Topic: HDD recommendations

What hard drive to people recommend that I buy ? What ones do you use? I'm not sure what one to get or what size.

I'd recommend the Seagate Expansion Desktop. It comes in both 1TB and 2TB versions I believe, but 1TB should be more than enough. In fact, 500GB will probably be enough, but it's hard to find one that uses its own power source at that size.

The Wii U is not designed to pump enough juice through a single USB slot to power a HDD. You have two options, buying a HDD with its own power source or buying a Y-cable to plug the HDD into 2 USB ports on the Wii U. I recommend the first one, as it frees up a USB slot for whatever else you may want (I have a LAN adapter in mine).

Seagate is a great brand for HDDs, from my experience. I have a few of them for my PCs and all work excellently. I would recommend them, as Jmaster has. The one I actually use for my Wii U though is a WD My Book. I've never tried anything else with the Wii U, but it does work great. 2 years in and never a single issue with it.

As for storage space, I went with a 2TB and it's far more than I'll use this entire generation. I have around 25 or 30 full retail games, some with DLC, plus a bunch of eShop stuff and VC, and I think I'm using like... 200GB. A 500GB HDD is probably more than enough space for most people. Most Wii U games aren't that big.

@CaviarMeths

Which one is better? WD or Seagate? Personally, I have never touched external hard-drives before. Do I need to give them additional power? Do they only require 1 USB? Also, do you mind linking me to the pages? I'm fine with 500GB.

The best ones at the moment are Hitachi. (Owned by WD but separate still I think).

Seagate is the thing, cheaper, faster and silent. Just follow the recomendations from Nintendo.

by the way, the 1tb o 500gb are not chep enought tham the 2tb, so thinking in the future, pick a 2tb.

I got a WD 1TB WD Elements Portable with a Y- cable and works great.

$55 currently on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Elements-Portable-Drive-Storage-WDBUZG0...

I use this: http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-Canvio-Basics-Portable-HDTB220X...

...and this: http://www.amazon.com/eForCity-dual-Micro-B-Cable-Black/dp/B0...

2TB external HDDs are going to be around $90, for the most part. You can choose a lower memory size, but that's up to you, obviously. I bought the y-cable for $3, but that was almost 2 years ago, before everyone started buying them for this exact reason, so they've become popular, to say the least. The HDD I linked has built in shock sensors, so it's really difficult to break, which is why I bought it. Also, because 2TB is the max for external memory on Wii U.

For reference, the 2TB has around 1860GB or so actual space, and I have 1694GB left with 21 full retail games, 19 indie games, 11 NES, 13 SNES, and a few apps. This also includes all the saves, extra data, and update data.
I've used 166GB, which is roughly 11.2% of my 2TB.

The other option is to plug a powered USB hub into the back. I have a four port hub plugged into the back of mine which means I can have a portable USB HDD and Ethernet adapter plugged in with three ports in the back and two in the front spare. Not that I have the GC adapter but I reckon if you wanted to do 8 player Smash off a HDD with GC controllers? A powered USB hub would be the only way to do it.

Didn't even think of that. That works too.

The most USB slots anyone would ever need is 7. That's if you have an ethernet adapter, if you have a HDD without its own power source, and if you have two Gamecube controller adapters and at least 5 people who want to play Smash with GC pads.

My primary drive is a Seagate 2TB desktop expansion as others have noted; my backup is a 1TB Seagate portable with a y-cable. My partner got a Toshiba Canvio 500GB drive and a y-cable and that's working fine as well.

The hub seems like a good idea because those y-cables seem to only be available on mail order from China (via an Amazon reseller, natch) and the extra ports doesn't hurt, though it's an extra 10-15 quid from what I've seen. It's nice to know there's extra options though!

I recommend the WD Elements drive. Just make sure you get the Y-cable, as others have mentioned. I got the 500GB one because that's still wayyyyy more than I'll ever need. I've used 50GB so far... But then again I don't download the retail games. I still think 500 will be plenty. Even if it seems like a no-brainer to upgrade to 1TB for about $5-10, you will never use that much space so it's just a waste of money. Cheers!

Yeah I download everything and have a pretty large collection, but I'm still below 400GB after two years. I doubt I'll breach the 1TB mark during the lifetime of the system.

Is there any that's less than 500GB? I don't think I would need that much space.

You'll have to search or buy your own enclosure and the disk separately and DIY-it. Anyone with low storage requirements is likely using some kind of cheap solid state solution (less than 64GB) or an expensive one (more than 64GB).

500GB is the smallest and most plentiful portable disk size you're going to find; you can try buying some old USB2 portable disk off ebay or from a computer salvage place; mini-USB y-cables are also easier to find.