Am I able to use an external HDD to install games from eshop on? I'm thinking of getting W101 as my free game and creating a partition on my HDD for it but im not sure if this is possible
I haven't tried creating a partition for the Wii U, as I'm pretty sure it just formats the entire device. Give it a try, though. It will work with an external HDD and, as PurpleMan mentioned, it needs to be AC Powered. Some USB 3.0 drives are compatible, such as this one. Most of the time, games don't take that much space. I got a sandisk cruzer fit to expand my storage without adding any additional wires and it's working great. Right now, I have Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze, Pikmin 3, Injustice, Trine 2, Little Inferno, Mario Kart 8, Lego: The Hobbit, and a bunch of virtual console games on my system between the internal storage and flash drive.
Yes. You just need a USB 2.0 hard drive that is AC powered.
There's also certain flash drives that are Wii U compatible. If you're not going to need 200GB+, I recommend the Sandisk Cruzer Fit line. They're cheap and unbelievably tiny. Won't even notice they're there.
External hard drives that are AC powered are kinda hard to find now so what I did is I hooked up my USB powered external hard drive to an AC powered USB hub, which only cost 20 bucks and it works great! Give it a try.
@PurpleMan5000: They must be Wii U compatible. I have 2 external HDDs and they both freeze up intermittently and now each time I turn on my Wii U. Nintendo does have a very limited list on their website which will set you back $100. Not cool Nintendo Not cool.
FlasFlash drives will only last so long and you will need to go the HDD route eventually. Play it safe early
Yep, it's actually been a life saver. I attached a fairly cheap 250gb external drive to it. Holds most of my games since the 32gb they give you is not so hot.
@PurpleMan5000: They must be Wii U compatible. I have 2 external HDDs and they both freeze up intermittently and now each time I turn on my Wii U. Nintendo does have a very limited list on their website which will set you back $100. Not cool Nintendo Not cool.
FlasFlash drives will only last so long and you will need to go the HDD route eventually. Play it safe early
Do your HDDs have their own AC outlet? My understanding is that anything USB 2.0 that has its own AC outlet will work.
Update: My Wii U was freezing with the external HDD connected.
How to Fix: Moving all games and saved game data to the external HDD has resolved the issue. Someone on YouTube had the same issue and Nintendo support and himself were trying different options. It has worked great and not one freeze up all weekend.
I don't use an AC powered external HD because I'm an energy-saving freak, and instead use a Y-split cable for my HD enclosure. Since both USB ports on the back are neighboring, it not only plugs in fairly cleanly, but has been working perfectly for me for well over a year this way, now.
Essentially, you don't HAVE to have an AC powered HD, just make sure it gets enough power in general, and a Y-split seems to do the trick.
@PurpleMan5000: I am using a few year old 1T USB powered HDD the that hasn't given me any problems yet. I run fairly large games downloaded from the Nintendo store directly to the device with no issues.
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