Topic: External Storage for the Wii U

With the Wii-U eshop closing down next year, I am looking to make some final purchases from the shop, but I do not have any storage left. I do not love the idea of purchasing an external hard drive for it and would prefer to use a simple thumb drive. My question is, do thumb drives work for storing games on the Wii U, or is an external hard drive my only real option here?
As a side note: I was craving Wii sports badly this past Christmas season, so I busted out the Wii-U and bought it... imagine my shock when Nintendo announced switch sports not even two months later.
Thank you for any help and suggestions! (Feel free to let me know I am a Luddite for avoiding external hard drives)

@RicoSuave I've heard you're not supposed to use thumb drives, but that's what I've done, and knock on wood, its been fine for years.

@NintendoByNature This, I remember Nintendo recommending a hard drive with an external power source to use when playing games off external memory. I do use a thumb drive, but only for storing saves and downloads for backup (that's the keyword) and keeping it in a safe place, it never stays plugged in. For actually playing off, I just copy the game to system memory, or use a Western Digital hard drive with power.

Not sure about SSDs, just going by personal experience here since I play download games too, still bought from the Wii U eShop a few times a year for a new game. I used both, and definitely go the hard drive route if possible.

@Sunsy😬 I keep it plugged in and store them onto the USB. I did do a little research before I tried it though and saw a few videos doing the same. I can't say I've noticed an issue, so hopefully it'll be good moving forward. I used to so the same with my Xbox 360 years ago.

I use a salvaged laptop hard drive with a Y-type cable, with both ends going into the WiiU, to take extra power.

@NintendoByNature Hope so, I remember seeing some mentioning years ago using a thumb drive can lead to corruption. Which is why I only used one to backup downloads and saved files. It really only gets used when copying data to and from system memory or my hard drive. Glad you haven't noticed an issue using one, this is the first time I've read someone not having a problem.

@Sunsy hmm. I definitly need some advice then. I was a very late wii u adopter and I just did a little research and took the cheaper option being a thumb drive. I've had it for 4 years or so? Maybe 5 and it's been just fine storing all my digital games.

The switch is so easy to expand storage and I'm totally not a tech head to understand what to get for the wii u. I don't want to have issues after everything shuts down. Would you mind showing me some examples to use? I have no problem getting something else thats a more safer route.

Used a usb thumb for 3 years with no problems until games not loading and corruption then changed to cheap hard drive and so far all good. I think nintendo life did a article about it.

Just checked and hard drive prices are really low.

@NintendoByNature All I did was buy a Western Digital My Book (the one Nintendo recommended) years ago, plugged it into the Wii U and the power to an electrical outlet, and formatted it. Then I moved everything from system memory over to it using the system settings. Games run great off of it and has a lot of space (2TB).

I just use a thumb drive to backup data to. I have a 64 GB SanDisk USB drive, and I have my digital downloads and important game updates backed up to it. If I need to use it, I plug it in, and copy data over to it, or back to system memory or the hard drive.

I also keep some smaller games on my system memory for convenience.

Also, the WD My Book kind of looks kind of nice right next to the Wii U.

@Sunsy good stuff. Thanks. Think I'll fork over the cash for one. I'm seeing around 40 to 50 for a new one.

@NintendoByNature You're welcome. It's worth noting any new eShop downloads, game updates or saved games, get saved right to the hard drive if there's no data for it on the system memory. If you can get one for cheap, go for it. I think it's worth having.

Keep in mind, it has to use an external power plug, or in in the case of some drives, a USB Y-type cable like @Eel used.

What is the best option available for Wii U at this point? Can I use a 3.0 USB HD?

@Sunsy sounds good. I'll probably stop at a store soon and grab one along with the necessary cables.

@Sunsy @Eel got a seagate external hard drive and it just comes with the USB to 3.0 type connection thing. Only one port on the hard drive. This is where a y cable comes into the mix I guess? I can't simply plug this into the wii u?

@NintendoByNature yeah chances are one single USB port of the WiiU will be unable to power up the drive. So using both (or an external power source) gives it that extra oomph.

@NintendoByNature Similar to what @Eel said, you need the hard drive to have power too. My hard drive uses an external power plug. Eel mentions the Y-cable in a post earlier. I haven't used a Y-cable myself, from what I've seen online, I thing a Y-cable has both USBs plugged into the Wii U (one for data, one for power) and the other end plugged into the hard drive itself.

Going by what I've seen online in regards to it, as mentioned I use one that uses a power plug.

@Eel gotcha. So it's not necessarily harmful, it just might need another source to power it up. I will Try and see if it'll run in one USB port and if not, look into a y cable. Thank you!

You might get away with a single port on an external SSD as they use a lot less power than mechanical hard drives. For those though, you're almost certainly going to require either a Y cable or a mains adapter. I tried several different ones on a single cable but couldn't get any of them to work consistently that way.

I originally tried a micro SD card inside one of those tiny usb adapters. That seemed to work at first but ultimately had multiple unreliable episodes.

I then tried a y-cable with a one or two different hard-drives. Again, unreliable.

The only truly reliable method I've found is using an externally-powered WD Book, as pictured above. In my experience, anything not externally powered is liable to painful experiences of corrupt data.

@gcunit
Can i try the same way too for PS4 (WD Book)?