Topic: Wii U storage and hard drive questions. I'm really confused. Help appreciated very much!

I just have a few questions about this, I will try to make it simple.

Several people have told me that both the Y-Cable or dedicated power external drive have alot of problems. I have gone back and forth searching for answers but everyone seems to tell me that the Y cable has problems or that the external hard drives eventually fail really bad resulting in complete data loss which defeats the purpose of the back up.

If I make a backup copy of my games (digital downloads from nintendo) on an external hard drive, does the Wii U only give you the option to move it back and forth from the Wii U to the external, because I'm worried that once I have the games on the drive, I wont be able to move them into a second backup drive or something.

could the data go this way?
1# save Wii U game to external hdd
2# 2 external drives plugged in
3# move game and saves from hdd 1 to hdd 2 ?

does the Wii U let you copy and paste all your existing digital games and save data from your Wii U to an external hard drive, yet leave everything on the Wii U as well? the reason I'm worried is because I saw a youtube video of someone who tried to move individual save data or game files from the Wii U to an external hard drive but the only option was "move ALL".

Someone told me that all my digital downloaded games are tied to my nintendo account ID so I would just be able to download them all again, and that the rest of my games would all be physical copies anyway, which means I just have to back up my game save data- correct?

I'm basically trying to prevent a catastrophe of having my one and only external hard drive full of Wii U games suddenly just break and have no way of recovering it.

from here
http://en-americas-support.nintendo.com/app/answers/detail/a_...
I found:
http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Expansion-3-5-Inch-External-STB...

It has some great reviews from Wii U users and some really bad reviews as well, but some people say that all the bad reviews are from the 3tb versions only.

I also heard that if you get a Wii U and it breaks and you send it to Nintendo, they can transfer all your data and games to a repaired or different Wii U, but if you have an external hard drive, the Wii U will not remember it because you need to use it on the exact same Wii U that formatted that exact drive, the new Wii U will just reformat your hard drive and delete all your stuff. which would be really bad...

I'm thinking about getting the black delux 32 GB version of the Wii U and buy almost all of my games as physical copies but I'm concered if the 32gb hard drive the Wii U has will be enough to hold a bunch of save data from several physical copy games in addition to the few digital games I would have to get since they aren't available anywhere else.

Someone also told me that the 32gb the Wii U gives you only = 24gb. is this true, and why is this?

While I can't answer your questions about data transfer, for what it's worth I've got a Seagate 1tb External Hard Drive which I haven't had any problems with whatsoever.

thanks. forum was giving me bad errors for no reason. made a new account. I will wait here for more help.

The game storage does not support cloud saves, and I don't think there is a method to transferred to other accounts. The only way is if you do a system-to-system transfer of everything.

eShop games are connected to the NNID, so you can redownload the games from the same NNID. But that's the games, not the game save files.

Getting a 3TB HDD seems like waste, since the Wii U curently only supports up to 2 TB HDDs.

I think the 32GB will have more than 24GB free, since the 8GB version has 3-4 GB free. The space is for system files.

The Wii U currently only supports one HDD at one time, but on the Nintendo web site it says that they will expand that support in the future.

Save files will not require lots of space. Their size are usually measured in MB at the most.

Oh okay. where did I say 3tb though? spelling mistake on my part? Oh no I remember, I was talking about the reviews. I only intend to get a 2TB hard drive with dedicated power source. If anyone has more info for me, I'm here watching.

thanks!

should I perhaps get an SD card? I'm thinking that I shouldn't get an external hard drive since all of my games are going to be physical copies except the very very few that will be digital. because of that, maybe I only need to make backup copies of my save game data...? because If my Wii U ever has problems and I lose my games, I would still have have my physical copies and the digital ones can be redownloaded since everything would be linked nintendo network ID. Is it linked regardless of weather I register them or not? what if I get a Wii U right as club nintendo shuts down?

Another issue is that, what if my Wii U has problems and I send it in for repairs or something, and they do a system transfer and I end up using another Wii U, wouldn't that new Wii U refuse to accept the SD card that was used on the previous Wii U and try to make me reformatt it and as a result lose my save data I was trying to protect in the first place?

Please help, very confused here.

I have a really small external disk (only 120 gb) that I use with a Y cable and I haven't had any problems with it.

Anyway, if the transfer was done by nintendo in a way that the system still believes it's the same system (example: like with 3DS transfers), it should have no problems reading the old data from the original system.

Just get the cheapest external HDD you can find because it will be big enough. If it's a portable one that doesn't come with a Y cable then either get a Y cable or use a powered USB hub. As for flash, just don't. If you're worried about reliability with HDDs then a thumb drive or an SD card in a USB adapter should be causing you to go into a massive panic. Yes drives fail but you're not going to be hammering them too hard with your Wii U and you can backup to a second drive if you're really worried. And there's quite literally nothing more to be said about the topic.

Some admin should sticky a topic that answers this question once and for all so there's not this same question over and over and over again.......

But since I only need to protect my Save game data, wouldn't an SD card work for that? Nintendo's website says I need to install a tool on my computer and do something to the SD card before using it on the Wii U but I can't do that with my computer. has anyone else here used an SD card and had it "just work" on their Wii U? I just want to save my "save game data" the Digital games I can just re-download and I have all my physical copies right?

can I and should I, back up the very few digitally downloaded games I will have from nintendo on my SD card, and move them back onto the Wii U when I intend to play them, but never actually run the game off the SD card, just Store it?

Do I even need an SD card, or can I just do this with a USB drive?

I mean, I suppose I don't need to save my digital games AT all since i can just redownload them if I lose them since they would be linked to my Nintendo Network ID?

Will an SD card or USB allow me to save all my Save game data onto it without any problems?

so is it possible to COPY and PASTE games and save data from my Wii U to a USB drive without removing them from my Wii U? I want to create backups. basically I don't want to CUT and PASTE leaving my Wii U with nothing, I want to leave my data inside my Wii U and make an exact copy of it on an external storange.

additonally I have a 2tb Laptop hard drive completely Bare and as is, not connected to anything. could I get a hard drive enclosure from amazon with a Y cable and it would just automatically work? I heard from some people that after placing your hard drive into a new USB enclosure that it needs a firmware update? is that just a bunch of lies? will my Wii U just format it without any problems and "just work"?

would games be able to RUN from that hard drive using a Y-cable or would I be better off just saving and loading things from it but NOT running games? would I be able to just use it as a back up drive? I called nintendo and they said they don't reccomend the use of Y-cables, but I don't know... some people say its okay and some people say it messes up their Wii U really bad.

It is definitely possible to run games from the HDD as well as save the game data from said game on HDD. I don't have a normal external drive. Mine is sitting in a HDD dock, has separate power and is a HDD i grabbed from my PC. You can copy your game data. In the data management settings for the wii u the option to Copy exists. Just recently I bought a Y cable and a HDD enclosure to replace the hdd dock because it takes up too much space. I have a 500Gb laptop drive I plan to use. I haven't done it yet but I expect it to work.

do USB jump drives work with the Wii U to store save data from games? just a normal USB stick.

I don't know, but you should never use them anyway.

I haven't tried but I'm sure it does. Nintendo recommends you don't do this because they state that flash drives have a finite amount of read and writes before things start to degrade. It is true but depends on how often you do this. If you go the flash drive route, use it for save data and not for running games AND save data.

I will answer as many as I can, to the best of my knowledge.
1. 2 HD drives can be plugged into the WiiU at the same time.
2. You can move or copy data between the 2 HD drives and the internal memory.
3. You can only use one external HD drive at a time to play games, a second HD drive must be unplugged.
4. I may be wrong on this, but I think the loss of space on the internal memory maybe due to Nintendo partitioning some space for updates and operating systems.
5. SD cards can't be used to save WiiU gsmes and save files, they are used for doingbthat job in Wii mode.
6. I have a portabe HD drive plugged in with a Y cable and I've had no issues so far, and it's on all the time when my WiiU is on. If you're worried about it, just move games off the HD drive and play your games from the WiiU memory, then unplug the HD drive so it's not running. You can move the game back when you've had enough of playing it. This way the HD drive is doing less work and shouldn't break.
7. You can move or copy individual games just by selecting that game.
8. Your WiiU shouldn't break unless you're either extremely unlucky, or you're doing something to it that will cause it to break. I can't really answer whether or not Nintendo will move saves and you're I.D to a new console, I've never neede to send my WiiU in for repairs.
I hope that helps.

errrrrr.... I guess I'm going the Y-cable rout, which Nintendo also doesn't reccomend? maybe not... ummmm...

a real hard drive being the only legit option to just back up save games? severe headache mode activated.

This is probably what I will do. what type of hard drive are you using? what type of Y-cable did you get? how long have you been using it? I would appreciate any information on this please

This is true for normal operation, however once you select the move/copy option in the settings you can connect a second external drive and copy data from one drive to another or from one or more external drives to internal storage. That was added several updates ago.

I and others have successfully used external drives with y-cables and powered desktop drives and portable drives connected to externally powered USB hubs - all work and all hard drives will eventually fail - this is a fact if mechanical devices. So if you're concerned about data loss anywhere in your "digital life" then backups are a must - including your Wii U.

There's several other threads about this, but people have also used USB sticks and SD cards via USB-connected readers. I wouldn't suggest either due to varying quality of these devices and overall greater performance and reliability versus cost per gigabyte of a hard disk.

When you initially format and use an external USB-connected storage device the Wii U will move all your game data there, however you can copy/move it back to internal storage if you desire. I make monthly backups to a second drive; the only issue you face is that any external hard drive will not work with a new Wii U if you swap out the kit yourself without performing some kind of system transfer, e.g. your machine breaks and you dump it and get Nintendo to transfer your NNID rather than shipping your Wii U (and possibly hard drive) to them for repair.

I might just put all this into a blog article myself!

so this whole entire thread? that would be amazing. there is a definite lack of information on this that someone can easily find in just a second and go "Oh I can trust this!" so if you intend to squeeze the knowledge juice out of everything that has been discussed in this thread into a big informational thing, it might help some people! I don't know, but wow thanks, what a hero of humanity.

I would definitely wait to do anything like that until more of my questions are answered, I have a feeling that more smart people are still going to post! don't pick the fruit until its ready eh?

It depends. There are several types but usually you'll deal with 3 types.There is the MicroUSB(most common on cellphones nowadays),Micro-B USB(variant of MicroUSB with 3.0 capability and popular on 3.0 USB external HDDs) and MiniUSB.(most common on digital cameras in the last decade) google the pictures and you'll see what I'm talking about

I a WD My Passport Ultra 50gig. The Y cable is a cheap USB 3 one I bought from amazon.
I've had them for over 6 months and I use my WiiU about 3 hours a day, most days.