. Even though the Wii U can't take advantage of the USB 3.0 feature, I'd probably get that drive over the Sandisk because Cruzer drives are known for being slow. I didn't realize when I bought one a couple years ago and it's absolutely painful to use sometimes.

Unfortunately all the advice in here has basically said that it's going to come down to personal preference and whichever you want to do is going to be the best option :p. If you have a spare of any of the 3 laying around, that would be my suggestion first obviously, but if you don't, I'd still probably recommend a hard drive. Even though Club Nintendo is dead you never know if there won't be something that makes you want to download digital games in the coming months/years to where you run out of space on a 128GB flash drive or 64GB SD card (speaking of which, the UHS-I Samsung cards are $30 for a 64GB card right now, I'll have to find the link).
Click to expand...
Well I had a 32gb SDHC drive just stop working in my Wii after 2years of use..
It still works fine on other devices, but the Wii just stored corrupted data. I heard this is due to the Wii not naturally being able to read Above 2GB at release and support being patched in, so it sitll has trouble with 32.

Infact, I just found my 32gig SDHC card and am now using it with a $5 reader.

PNY and SANDISC, Class 10 so it should be enough speed, since it's made for video recording.

 
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Found my old Toshiba 500gb hd from college.

I stopped using it because it kept dropping connection/resetting..

Which makes me curious if it is under powered since it only has a single mini usb port on it...

I actually assumed it was legacy support problems as seen with current USB 3.0 hds plugged into a 3.0 port for too long (they reset after a while, can be fixed in bios)

 
Jiryn said:
Found my old Toshiba 500gb hd from college.

I stopped using it because it kept dropping connection/resetting..

Which makes me curious if it is under powered since it only has a single mini usb port on it...

I actually assumed it was legacy support problems as seen with current USB 3.0 hds plugged into a 3.0 port for too long (they reset after a while, can be fixed in bios)
Click to expand...
Nevermind, it's making a loud clicking noise everytime it drops connection.

 
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irighti said:
sorry to piggyback on the thread, but would this be acceptable for an external drive? it will have all the space I will ever need for wii u...but there are several titles on the eshop I would like to pick up...and my deluxe unit is almost full. I always worry I will buy the wrong item when it comes to storage. thanks.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/toshiba-canvio-connect-1tb-external-usb-3-0-2-0-portable-hard-drive-silver/8915031.p?id=1218955984533&skuId=8915031
Click to expand...
The one problem you may have with that is that USB 3.0 does allow for enough power to allow external hard drives to function. From the port, it's definitely USB 3.0. My guess is that the other end of that cable is a single USB 3.0 Type A plug which would be fine on a USB 3.0 port (for power) but on a USB 2.0 port, while it's backwards compatible data-wise, there won't be enough power and you'd need some kind of Y adapter to inject external power or it'll be just as flakey as a USB 2.0 drive without extra power (Wii U will complain and tell you, "I'm given 'er all she's got, Capt.!")

It does say, "USB 2.0," though so it may have been designed to squeak by on 2.0 power.

 
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Brad Bishop said:
The one problem you may have with that is that USB 3.0 does allow for enough power to allow external hard drives to function. From the port, it's definitely USB 3.0. My guess is that the other end of that cable is a single USB 3.0 Type A plug which would be fine on a USB 3.0 port (for power) but on a USB 2.0 port, while it's backwards compatible data-wise, there won't be enough power and you'd need some kind of Y adapter to inject external power or it'll be just as flakey as a USB 2.0 drive without extra power (Wii U will complain and tell you, "I'm given 'er all she's got, Capt.!")

It does say, "USB 2.0," though so it may have been designed to squeak by on 2.0 power.
Click to expand...
I think it uses a single usb cord.

They show it the package and site.

 
irighti said:
sorry to piggyback on the thread, but would this be acceptable for an external drive? it will have all the space I will ever need for wii u...but there are several titles on the eshop I would like to pick up...and my deluxe unit is almost full. I always worry I will buy the wrong item when it comes to storage. thanks.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/toshiba-canvio-connect-1tb-external-usb-3-0-2-0-portable-hard-drive-silver/8915031.p?id=1218955984533&skuId=8915031
Click to expand...
I have a Canvio for my Wii U, and it works beautifully now. However, like Brad said, it initially came with a single USB power cord and would refuse to write/read and freeze the system. The Canvio doesn't have an external power source, and with just 1 USB port, it can't get enough power from the Wii U to function properly. I bought a USB Y cable, and it works like a charm.

http://www.amazon.com/35cm-SuperSpeed-External-Seagate-Toshiba/dp/B00MFL4HQU/ref=sr_1_13?ie=UTF8&qid=1428439973&sr=8-13&keywords=usb+y+cable

Buy a $5 cable off Amazon or NewEgg, and you'll never want for space again. :)

 
thanks everyone. I pulled the trigger yesterday. also put a order in for the Y cable. should have it all set up by the weekend. then I got some downloading to do.

 
Brad Bishop said:
The Wii U has USB 2.0 ports.

The speed issue depends on what the bottleneck is: USB 2.0 spec, the speed of the hard drive, the speed of the SD Card/USB Flash drive.

Playing around with it I've tried each:

- Micro SD Card in USB reader (64GB SDXC Class 10; USB reader I think was a limiting factor here as it wasn't very fast)

- SSD

- 2.5" HDD 5400RPM

I can tell you that at no point was there any noticeable difference from one to the next. I think the limiting factor is the Wii U / USB 2.0.

I'd say that the easiest thing is to get a 2.5" USB HDD, hook it up to the back and power it either off of the 2nd USB port or off a separate USB wall charger. It's cheap and you get a lot of space and you're not going to see any real difference in loading speed.

While they recommend against USB flash storage, I don't see a problem with multiple writes. They use SD/Micro SD cards in the 3DS and don't complain about that. While SD Cards / USB drives and SSD drives, for that matter, have a limited number or writes, that number is pretty freaking huge. You likely have an equal chance at the HDD going out, if not more so because of the moving parts.

One thing that, to me, seems neat and tidy is something like a 128GB Micro SD Card and a small micro SD reader:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00M562LF4/ref=ox_sc_sfl_title_9?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER

http://www.adafruit.com/products/939?gclid=CMnB0_aW4sQCFUgkgQodlp4A-Q

In that case the 128GB SDXC card is faster than the reader and the reader is slower than the USB 2.0 standard but, again, I really didn't see any difference in speed in loading. The neat thing is that it just becomes a little storage nub on the back of your Wii U. The downside is that if you download all of your games, depending on how many games you own, you may run out of space on it.
Click to expand...
The chipset speed is as much of a problem as the UBS 2.0 port.
As people have pointed out.. SANDISK seems to use slower parts.. what about PNY?

How fast is this http://www.bestbuy.com/site/pny-attach-3-128gb-usb-2-0-flash-drive-black/5577085.p?id=1218665504381&skuId=5577085

I am wondering if my HD's clicking is due to lower power via a 2.0 port... or not having a y-cable (which I remember having at one time but not seen since)

I plugged the spare HD into my pc, and while it is detected and sees it is an HD it is not showing up in MyComputer, or Computer Management.

it IS in device manager oddly so.. i wonder if it is formating...

 
Jiryn said:
The chipset speed is as much of a problem as the UBS 2.0 port.
As people have pointed out.. SANDISK seems to use slower parts.. what about PNY?

How fast is this http://www.bestbuy.com/site/pny-attach-3-128gb-usb-2-0-flash-drive-black/5577085.p?id=1218665504381&skuId=5577085

I am wondering if my HD's clicking is due to lower power via a 2.0 port... or not having a y-cable (which I remember having at one time but not seen since)

I plugged the spare HD into my pc, and while it is detected and sees it is an HD it is not showing up in MyComputer, or Computer Management.

it IS in device manager oddly so.. i wonder if it is formating...
Click to expand...
I replied to irighti above. I can't vouch for 2.0 vs 3.0 ports, but my Canvio did the same thing with my Wii U. Kind of a consistent ticking noise every 2 to 3 seconds? For mine, it was just that the disc wasn't getting enough power. A Y-cable fixed that, and I haven't had a problem since. I'd recommend trying that before dropping $40+ on a nice SD card.

 
LeCroqueMonsieur said:
I replied to irighti above. I can't vouch for 2.0 vs 3.0 ports, but my Canvio did the same thing with my Wii U. Kind of a consistent ticking noise every 2 to 3 seconds? For mine, it was just that the disc wasn't getting enough power. A Y-cable fixed that, and I haven't had a problem since. I'd recommend trying that before dropping $40+ on a nice SD card.
Click to expand...
Aye, mine was doing the same thing years ago.. now that it's in a 3.0 port it's doing fine on my PC...

Which actually depressed me because I bougth this HD in late 2008 early 2009.. and didn't know there was a USB 3.0 at the time, since none of my PCs had one.

When I would go to class.. it woudl make this loud clicking noise so I scrapped the HD... even though I was using it to back up my 3D modeling work (Bachelor)

Well I have it plugged into a USB 3.0 port on my PC and now it's perfect.

Just trying to find a Micro USB male to twin male USB splitters.

http://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-USB2HABMY3-Cable-External-Drive/dp/B003HHK576/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1428539055&sr=8-1&keywords=startech+y+cable $1.99 but....... add on item.. or $8.

 
Now I am even more confused honestly.

Does anyone quite knowledgable with USB 2.0 and 3.0?

I found this detailed information on my 6yr old external HD.
-----
Like most external 2.5" hard disks, the Toshiba HDDR500E03X is also supplied with power via the USB port, a dedicated port for a power supply unit is not provided.
However, the hard disk drained up to 740mA (maximum) from the USB port, and USB 2.0 is only specified for up to 500mA. This means that not all notebooks might be able to supply the necessary 740mA, there might be problems during usage. The available y-cables cannot help either, according to the specifications, since the hard disk cannot register at the second port
-----

I just bought a Y-cable for the HD (Monoprice http://www.monoprice.com/Product?c_id=103&cp_id=10303&cs_id=1030303&p_id=5620&seq=1&format=2 )

Will it be able to supply power to the HD?
I've just formatted and stress tested the HD via my PC and USB 3.0 ports and it works perfect... the lower power output I experienced before I stopped using it was in 2009 on crappy Dell PCs in the college, so I doubt it was getting suitable power.

 
Jiryn said:
Now I am even more confused honestly.

Does anyone quite knowledgable with USB 2.0 and 3.0?

I found this detailed information on my 6yr old external HD.
-----
Like most external 2.5" hard disks, the Toshiba HDDR500E03X is also supplied with power via the USB port, a dedicated port for a power supply unit is not provided.
However, the hard disk drained up to 740mA (maximum) from the USB port, and USB 2.0 is only specified for up to 500mA. This means that not all notebooks might be able to supply the necessary 740mA, there might be problems during usage. The available y-cables cannot help either, according to the specifications, since the hard disk cannot register at the second port
-----

I just bought a Y-cable for the HD (Monoprice http://www.monoprice.com/Product?c_id=103&cp_id=10303&cs_id=1030303&p_id=5620&seq=1&format=2 )

Will it be able to supply power to the HD?
I've just formatted and stress tested the HD via my PC and USB 3.0 ports and it works perfect... the lower power output I experienced before I stopped using it was in 2009 on crappy Dell PCs in the college, so I doubt it was getting suitable power.
Click to expand...
A Y-Cable (power) should work. What is happening is that 1 USB 2.0 port can supply .5A of power. 2 USB 2.0 ports can supply 1A of power which would cover the 740mA of power needed for a HDD.

The text of, "The available Y cables cannot help either, according to specifications..," seems to miss the boat with regards to what's happening. They seem to assume that you'd get a Y cable and data would be shared by both ports but that won't work because that's not how USB works, which is true, but that's not what's happening. On a Y cable you're using data+power from 1 USB port and just getting the extra power you need from the 2nd USB port. The Y cable will typically have labels on each connection: "Data" "Power"

On my HDD I have the data side obviously plugged into the Wii U and the power side plugged into a spare iPad charger which has more than enough power for the HDD.

 
I have had nothing but bad luck with hard drives. I have used two different external hard drives with y adapters and powered adapters. They all kept needing to be reformatted every few weeks. I went with a 64 GB usb flash drive and have not had any issues since. After losing my saves several times I am happy with usb flash drives.

 
The_Spaceman said:
I have had nothing but bad luck with hard drives. I have used two different external hard drives with y adapters and powered adapters. They all kept needing to be reformatted every few weeks. I went with a 64 GB usb flash drive and have not had any issues since. After losing my saves several times I am happy with usb flash drives.
Click to expand...
Yea, might be a problem with the size or Nintendo being dumb.

They seem 10+ yrs behind the times, especially on storage and various online features and ideals.

 
I hooked up an old 200GB hard drive that I had laying around (I got it for $25-30 probably 6 or 7 years ago), just to test out external storage. 

It hasn't acted like it's having any issues but I'll certainly be paying attention. 

Now if only I could get the Wii U to stay connected to my damn WiFi...

 
Physio said:
I hooked up an old 200GB hard drive that I had laying around (I got it for $25-30 probably 6 or 7 years ago), just to test out external storage.

It hasn't acted like it's having any issues but I'll certainly be paying attention.

Now if only I could get the Wii U to stay connected to my damn WiFi...
Click to expand...
Yea I was using a USB Ethernet..

 
Just to add it might be a smart idea to back up your Wii u hard drive every so often in case the Wii U doesn't see anymore. If you need to reformat the drive you lose all your save data as the hard drive won't be read on a pc. Had that happen to me several times and learned the hard way.

Also Saves are part of the digital game data if you buy your retail games digitally. I have not found a way to save the save data separately.

 
The_Spaceman said:
Just to add it might be a smart idea to back up your Wii u hard drive every so often in case the Wii U doesn't see anymore. If you need to reformat the drive you lose all your save data as the hard drive won't be read on a pc. Had that happen to me several times and learned the hard way.
Click to expand...
I'm not sure this is easy for most to do. The Wii U, if I remember correctly, uses it's own special format.

With the 3DS you can just pop the SD Card into your computer and copy stuff off. With the Wii U you'd either need a drive duplicator or to know the commands (dd, I think, in Unix - could be wrong - I'd have to look it up) to duplicate the drive.

 
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