Topic: Xbox 360 to save to USB memory.

[beo]

microsoft have decided to relax their rules on whether or not a memory device bears their brand on the 360. soon you'll be able to save on memory sticks, which it will format into an 360 compatible memory card. it does have a limit of 16GB, so external hard drives wont be of much use with this - but at least it's something.

given that a few people stuck with the 20GB drive have recently mentioned lack of space, i thought i'd pass this on.

http://www.joystiq.com/2010/03/18/xbox-360-gaining-usb-storage-support-in-2010-update/

[gpw11]

That's pretty awesome, but what's up with the 16GB limit?  Technical restriction or artificial one?

[beo]

artificial cap. it seems that they still want control over large storage devices, and enabling support for cheaper devices with a higher amount of storage would obviously hurt their bottom line.

on the plus side, it will allow you to use two usb sticks at once.

[K-man]

This shouldn't have been an issue to begin with, but awesome news nonetheless.

[idolminds]

Awesome.

[Cobra951]

Excellent!  The 20GB HDD has all of 13 GB of user space, so one 16GB USB stick would more than double storage space.  I can't wait for this.  I can move so much stuff over to make room on the hard drive, assuming that it really is that simple once the USB drive is formatted.

[iPPi]

Good news.

[Cobra951]

Looks like the update to make this possible is coming April 6th, if this joystiq story about Sandisk introducing X360-branded 16GB flash drives is accurate.

Edit:  Reading a little further down the joystiq page, yes.  Cool.

The official word.

[W7RE]

What I want to know is can I install Xbox 360 disc based games to it, as well as demos and whatnot? Or do I have to shuffle things around every time I want to use data that's on a USB drive. Though the biggest flash drive I have lying around is 2GB, and I dont see myself buying any for this. Especially when you have my next paragraph.


The 250GB HDD is finally coming out as a standalone product. I think Major Nelson has confirmed it, but I don't have the link. It's on Amazon with a release date of March 30 though. The price is $129.99. That's still sort of expensive for a hard drive, but lower than the MSRP for the 120GB drive. Also I believe Major Nelson confirmed that the 250GB drives will all come with a data transfer cable. Though also, there's rumors of an Xbox 360 Slim in the works, which may or may not have an internal hard drive, and may or may not be compatible with existing HDD enclosures.

[Cobra951]

- The 250GB is tempting at that price, but still a ripoff.

- The new USB flash drive functionality is supposed to work exactly like the HDD, up to an artificially imposed limit of 16 GB per device (2 devices max, for 32 GB).  You don't have to shuffle data around.  I think 8GB thumb drives can be had fairly cheap now.  The 16s are still kind of expensive at like $30 and up. 

I don't know what I'll do yet.  The 120GB drive is getting phased out at a price of $100 "while supplies last".  That's still way too high, especially when the 250 is only $30 more.  I'll see where the prices go from here.  At least now I have more options.

[scottws]

I'm still getting by with 13 GB.  Barely.

I don't do the disc install thing.  Hell, the newest 360 disc-based game I have is GTA IV.  I just don't use the thing enough to justify the purchase of any extra storage.

[Cobra951]

Yeah, if you barely use the thing, 13 GB is plenty.  I'm using it extensively, and I'm feeling the storage pinch.  Installing whatever game I'm heavily into makes too much sense to evade it.  The DVD stops spinning for hours, and the optical drive gets to live longer.  The HDD spins all the time regardless.

Looks like the dedicated memory cards are being phased out entirely.  The new slim doesn't seem to have ports for them at all.  USB and HDD will be it in the future.  They really should have done this from the beginning.

[Pugnate]

http://kotaku.com/5505029/rumor-xbox-360s-usb-flash-drives-are-yes-expensive

[Cobra951]

There's a shock.  But unlike with proprietary peripherals, you can buy the cheapest stick that meets requirements.  (No doubt there will be gobs of sites with lists of working solutions soon after this update.)  The "official" sticks are strictly for the suckers.  There are plenty of those to go around, so I'm sure the Sandisk/MS sticks will bring them boatloads of cash.

[Cobra951]

And it's here.  Happy USBing.

[gpw11]

There's a shock.  But unlike with proprietary peripherals, you can buy the cheapest stick that meets requirements.  (No doubt there will be gobs of sites with lists of working solutions soon after this update.)  The "official" sticks are strictly for the suckers.  There are plenty of those to go around, so I'm sure the Sandisk/MS sticks will bring them boatloads of cash.

Yeah, I have three USB sticks because I keep on seeing larger capacity ones on sale for really cheap.  I had an original 2 GB I bought for like $30, and then I picked up a 4GB for about half of that.  Finally, I was buying something and saw an 8GB for like $17.99 and got it. Kind of dumb because there's literally no use for the older ones now really, but the extra capacity is great.  Sure, the 2 GB was all I needed to move around documents and stuff, but if I ever have to move a large media file from one PC to another quicky it comes in handy having something that can handle it.

It's a bit more expensive if there's certain specifications you have to meet, like "Ready Boost", but I've found that 2 out of the 3 sticks I've bought meet it even though not labelled as so...and are a lot cheaper than the options that advertise compatibility with the feature.