I tried out my 2.5" drive with the single cable and it didn't work. It recognised it but the "checking drive" screen took forever and you could tell the drive was short of power. I have a supplementary power cable that I can use but right now I don't think I'll bother. I'd rather have that spare USB port for a LAN adapter or something. Shame, I thought it would work. :S

I can confirm the Western Digital Elements 2 TB External Desktop Hard Drive (USB 2.0, Black) works fine with the WiiU:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B003IPC21Y/ref=oh_details_...

What about plugging it into the two usb ports on the front so you can still use the back one for your LAN adapter

My 2TB Seagate desktop expansion unit (shiny black plastic thing) works fine. Format took two seconds, so clearly it's not writing a proprietary filesystem on it.

Yeah I have the black Seagate 2TB expansion and it formatted in the blink of an eye and works great even looks good next to the system... $99 well spent.

Well did a trip to Officeworks but in the end didnt get the 2tb one got a 1.5tb drive for $76. Cant see me filling that up anytime soon

Razalom caved in and went to officeworks

LOL family road trip LOL

National Lampoons Razaloms Officeworks HDD Safari

so you did not experience any hick ups or freezes yet?

Also i read somewhere that the HDD automaticaly switches off if the device its plugged into(in this case the wiiU) is turned off, is that true?

Nothing so far, it's all been seamless of the storage front. Had one freeze but was using YouTube so the HDD being the cause seem unlikely (especially since lots of people are having them).

I read somewhere that the WD element automaticaly switches off if the device its plugged into(wiiU/pc ect. ect.) is turned off, is that true?

( does the hdd actually turn off when you turn off your wiiu)

My Seagate drive does that. My WD My Book drive goes into "sleep mode" with the light blinking slowly - drive isn't spinning and the case is cool to the touch so that seems good enough.

Oh btw my drive is a Seagate 1.5TB GoFlex Desk USB 3.0

Yeah, I've got the WD My Book Essential and it goes to sleep when it's not in use (i.e. Wii U turned off). The drive wakes back up when the Wii U is on.

Yeah my Seagate turns off with the WiiU

I have never had a Seagate hard drive of any kind last more than 12 months, and I have been through many over the years! I bought a SATA WD 2TB and a USB enclosure that has an external PSU and so far so good. Although I don't think i'll ever use all that for the Wii U now due to my turnaround on an all-download console will happen after seeing the retail game download prices

My Seagate desktop units have been okay for a couple of years: one was a media drive and the other is my Time Capsule backup disk. I'll agree that Western Digital has a better reputation and the build quality of their enclosures is definitely superior, which is why my replacement media drive is a My Book.

I do hope Nintendo has some kind of software mirroring added to storage management at some point - I cannot imagine spending literally days to re-download after a hardware failure!

while nintendo stated it will work with those type of harddrives it is still recremmended that you have a hard drive that can be powered by ac,

well you got no choice the wiiu will claim all the harddrive rendering the hard drive unusable on other devices unless you reformat it