Apparently, Wii U has flash drive compatibility issues...

So I recently picked up a stealth Kingston 32gb flash drive for Wii U because i finally ran out of space. And the first disc based game i've played since installing it, need for speed, had insane amounts of frame stuttering since I transferred the update and save data from the wii u's internal flash to the drive.

I wanted to see if it was just that game so I tried Pikmin 3 and sure enough, the menu screen had sound skipping all over the place. Gameplay seemed okay but not as responsive either. Anyways, i transferred those games back to the internal memory and everything went back to normal.

I'll see how games run when they're completely on the drive, meaning DL games later but i'll have to contact Nintendo for drive recommendations later, smh.

Maybe it wasn't worth it to save $50 or so by getting the 8gb Wii U :p

I would say to check on the DL'ed games and see how that works. I can understand the Wii U sputtering if it has to constantly check the external drive. That's adding to it's work load.

I'm interested in buying some sort of external drive as well, so I'm curious to see how that works out for you. Maybe a powered external drive is the way to go (as Nintendo recommends).

@Grieverr: I checked Wind Waker HD, and it did have some stuttering when sweeping the camera or sailing, which wasn't there when I transferred it back over. I formatted the drive and am sending it back now, The only game I can't play now is pushmo world since I don't have the space, but that's no big deal :p

I should be good til' later this year and that's when i'll ask Nintendo what drive to get, yeah I might have to shell out for a wall powered ext. hard drive unfortunately...

At the time of launch I got the 8gb WiiU and spent that extra $50 on a 320gb USB hard drive. I haven't noticed any problems and most my library is digital.

Does the drive have its own power supply?

i bought the 8GB also... got a western digital 500GB with ac adaptor...no stuttering at all.

Odd. I use a sandisk cruzer fit for my Wii U and haven't had any issues.

Actually I saw you post that before so I thought it'd be nice to get one of those small drives, maybe either I got a bad drive or that particular kind of drive is the issue.

Flash drives are a hit or miss for the Wii U.

Here's Nintendo's recommended list of HDD.

USB-Powered portable drives are the second best option if you lack the space or money for a dedicated-powered drive. You will need a Y-cable to ensure optimum performance. I haven't had any problems with my 1TB WD My Passport drive.

I'm not sure what the issue would be. Both of those are possibilities. I didn't think flash drives would have compatibility problems. Put a movie on the drive and see if it stutters on your PC.

I think Nintendo needs to come up with a better solution for the Wii U Hard Drive space. I get that i can go out and buy a 1 or 2 TB hard drive, like they recommend on their page, but I don't want to shell out another 100$ to pay for more Eshop games. So let's say i get a new 100$ hard drive... and i play my Wii U a lot....potentially that could shorten the life/fry and the external hard drive, as it's constantly turning on/off.

Or if you look at it like the PS4 with a 500 GB HD or the Wii U with a 32 GB ,and you might need to get a 100 HD on top of that.

I just think nintendo needs to come up with an internal storage upgrade to increase the size to say 120 GB, much like their game pad extended battery. Or some sort of small/external flash drive that runs with the WIi U. It doesn't make sense to have sort a small HD, but then put tons of money into a digital campaign, with lots of digital exclusive titles.

@YearoftheSnake5: Well I already took it back but that would've been a good idea for curiosity's sake :p It could've been either one of those things, or it just wasn't fast enough, who know's.

Ah.. I read that and the FAQ, so it looks like i'll be getting one of these down the line just to be safe. Maybe i'll end up needing all that space anyways.

The 8gb model is ridiculously limited on space, it has less than 4GB's usable. It would've been good for the basic to have at least 16gb's and then the deluxe 64.

The only thing they can do now is stick more of that internal into the later models.

It would have been nice if the Wii U included a 2.5in drive bay for the sake of user expansion. They could have kept the flash memory on board and left the drive bay empty. Would've saved us the issue of finding compatible external HDDs. Nintendo would have needed to make the system a tad fatter to accommodate this. *sigh* One can wish and dream.

Yeah, i love that about the ps3, plus if it had the option to fully install games like the 360 it would've been perfect.

Just curious, but what are you doing to warrant the use of any external storage? Why install games?

I wouldn't use USB flash drives to save entire games, it won't work, as you just experienced. As for me I save my games to a USB powered HD connected to a USB hub, which you can pick up for $20 bucks. It works great.

Because the 8gb wii u has a ridiculously low amount of usable memory. And I don't even buy full retail games on the eshop, but the people who do HAVE to get some external memory, even if they have the 32 gb wii u.

Pikmin has almost a gig of update data with the dlc, Wii u doesn't have small game patches by any measure.

You can't install disc based games on wii u, but i did have a large amount of update and save data on the drive i was using and that alone caused the problems.

Yea 8GB was a bad choice to use or buy. Shoulda got the deluxe one.

@Chozofication: There is a plus side to the insane sizes of the WiiU patches and DLC. You know you're actually buying new content instead of just buying a 30mb key to unlock stuff already on the disc.

My cousin and I were discussing this the other day. The consensus was to get one of the setups that Animeguy suggested with the Y cable. At least that is my plan when I start going heavier into digital.

Funny enough i just ordered another flash drive to try yesterday, because i really don't want to spring for a hd since i know the space will go unused. UNLESS nintendo updates wii u by letting us install disc games ala 360, but alas...

I'll update when it comes in.

@ANIMEguy10034: do you use a y cable with your wd passport?

Flash drives aren't recommended for the Wii U, but people do it. I use a 2TB drive with an AC adapter for $80. I'd rather not have to worry about space or compatibility. And I download everything since I get the DDP points and I never sell my games. It adds up.

@william151190: Yes, I do. No problems at all.

Flash Drives usually do not transfer data as fast as HDD do thus the reason for the stuttering you're experiencing. There are some Class 10 (I believe) SD cards that do. The problem with that is, the WiiU only uses SD cards for Wii Mode.

I had to buy a WD My Passport 500GB and a Y cable. It's working fine. I just wish it didn't take 2 ports.

USB flash drives have slow sequential read and write speeds, especially usb 2.0 ones. If you purchased a fast usb 3.0 flash drive(even though it will operate at 2.0 speeds) it will reach nearly 40 MB/s.

Your average usb 2.0 drive does around 15 MB/s which is too slow, hence your stuttering.

Could you use a splitter on that? So the 2 slots feed into 1? I was wondering about that too with the usb slots.

Not without some sort of amplifier I'm guessing. It would be nice though. I'll have to research that and see. I'd surely buy it

Yeah but that is not much slower than Wii U's disc drive, which should be at 22.5 Mb/s..

I wonder what Wii U's internal flash is at.

My second drive came today but i'm at work now.. if it has problems I'll get a wall powered HDD. It's also a stealth drive because I don't want a regular drive sticking out all the time, maybe it'll work out.

I had a wdmybook without no y cable it was USB 2.0 but for some reason it stopped working now I have to find a y cable because the only drives WalMart has now are 3.0

Welp... sure enough, i've ran into the same problems as before. I tested some games which I hadn't on the other drive first, the first being Nano assault and every other load had issues. The game took almost twice as long to boot from the menu, and there was stuttering when getting to the end of levels, and once when it was loading a boss I actually thought it froze but it was just a long stutter..

I quickly checked pikmin and NFS and the same issue came up immediately on NFS, though Pikmin ran fine the first time, but the second time I ran into the same issues.

It must just be a speed issue, because this is a different drive than the first one I checked. It's odd that these issues appear every other load sometimes though and not all the time.. except on Need for speed which is open world which is probably why it has the most trouble.

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Anyways, don't use a flash drive with your Wii U :(

Time to get a Hard drive!

It is a shame Nintendo chose to not bother including a USB 3.0 port or even let Wii U games be installed on an SD card (perhaps they could add SD support in the future). If Nintendo ever does a Wii U redesign, they should include at least one USB 3.0 port (and perhaps and ethernet cable slot while they're at it.)