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Topic: Thoughts on External Hard drive for Wii U

Posts 41 to 54 of 54

Crimzonlogic

@skywake

I'm sorry for looking at anecdotal evidence, but I really have no idea what I'm doing with these hard drive things and nowhere in reviews I've read online do they mention if they work for WiiU. I don't know how else to find out what to use, other than asking people what they've used. This stuff is kind of overwhelming me.

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JaxonH

skywake wrote:

All I can do is share my personal experience. And in my experience, I've had 3 for 3 Seagate drives fail, one within 3 months of purchase. I've had 0 for 4 WD drives fail, one going 5 years strong. I understand results vary, but that doesn't negate my personal experience or recommendations based upon it. I'm not going to NOT recommend WD considering the experience I've had. Furthermore, a three year Blackblaze study shows only 3-4% fail rate for WD, as opposed to fail rates as high as 25% for Seagate, so it's backed up with evidence as well.

As for size affecting reliability, it also has to do with platters. More platters = higher chance of failure. Larger drives use more platters to increase capacity, although this is becoming less of an issue nowadays as they are just increasing platter density.

Edited on by JaxonH

All have sinned and fall short of Gods glory. Wages of sin is death. Romans

God so loved the world He sent His only Son- whoever believes on Him has eternal life. Unless you believe, you will die in your sins. Whoever believes, rivers of living water flow within them. John

skywake

@JaxonH
That Backblaze study was flawed for the same reasons I was talking about in my example. It's the same criticism I would level at your anecdotal evidence. To quote one of the articles explaining this:

I do not believe I could dream up worse conditions to study and compare drive reliability. It's hard to believe they plotted this out and convened a meeting to outline a process to buy the cheapest drives imaginable, from all manner of ridiculous sources, install them into varying (and sometimes flawed) chassis, then stack them up and subject them to entirely different workloads and environmental conditions... all with the purpose of determining drive reliability.

Of course that wasn't the intention, but that is how some will interpret the data. In my opinion, the intoxicating allure of media coverage overwhelmed common sense, and Backblaze released these numbers with a catchy title that would attract attention. The tech media is to blame as well, with many posting the information with little or no research. Unfortunately, the Backblaze blog post will be copy/pasted innumerable times for years to come as an authoritative source of data, when it is the furthest thing from a comprehensive study imaginable.

http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/6028/dispelling-backblaze-s...

As I pointed out, I have five WD drives and five Samsung. The Samsung drives I have all are going well. Of the five WD drives I have only three are what I would call "working". But me saying that means nothing because I've subjected my WD drives to far harsher workloads. So it's nonsense for me to be making that sort of conclusion. Backblaze have a bit more scale on their side but ultimately their example is flawed for the same reason.

And you're right about more platters increasing the failure rate. The problem is the increase in failure isn't that big and you can't tell how many platters a drive has from just the capacity. You could find a 1TB drive and it could have anywhere from 1 to 4 platters and you wouldn't know. Especially in an external enclosure where you have absolutely no idea what sort of drive is inside.

@Crimzonlogic
No, I get it. I'm not trying to have a go at you here. My advice would be to just go with the most cost-effective solution you can find. Ignore the brandname wars. If you want to know what I use well I tend to use WD but mostly because they tend to have the nicest enclosures and I tend to recommend them for that (mostly aesthetic) reason. However at the end of the day it's a bit of a gamble, you might get a dud WD. My brother only buys WD and he has a stack of dead WD drives.

The best advice is to make sure you backup important data.

Edited on by skywake

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JaxonH

@skywake

It aint that serious man. This guy just wanted some recommendations, and I gave them. You don't have to travel the ends of the earth to disprove me. But for the record, you can argue with the study results, but they are what they are. He's gonna have to pick one, WD is good as any.

All have sinned and fall short of Gods glory. Wages of sin is death. Romans

God so loved the world He sent His only Son- whoever believes on Him has eternal life. Unless you believe, you will die in your sins. Whoever believes, rivers of living water flow within them. John

skywake

JaxonH wrote:

It aint that serious man. You don't have to travel the ends of the earth to disprove me. But for the record, you can argue with the study results, but they are what they are.

Yes, flawed is what they are. I know it's not that serious here but I was just making a point about how there isn't that much of a difference between them. Also that misleading study IS serious. Maybe not here but just look at how quick people are to ignore Seagate now. A few years ago WD and Seagate would have been considered equivalent. You even saw people go at length to say how unreliable WD Greens were. One flawed study and all of a sudden people are talking about how perfect WD drives are.

JaxonH wrote:

This guy just wanted some recommendations, and I gave them. He's gonna have to pick one, WD is good as any.

Indeed it is. For all intents and purposes WD is just as good as Seagate, Samsung Hitachi or Fujitsu. That's what I was trying to say here. The only difference is that WD external drives tend to be cheaper with better enclosures and they have some good higher end internal drive SKUs. Something which the OP probably won't care about anyway.

If you want to know what drive to get for the Wii U..... look at the $$$, see the cheap one? Doing that right now I find a 500GB Toshiba portable external drive for $70AU. Yeah, get that one. Make sure you have the right cable for use with the Wii U and then backup your stuffs.

Edited on by skywake

Some playlists: Top All Time Songs, Top Last Year
"Don't stir the pot" is a nice way of saying "they're too dumb to reason with"

SCRAPPER392

@Crimsonlogic
Or... You could take my recommendation of a Toshiba Canvio Basic drive :
http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-Canvio-Basics-Portable-Drive/dp...

Then get the y-cable:
http://www.amazon.com/eForCity-dual-Micro-B-Cable-Black/dp/B0...

Just keep in mind that every USB 3.0 drive(as far as we know), will require a y-cable like the one I linked. FYI, I use the 2TB version of this drive, and the exact same y-cable.

Qwest

3DS Friend Code: 4253-3737-8064 | Nintendo Network ID: Children

skywake

SCAR392 wrote:

@Crimsonlogic
Or... You could take my recommendation of a Toshiba Canvio Basic drive :
http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-Canvio-Basics-Portable-Drive/dp...

Then get the y-cable:
http://www.amazon.com/eForCity-dual-Micro-B-Cable-Black/dp/B0...

Just keep in mind that every USB 3.0 drive(as far as we know), will require a y-cable like the one I linked. FYI, I use the 2TB version of this drive, and the exact same y-cable.

You realise you just literally recommended the same drive I did more or less. Except you suggested that the OP go and pay more for capacity they probably won't use. If the OP should do anything they should again just look the price tag and get the cheapest one they can. Because reliability is hit and miss and the extra capacity probably won't matter for game storage. Unless you intend on buying everything digitally and want to have a collection of games bigger than 50 500GB is enough.

So I'd take your suggestion, and bring it back to mine. Go 500GB, save $20 and buy Child of Light with the change

Edited on by skywake

Some playlists: Top All Time Songs, Top Last Year
"Don't stir the pot" is a nice way of saying "they're too dumb to reason with"

SCRAPPER392

@skywake
I don't see a link to the drive you recommended. I only bought the 2TB, because I got a deal on it, and I wanted the shock sensor.

Qwest

3DS Friend Code: 4253-3737-8064 | Nintendo Network ID: Children

SCRAPPER392

I looked around. There are slightly less expensive external HDDs, but a 500GB for $50 is pretty good, if you ask me. The drive Iinked has a 500GB option for $50. The 320GB version is more expensive, for sme reason...

There was a 160GB and 320GB(from other brands) for like $9 cheaper, but I don't see why anyone would choose to not throw down the extra $9.

Edited on by SCRAPPER392

Qwest

3DS Friend Code: 4253-3737-8064 | Nintendo Network ID: Children

skywake

SCAR392 wrote:

@skywake
I don't see a link to the drive you recommended. I only bought the 2TB, because I got a deal on it, and I wanted the shock sensor.

I didn't link because I didn't think anyone would be interested in a retail listing from a brick-and-mortar retailer who only has three stores. All of which are in Perth WA. My suggestion was simply go for the cheapest one that's big enough. That just happened to point me towards the 500GB Toshiba Canvio Basic.

For me personally the cheapest option involved rummaging through spare drives and finding one that I probably wasn't going to use for anything else. The 500GB and 640GB 2.5" ones I might use again, the 2.5TB 3.5" one I probably won't but it's starting to play up, my 250GB one? Big enough for the Wii U, too small for anything else, still works well.

Edited on by skywake

Some playlists: Top All Time Songs, Top Last Year
"Don't stir the pot" is a nice way of saying "they're too dumb to reason with"

SCRAPPER392

@skywake
I see. Well, I linked the one I did, presuming that the 500GB would be the one they would look at, considering they said they didn't need much, it was around the price @Crimzonlogic was requesting, and it's cheaper than the 320GB somehow.

Edited on by SCRAPPER392

Qwest

3DS Friend Code: 4253-3737-8064 | Nintendo Network ID: Children

unrandomsam

I think I will go for the 480GB Crucial CT480M500SSD1. (Even though there is no usb 3.0 support the silence and lack of seek time should be worth it).

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skywake

unrandomsam wrote:

I think I will go for the 480GB Crucial CT480M500SSD1. (Even though there is no usb 3.0 support the silence and lack of seek time should be worth it).

Untitled

Some playlists: Top All Time Songs, Top Last Year
"Don't stir the pot" is a nice way of saying "they're too dumb to reason with"

Sean_Aaron

I'd just stick with a brand-name myself. As long as it's USB it should work with the Wii U - not like you're installing it and partitioning it with an OS where firmware compatibility would be an issue.

I've used Seagate and WD consumer grade stuff and no issues; can't see why Toshiba or Fujitsu would be an issue either. There's always a risk you'll get a dud disk; not much you can do about that but keep your receipt and take regular backups.

For backups on the Wii U, just launch the control panel and select the data move/copy, connect your second drive (tap Okay on the nonsense warning message), do your copy and then disconnect the drive (again you'll get a warning pop-up to acknowledge). It would be nice if they supported multiple external drives and had an automated backup routine, but at the very least I'd like an end to these messages about not plugging/unplugging drives into the live system when it will refuse to boot with more than one disk attached and leaving it connected when you exit the control panel will cause the machine to shut itself down!

Oh and if you're doing backups I'd suggest keeping a diary since there's also no helpful comparison of what's where available: you just get a prompt a file already exits on the other disk (no clue as to the date it was written), but if you don't care about save data then I guess that won't matter.

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