The OS Space

When buying a Wii U, gamers will be able to choose between the Basic bundle, which comes with 8GB of internal storage, and the Deluxe bundle, which comes with 32GB of space. By default, due to formatting, the Basic system will have 7.2GB of free memory and the Deluxe will have 29GB. From there, though, the Wii U's OS will take 4.2GB of space. That's about half of the Basic's storage, not counting any expansion through hard drives or SD cards.

Nintendo also specified that New Super Mario Bros. U is approximately a 2GB download. Nintendo Land ranks around 3.2GB. That means Basic system owners can't download both Mario and Nintendo Land to their internal storage without running out of space. Something to keep in mind.

USB Hard Drives

By default, and barring an update that Nintendo says is coming in the future, Wii U will only allow one USB drive to be connected at a time. These drives cannot be disconnected while Wii U is powered on, and the system will support and read up to 2TB of storage.

Drives that will be used by Wii U must be formatted by the system's Data Management system, meaning you can't use the drive with a PC. However all data can be moved internally and externally through Wii U's OS.

Drives that require more than USB 2.0 connections might not work properly with Wii U. Drives that have two USB connectors will work, however.

SD Cards

Wii U will accept SD cards, but their use is limited. PC, Wii Virtual Console, WiiWare and Wii saves can be stored on these cards, but Wii U save data cannot.

Source: http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/11/14/key-details-on-wii-u-storage-solutions

You basic bundle people, suckas! muwahahaha! :P I find it hard to believe that nobody has an USB HDD laying around these days though.

"Drives that require more than USB 2.0 connections might not work properly with Wii U. Drives that have two USB connectors will work, however."

That part is not correct. It was in reference to powering the USB drive through the USB only. If you only use one USB then it might not get powered, i.e. work. If you plug it into an outlet it will definitely work with one USB or if the drive is the "Y-Type" and uses two USBs it will definitely work. Can be USB2 or 3.

Only part that disturbs me is the OS space. If Nintendo knew it was 4GB+, they should NEVER of had an 8GB option. It should of been 16GB/32GB/64GB, more like phones. Especially considering that the colors are currently not offered in both sizes. Some people bought the basic just because they wanted White.

Now, they are effectively forced to pick up an USB HDD if they plan on being online/digital users in any form. If they only will have save data and no digital content, then its still fine of course. But that has to be a small userbase at this point. I will start off with just what it comes with (32GB), but I think I may be picking up a rather large HDD next year depending on how the digital games go.

I will need to keep my SD card for all my WW and VC content it seems. Hopefully WiiU VC comes soon and integrates all past purchases. If not, I'll be pretty pissed off.

Have they talked about redownloading content that was once purchased.I'll probobly fill up my 20 gb hard drive pretty soon and I want to be in confidence that I can redownload all the purchases onto the new hard drive...

Not if a game like Dragon Age finds its way onto the Wii U, I remember some 20 or so save files taking up almost 1 GB of space :O

Yeah, they are really screwing over Basic buyers. No Nintendoland, basically no space for downloads...

That's a really weird choice, most external HDD that I've seen have only 1 USB port. Haven't seen any external HDD (that goes below 1 TB) that can be plug into an outlet or have a "Y-type" port.

They said it "might" not work, not that it doesn't. Basically Nintendo is always overly cautious in how they officially state something. This way a person with a 1TB or larger drive can't complain that its not working. But someone with a 250GB that uses USB power would be fine anyways.

Hope there aren't any issues with just 1 USB port. I have a 1 TB HDD which uses only 1 USB and I'm planning to use that for my Wii U games. Might wait a while before buying the system to make sure there are no problems with this, specially since I'm planning to buy every game digitally.

Can you run games directly from the external drive?