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Forums - Gaming - External Hard Drive for consoles, is it a problem?

 

What console storage method is better?

Propietary Internal Hard Drive 20 17.24%
 
External Hard Drive 41 35.34%
 
Cloud Storage 5 4.31%
 
Non-Propietary Internal Hard Drive 50 43.10%
 
Total:116
OdinHades on 16 March 2013

Another problem is simply the Box of the system. The Wii U stands right next to Xbox 360 and PS3. and what are you seeing on the 349 $ Wii U? It says "32 GB". On the next spot, you see a PS3 for 299 $ with two controllers, which says "500 GB". I'm sure there are more than enough people who are going to assume that the PS3 is superior. You know, like iPhones and such, they get more expensive with more space. Just imagine the amount of uninformed people. It is by far not the biggest problem of Wii U, but is one of many small issues and overall just bad marketing. Even more on the basic model. I mean, come on, 8 GB? That is nothing nowadays. It just isn't attractive. And if someone uninformed buys the system just to see that of the minimalistic 8 GB there are only 3 GB available to the user, he sure as hell won't be very pleased. Nintendo is disappointing their buyers and that is very dangerous. Just look at Sony, it took them years to work on their bad reputation.

On another note, if I buy a console, I expect it to work right out of the box. I don't want to buy external hard drives or stuff like that. I don't even think about that when I'm standing in a store. It was also a very bad decision by Nintendo to not bundle an AC Adapter with the 3DS XL in europe. I mean, seriously? You're buying Nintendo products and they don't work like you expect them to work. And that is a very flawed business model.



唯一無二のRolStoppableに認められた、VGCの任天堂ファミリーの正式メンバーです。光栄に思います。

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Cheebee on 16 March 2013

I think an external HDD is fine. I actually prefer that over a built-in one.
Now if only my WiiU would consistently regognize it! Quite a few times, it just doesn't recognize my 500GB external HDD, USB Y-cable and all. :(



Nintendo Network ID: Cheebee   3DS Code: 2320 - 6113 - 9046

 

kitler53 on 16 March 2013

for me: it would be a minor cosmetic annoyance that would piss me off when i set the thing up and then i'd probably forget about.

for the mass market: the mass market is borderline (technically/electronically) retarded. they want devices that "just work". having an option with a small drive... not that big a deal. having no option for a decent sized drive... that's a bad strategy. i am fully aware of how easy it is to install an external drive but a majority of the market is just scared of anything electronic and won't be able to figure it out without getting frustrated and angry.



Roma on 16 March 2013

not a problem for me as I already had a couple of external HDDs

why buy a huuuuuge console when you can get a small one and use one of your own HDDs or buy the perfect one for it?

as for what is better? well if they can keep it as small and cheap as it is today then yeah add a 500gb HDD and it would be great but that's never going to happen without Nintendo losing too much on the hardware

Nintendo likes to make profit as soon as possible



    R.I.P Mr Iwata :'(

Booyah on 16 March 2013
kitler53 said:
for me: it would be a minor cosmetic annoyance that would piss me off when i set the thing up and then i'd probably forget about.

for the mass market: the mass market is borderline (technically/electronically) retarded. they want devices that "just work". having an option with a small drive... not that big a deal. having no option for a decent sized drive... that's a bad strategy. i am fully aware of how easy it is to install an external drive but a majority of the market is just scared of anything electronic and won't be able to figure it out without getting frustrated and angry.


Most of those "retards" are probably going to stick with the physical discs then since digital distribution is "scary".



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kitler53 on 16 March 2013
Booyah said:
kitler53 said:
for me: it would be a minor cosmetic annoyance that would piss me off when i set the thing up and then i'd probably forget about.

for the mass market: the mass market is borderline (technically/electronically) retarded. they want devices that "just work". having an option with a small drive... not that big a deal. having no option for a decent sized drive... that's a bad strategy. i am fully aware of how easy it is to install an external drive but a majority of the market is just scared of anything electronic and won't be able to figure it out without getting frustrated and angry.


Most of those "retards" are probably going to stick with the physical discs then since digital distribution is "scary".

...or ipad/iphone digital or some other more user friendly device like the ps4/xbox8.



Booyah on 16 March 2013
kitler53 said:
Booyah said:
kitler53 said:
for me: it would be a minor cosmetic annoyance that would piss me off when i set the thing up and then i'd probably forget about.

for the mass market: the mass market is borderline (technically/electronically) retarded. they want devices that "just work". having an option with a small drive... not that big a deal. having no option for a decent sized drive... that's a bad strategy. i am fully aware of how easy it is to install an external drive but a majority of the market is just scared of anything electronic and won't be able to figure it out without getting frustrated and angry.


Most of those "retards" are probably going to stick with the physical discs then since digital distribution is "scary".

...or ipad/iphone digital or some other more user friendly device like the ps4/xbox8.

Do you have a source that states that PS4/Xbox8 are more user friendly, or is that just an assumption?

 

Cause if we are assuming, then I could assume they will be less user friendly, seeing as they could possibly block used games or charge a fee to activate them.



dahuman on 16 March 2013
BaldrSkies said:
Cobretti2 said:
BaldrSkies said:
The problem with the specific case of the Wii U is that it uses USB 2.0, which is just outrageously slow for the large data transfers required of modern games. Had Nintendo gone with USB 3.0 there would be no such issue. The fact of the matter is, combined with the lack of an ethernet port, it was a total cheap out that would have only slightly increased the cost of manufacture, but causes the console and the consumer suffering.

Also, the Xbox360 and PS3 both use 2.5" SATA drives, the same drives used in laptop computers. Not exactly difficult, although I believe it's necessary to do some modifications for the 360 drive.


USB 2.0 is fine. Fifa Demo is like 1.2gb and took about a minute or so to copy from internal memory.

But I agree would be nice to have USB 3.0 for the small increase in cost


Well 1.2gb is small first off, there's portable games larger than that. But I mean in terms of the ability to load data while playing a game. USB2.0's maximum rate of 480Mbit is slow compared to even ancient SATA 1.0 at 1.5Gbit, let alone the more modern SATA2.0 and 3.0 at 3Gbit and 6Gbit respectively. In practice USB2.0 can only effectively throughput about 300Mbit, and in many cases may even run slower depending on the drive. It's just a terrible system to load huge games like LEGO City onto.

I'm thinking the same thing, the difference is after they said the disc drive was 22MB/s, USB2 sounded fine afterwards, since it'd still mean that the HDD's faster on transfer speed than the optical drive while providing better seek and access times in the end anyhow, no harm felt really.

Another thought is, how fast is your internet? While install time might take longer, the download speed is most likely not capping the HDD speed in most users' homes, so the only thing the users really are suffering from is a few more minutes of install time but doesn't effect gameplay. O_O;

Kinda moot now that we go into how it works in reality instead of basing on raw spec numbers isn't it?



dahuman on 16 March 2013
Cheebee said:
I think an external HDD is fine. I actually prefer that over a built-in one.
Now if only my WiiU would consistently regognize it! Quite a few times, it just doesn't recognize my 500GB external HDD, USB Y-cable and all. :(


plug the power end into a phone charger and see how that works, Wii U's USB ports have shit for power.



dahuman on 16 March 2013
BaldrSkies said:
cbarroso09 said:
BaldrSkies said:
The problem with the specific case of the Wii U is that it uses USB 2.0, which is just outrageously slow for the large data transfers required of modern games. Had Nintendo gone with USB 3.0 there would be no such issue. The fact of the matter is, combined with the lack of an ethernet port, it was a total cheap out that would have only slightly increased the cost of manufacture, but causes the console and the consumer suffering.

Also, the Xbox360 and PS3 both use 2.5" SATA drives, the same drives used in laptop computers. Not exactly difficult, although I believe it's necessary to do some modifications for the 360 drive.


No need, I have played Batman Arkaham City from my hard drive and it is faster than using discs. 

The transfer rate of a 2.0 USB is about 35MB/s, while the usual disc readers are 15MB/s. Wii U has a 22MB/s reader. 


Yes optical is slow, but it's going obsolete too. There's a reason why many modern console games install data to the hard drive like a PC, because it greatly increases load speeds for the game.

And I'd love to see USB2.0 drives that can actually maintain 35MB/s speeds during multiple file transfers, a lot of external drives seem lucky to hit 25-30, the USB powered 2.5" drives tend to be even worse...

I'll do some benchmarks on USB2 when I get home since I have like, 5+ external drives  to test on, but I have to goto a Mythbusters show tonight so the results prolly won't come in until tomorrow, but I'm pretty sure I've easily hit 35MB/s before.