Wii U Lan Adapter?

So I just picked up a copy of Splatoon, with the intention of playing it online. The room where my Wii U is in has terrible Wifi connectivity; all my consoles are currently hard-wired to the internet. 

I looked at the official Nintendo LAN adapter, but I didn't want to pay $30 plus tax from the Nintendo store. I hear there are plenty of aftermarket ones, does anyone have experiences using these, or any particular recommendations?

I live in an apartment where 2.4GHz interference is ridiculous and decided to just hard-wire everything in my media center (since the PS3, Wii U, Roku and my 360 are all 2.4GHz... only PS4 worked on 5GHz). 

I initially used this one: 

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00CBD2X5E?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_search_detailpage

It worked fine, not issues at all with speed/performance. But when I wanted to expand my Wii U's storage space, I hated that I had to either buy a new powered enclosure (most of which had to be switched on/off- not a fan of "stand-by" enclosures) or use the front ports to get my y-connector USB cable. Not really the adapter's fault in any way, more of a poor decision by Nintendo for not supporting USB3. 

So I then bought this one: 

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00LLUEJXW?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_search_detailpage

It was was perfect for my needs. I have it connected to 1 USB port in the back, and then for my external HDD, I have the main Y-connector directly plugged to my Wii U and the second one plugged into the LAN adapter's USB port. Every works perfectly as far as I can tell. HDD games take a few seconds to show up on the Wii U menu but they seem to load/play just fine, no different than when I had my external directly attached to my Wii U. It also supports external power for added juice (you'll need to buy/use a generic power adapter) but I didn't need it. 

Again, either one will work. I just prefer the second one for it's added USB slots which lets me avoid having to use the front ports (and it's only $1 more). Performance is identical for both. 

Interesting point about the external drives. I actually have a spare 32gb SD card hanging around, and I don't buy digital games, so I don't foresee running into any storage issues.

For $12 that first adapter you listed seems pretty solid. I'm usually weary of off-brand networking equipment, but there are a good amount of positive Wii U-related reviews for it. The $13 one doesn't have a lot of reviews, so I may just as well pass on it since I don't need the USB ports.

Just so you know, you can't save games to an SD card. You need something via the USB port. 

I did not know that actually. So there's no real use for the SD card then, other than save files? Bummer. I just bought the system the other day, so I haven't had a chance to mess around with it much, other than testing out Nintendoland. The stock 32GB hdd should last me a while if I'm just using it for DLC and updates right? I figure for the lifetime of the system I'll probably pick up like 15 games total if that, so as long as DLC+updates for each game average out to less than 2 GB per game I should be good, yeah?

The sole use for the SD card is for the Wii (not U) portion of the console. You can store and play downloaded games from the Wii Shop Channel (Wii mode) using the SD card.

Brad Bishop said:

The sole use for the SD card is for the Wii (not U) portion of the console. You can store and play downloaded games from the Wii Shop Channel (Wii mode) using the SD card.

Click to expand...

Adding to this in the same vein, the Wii to Wii U transfer service uses the SD card slot exclusively as well.

For the Wii U Lan adapter, I have used the Nyko version fine for both Wii and Wii U, but thankfully my wireless is pretty good for both consoles to not need it. These used to be cheap, not on Amazon anymore though.

For ethernet I picked up this one about 2 years back:

http://amzn.com/B00F41TWAO

 
One of the things I like about it is that it has connection and TX/RX LEDs so you can see what's going on just in case there's a problem. Seeing the USB-hub-ethernet combo above, I'd be tempted to get that if I were in the market.