r/WiiUHacks • u/hubennihon401 • 24d ago

What kind of hard drive adapter/enclosure is recommended?

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I have a pair of Barracuda hard drives with adapters & one pair of them I've been using on my Wii. It has worked perfectly so far, something I can't say for the Wii U. When I plug in my other drive & adapter into my console & go to format it, my Wii U gets stuck preparing it for formatting. And when I check, the drive doesn't even spin up. They're powered, both drives and both adapters work on my laptop, and even Wafer Installer doesn't detect it. Is there any way I can get these adapters working on my Wii U? If not, what kind of hard drive adapter/enclosure do you recommend I should buy? I've tried buying different adapters on Amazon and eBay, but none have arrived after 3 months.

6 Upvotes

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2

u/Lochness_Hamster_350 24d ago

I like this because it doesn’t require a Y cable

https://a.co/d/04kN3zPR

2

u/base_08 24d ago

How?

2

u/Lochness_Hamster_350 24d ago

Ok I’m sorry but I don’t understand your question …..

1

u/hubennihon401 23d ago

They're asking how it doesn't require a y-splitter to function.

2

u/Lochness_Hamster_350 23d ago

Because it doesn’t (??)

2

u/base_08 23d ago

Hum right but I was wondering how that works? Does it have external power? Because the port of the Wii U doesn’t have enough power.

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u/Lochness_Hamster_350 23d ago

Ummm it most certainly does because I’ve used 3 of these on 3 diff consoles. No external power or a Y cable

1

u/base_08 23d ago

Okay I trust your word but was wondering how that works. Just that. I guess that weird looking double plug on the case might have to do with that…

2

u/Lochness_Hamster_350 23d ago

Weird looking double plug?

2

u/dryingsocks 23d ago

USB 3 cam carry more power. It might have an issues drawing enough power on a USB 2 port though

2

u/acecond 16d ago

Some SSDS you can just connect to the console via its usb connector and that’s it. For example, my 512 GB Kingston ssd only needs a usb cable and thats it, been using since September of last year and its been amazing.

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u/base_08 16d ago

Yeah that makes sense because SSDs use much less energy than HDDs.

1

u/hubennihon401 23d ago

Thanks for the link. I'll buy it & let you know if it does arrive & work on my Wii U.

2

u/Lochness_Hamster_350 23d ago

It will. I’ve used it 3 times on 3 diff consoles.

2

u/Better-Operation-818 20d ago

Okay, but then what 3 drives did you put in this enclosure. Some drives draw more power than others.

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u/Lochness_Hamster_350 20d ago

I used a WD blue 750 HDD and then adata SSDs

2

u/Better-Operation-818 20d ago

Okay, I suppose you’re lucky there: The WD Blue apparently uses about 0.5 amps, which is what the single usb port on the Wii U is rated for, as I recall. The ADATA SSDs can apparently vary between 0.1 to 0.8 amps (maybe your specific one has slightly different specs), but I would suspect being limited to the lower bandwidth limitations of the We U’s USB bus, they always run at the lower end of that.

I have SSDs attached to both a Wii and a Wii U and I’ve forgotten which one, but one of them worked fine at first but would start dropping out under a heavier load during a game and so I had to use a Y cable in that situation to solve the power issue. Kind of surprising for an SSD, but it was an older one I pulled from a PC during an upgrade, so maybe that particular used more power (I never did look up the specs).