usb port

Ok, so my friend's little brother tore a usb cable out of the back of his wii, shattering the usb port on the right. It will no longer read anything and the left one will only work with a lan adaptor, won't read HDD or anything. I want to replace the usb 2.0 ports and I was thinking of...

the wii system comes with two usb ports, what are their capabilities? is it simply just for a wired connection to the internet? or can they possibly do anything more such as run an external hard drive? thanks for the input, all comments are appriciated :)