I got a external for Wii U!! ...but why?

I hooked it up yesterday. Its a 640 GB AC powered external HDD. I did all the research and its perfect for what I want it to do, which is hold games for my Wii U. Its sleek, looks great next to my Wii U and its LED light matches perfectly with the Wii U when they are on side by side. I love it.

But the question I have is why did I buy it? I know I needed it in the future, but I had 8 GB left on my internal memory. My games are all mostly on disc, The biggest game I downloaded on it is Darksiders 2, which is around 10 GB. At this rate the 8 GB I have left should be enough for a long time. I'm kind of at a loss.

The system won't let me install my discs to the HDD. If it did that then I'd be in paradise. I can put most of my library on the external and I could save wear and tear on my disc drive. I think it should be tops on their priority list. But until then my external is waiting.

There are other things that Nintendo should be doing to eat up space on people's external HDDs. There are entire libraries of games from Gamecube and Wii that they should be porting to the Wii U eshop. Mario Sunshine, SSB Melee, Xenoblade Chronicles, Eternal Darkness Metroid Prime etc. Nintendo should be talking to Konami to get Twin Snakes on the eshop. There's too many options. Nintendo should be doing this too.

I dunno how many of you have externals, but I'm curious. How much of it have you used? And what did you download? The biggest game you put on it so far?

Nintendo has been dragging their feet on that like nobody's business. Wii U can run both Wii and Gamecube games. Hackers have proven that Gamecube images can run in Wii mode just like they would if you were using a Wii. Nintendo could market them the quick way - update the Wii U to launch GC and Wii images from the dashboard, add the ability for the Wii U to recognize and use the GC adapter in GC mode, and upload their library of GC and Wii games to the eshop. Will they? I'll be damn surprised if they do.

Edit:

I have a 64GB Sandisk Cruzer Fit. I think the largest game I have downloaded is Injustice: Gods Among Us. That one sits around 8.5GB. Other downloads include:

the biggest game i have is tekken tag 2 which is 15GB

other games i have are smash bros, mario kart, warioware, wii party, wiisports club

i ahve a 500gb hdd....i have like 400GB free.....

unless you want everything digital a 250GB hdd might be enough for the whole gen on wiiU

Yeah would be nice if Nintendo let you install disc games to external hard drive. Probably more space than u will ever need but at least it looks good with your U.

@YearoftheSnake5: I think it should be the first thing they have done. They didn't do anything to make the eshop stand out. It plays NES, SNES, and GBA games? All limited releases too. They should be racing to put out entire libraries but it never happens. GameCube and Wii games on the Wii U eshop would be the smartest thing they did with the VC this gen, unless they find a way to make a Sega Saturn/Dreamcast emulator fly on Wii U. They become the kings of retro if they do this.

I bought a 2TD external drive for my Wii U exclusively. I stopped buying games physically and have moved onto buying games digitally.

No point now, much easier to just download them!

I have the anemic 8gb Wii U, and i have a little over a gig left. I've got nano assault neo, the pikmin dlc, first mk8 dlc, and earthbound. I also have a wwhd download but i don't have the space :/

I've been wanting installs for disc games for a while now, 360 did it in 2008, come on Nintendo. There is NO reason they can't do that and put gc games on the eshop, since it wouldn't even need to use emulation.

I think at this point Nintendo is in full lazy mode with Wii U and is just thinking about the next console.

If Wii U had sold like hotcakes they will be morelikely to do so...since it didn't they probably won't be doing much at all for eShop. Sad thing is Wii U can run GC games without much work, think this was proven with a hack ( if I remember correctly)..the drive slot just doesn't accept GC disc. :P

Got 500GB ext HDD, not much being use for except 1 game W101...the rest are saves. :P

I have an external that I prepared and bought for the Wii U at launch, but I don't use it.

I buy digital multiplats everywhere else (They are cheaper and better too).

I have the 8gb model and will just buy physical copies for my WiiU. My Xbone and ps4 need the external memory hdd. Well a bigger internal hdd in the ps4's case. Both are basically full. On my ps4 I have 6 games, and a few of the free games, xbone I have 14 not including the Indies and the apps. So no idea why the ps4's fills up so quickly.

@bunchanumbers: You did all this and now ask why? Ever think anything through or do you just get an itch and jump? If you're still buying games on disc, why would you buy an external drive? You realize you can buy most retail games in the eShop and download them digitally, right? The whole point of an external drive on a Wii U is for digital downloads from the eShop or virtual consoles.

I did the same thing.

@bunchanumbers:

I bought my Wii U with a 1TB of external HDD (hooked up with a Y-cable). My intention was full digital library of Wii U (and future Wii and GC if they become available on e-shop). The biggest I think I downloaded so far was Bayonetta 2 which was around 21 GB. I'm still left with 800GB after buying following games on e-shop.

Captain Toad, Wonderful 101, Bayonetta 1 and 2, Zelda Wind waker HD and Smash Bros.

Oh I knew what I was getting into. In the end the majority of my games will be on it. Its convenient and it works great. I'm just hopeful the future they add more features that will make more people want to hook up externals. Gamecube and Wii games on the eshop would be a big start. Including the option to install games to the external would be even better. Hell even having the option to install it to the flash memory would save wear and tear on the drive. Its just a great way to discuss what people got on their externals and how much space they got left, so I can get a good idea of the future.

You need to relax man.

@bunchanumbers:

Just an advice, don't use the flash memory to install and store games as these are not reliable in the long run in terms of read/write. Typical external HDD should be the way if you want to ensure the longevity of your game storage, not to mention it becomes precious if it's holding all your digital library, then don't even bother with flash drives

There are some reasons why I still move stuff onto the flash memory. When I had the crunchyroll app on the external I'd be watching a show and when it was over I'd get a warning saying that my external disconnected. For some reason it would act like it was idle, then it would auto turn off. Then my Wii U would flip out and I'd have to do a hard shutdown. So I moved it to the flash memory and haven't had any issues since. Stuff like that.

What's the cheapest I could find like a 50 or 100gb hard drive? Or do those even exist anymore. I don't want to waste money anything larger when its not going to get used.

I've been waiting for GC games to come out, but at this point I have my doubts. We don't even have N64.

If you're trying to go cheap, then your best bet would be to build your own. Get a cheap enclosure for $10 on amazon and a generic HDD for $25 and then you got a 320 GB external HDD for $35 and you should be able to get the free amazon shipping. That is what I'd do if I were you if we're going for the absolute cheapest solution.

Got a 2TB HDD with about 10 retail and about 15 Indie/VC games games on it. I haven't bothered to check how full it is because with this much space it's pointless to even worry.

Well thanks to the eshop christmas sales I've cashed in heavily on the digital content. I'm over 15 digital games to go with my dozen physical games now. Not including stuff like MK8 DLC and the like. What the others have said is true. When you get over a certain HDD size how much space you have left doesn't matter. I probably should have written down how much space I had before I started. I'll probably add it up and figure out how much space I've used so far. I think I'd be over the 25 GB limit on the flash memory.

Its kinda funny. I don't think Nintendo would have even needed to include the need for externals if they started with 120 GB of internal memory. I'm kinda thinking that the entire Wii U library will fit on a 1TB HDD. Which is crazy because there are just so many awesome games.

I have a Wii U and a 1TB hard drive. The Wii U formatted it, but I cannot for the life of me figure what purpose it serves. It does not seem to allow me to save anything to it, or even access it at all.

Now that this drive is useless on any other device, since it is formatted for the Wii U, how do I put files on it? How do I tell the Wii U to save eShop games to it instead of the internal memory? What's the point of a large hard drive if it can't do this?

Is there a reason I should not just go back to my Wii and use the hard drive there? It was working fine that way.

@justasiam: You can go to data management and mess with it. Can store updates, digital downloads, etc.

@iandizion713: OK, after messing with it, I see that my saves are now on the external drive, but there are no settings whatsoever about storing eshop purchases on the external drive, nor are there any options of moving purchases there.

There should be, at least, abilities to see WHAT is on that drive. A directory, anything!

@justasiam: I can see what is on my drive. I think mine automatically goes to external if its plugged up and turned on.

@iandizion713 : OK, can you tell me how you go about seeing what's on the external hard drive?

@justasiam: From settings, go to Data Management, then click the Copy/Move/Delete data, then click USB Device 1. Here you can see and manage all content on your USB Devices.

This thread is over a year old.

@onesiphorus: Were trying to summon Buncha back from the dead.