Xbox 360 USB storage is live, with list of gotchas

Joystiq broke the story that USB storage was coming to the Xbox 360; today, the update goes live. A quick download, and suddenly you're not dependent on Microsoft to sell you overpriced hard drives. Of course, the ability to use USB storage comes with a few limitations.

[JRisburning]

I am quite savvy in reading upside backword, words. Or else I would of threw a bag of 360's at your house, rendering your trace of life non-existent.

[Imallvol7]

It never ceases to amaze me how consumers continue to let MS get away with this BS.

Yeah, its better than nothing, but how many times have we had to say this? Open up the console to external hard drives, or at least give me a good reason why you aren't.

[SDF Repellent]

Get away with what? Allowing me to use my personal Sandisk Flashdrive X2 up to 32GB? It is not like they decrease the capacity from 120gb to 32gb.

Also, like anything with software upgrade, they can increase the cap as times go by.

It is not like they are cutting out feature like LINUX, oh wait.

[fr0sty]

hey, at least they didn't charge for the features they did remove, unlike 360 which charges you just to press the power button.

[Imallvol7]

Ok . . . where do I start. I payed 75$ for a wireless adapter (way too much). I couldn't use any other memory up until now. A 120gb hard drive cost over 100$ until the new 250gb hard drive released, which is now 130$. I have to pay to play online. The whole point system that MS uses (You have to buy in increments which is ridiculous, as I have about 200-300 some odd points sitting on my account that i just cant use for anything but avatar clothing). Etc.

Like I said, if they at least gave a reason for the 16gb per drive (I think someone in the comments mentioned they thought it might be a hardware limitation), then I would at least feel a little better about it. As of right now though, it just seems like a big reminder that if you want more space, go get an overpriced proprietary hard drive.

[fr0sty]

exactly, if they wanted to really do something nice for their customers, screw usb thumb drives that are slow and easy to lose (and will open microsoft up to live's content being hacked like crazy now), and just release an adapter that lets you use a third party hard drive with it already!

But of course, if they did, the adapter would cost $80.

[FantasyStar]

"Like I said, if they at least gave a reason for the 16gb per drive (I think someone in the comments mentioned they thought it might be a hardware limitation), then I would at least feel a little better about it. "

-Look up the keyword "anti-trust lawsuit datel"

[3XP]

Why don't you sell your stuff and buy yourself a PS3, that way everything would be Sweet as berries. And perhaps the rest of us won't have to hear you whine about MS and the 360...oh wait!

Edit:
@Jew Unit (Below 3)

That makes no sense, think about it, a 30 dollar 16 gig flash drive would actually cost you 4 times more per meg than buying the 250 GB HD for 130.00. 4 16GB thumb drives would cost you 120 bucks for only 64 gig for which you can only run 2 of them. So if you're willing to spend 30 dollars for a 16 GB thumb drive, the you may as well spend 130 bucks for a 250 GB HD (when considering GB per dollar). More storage and better transfer rate.

[captain-obvious]

lol @ Sony flash in the xbox

[ArcFatalix]

Linux on ps3 is useless, dont give that excuse, what will you say when PS3 gets 3d?

[Corepred4]

lol comments like yours just makes me realize how far along the ps3 has come along. before it was it has no games, no in-game menu, blu-ray is doomed, and you know the rest. now trolls like have resorted to: sony removes features that less than 1% of you use and prob don't care about, haha!. sad really, makes me laugh though. you guys that constantly bring that up are funny, i couldn't give a rat's a$$ about linux or other os. lol

[VINNIEPAZ]

I have to sorta agree with Imallvol7 on this one. I also feel 16/32gigs is a tease and MS should give us more options with 3rd party devices. Like that one article said, we can cry about the overcharge if thats the only option given to us. Hopefully MS will learn from this gen.....

Kinda off topic, but I dont see why we cant copy music from a USB drive onto the HDD like my PS3 lets me. Yea I do stream music from the PC but dont always have it on while playing and it should be an option for convenience sake.

[The Great Melon]

@Imallvol7

You may complain that you have a few hundred points lying around, but I would rather have those points lying around rather than spend them on tax like on the psn.

below @fr0sty

I believe it depends on where you are from that determines whether you are taxed or not. Where I live I have to pay tax anytime I purchase something on the PSN.

[fr0sty]

psn charges no tax...

[AAACE5]

Being able to use USB drives effectively eliminates the problem of all 360's not having a HDD as some developers have complain about! And more than likely, they will increase the storage space used as time goes on just like they did with XBLA. They probably just kept it low to make sure they had a handle on things, you know like trying to keep piracy under control.

Personally, I plan on moving all my arcade XBLA games to a UBS drive and using my 120 Gb for games installed. I love the install feature, my drive gets less use which means it will last longer and my system doesn't get hot.

[HeroComplex]

I was actually excited about this feature, but then realized it's limitations. I don't see a reason for them to limit the amount of storage you can access off of a USB storage device or the number of storage devices. It wouldn't really compete with their overpriced internal drives since USB connected storage is too slow in comparison. The PS3 allows for all the storage to be accessed on a USB drive as long as it's formatted properly. I guess the new feature is better than nothing.

@Imallvol7 - There is no hardware limitation other than the one imposed on by MS. If you're thinking about the limitation for formatting hard drives, even a FAT32 file system allows a single storage device to be formatted to 2TB. The limitation for this new feature only allows 16GB of each storage device to be accessed, from up to two devices, giving you the 32GB of space available. On top of that, they reserve 512MB off of each device giving you a total of 31GB of space to be used.

[Rhythmattic]

This update is to resolve the bad decision they made regarding the 360 Arcade SKU. I believe its a 360 Arcade hotfix, , and for that, its a smart move by MS.

16Gb ? Seriously, what other reason would there be ?

[evrfighter]

Newegg is already advertising their usb sticks for the 360
http://www.newegg.com/Produ...

[SDF Repellent]

"now trolls like have resorted to"

A PS3 known fanboy using the word "trolls" in a non PS3 related article. How ironic

[Syronicus]

Yeah, get away with exactly that. MS flexes their big brother muscle again and the fans go wild. Sony on the other hand lets you instal any size HDD you want to the tune of what ever cost you can find the cheapest HDD for. 250 gig? No problem. 340 gig? Go right on ahead!

MS needs to lighten up and let the cat out of the bag. If they are worried about piracy then they are tad too late. The torrent sites are full of 360 games that will play on hacked 360's. So let it all out MS!

[HolyOrangeCows]

So much for "I can getz a 128GB on Ebay for 5 cents and I dont needz a HDD"

[greatjimbo78]

Can I just ask, why do you two who have posted above me care so much? Please enlighten me!

[bjornbear]

LMAO.

here they go again =P "BU BU BU SONY TOOK AWAY LINUX"

no one cares about that man =P only 360 fanboys =P

and whats the big deal? 360 NEVER had otherOS, nor do slims...only fats and honestly, no one cares except for a few hackers and super-nerds

let it go "Allowing me to use my personal Sandisk Flashdrive X2 up to 32GB?"

ooo wow

well my PS3 goes up to 500 Gb =O does that negate the Linux removal for you TOOL? xD

NO ONE CARES ABOUT LINUX

so that STILL makes you MS puppet for falling for this

"

[rexus12345]

The technical issues limiting drive size could be legit, it may have something to do with read/write times on an encrypted drive.
MS probably could have overcome it if they tried, but why would they since it gave them a valid excuse to continue overprice their own hard-drives.

[EvilBlackCat]

You guys are melodramatic about this HDD on PS3 and X360

I have a Xbox360 Elite with a 120gb HDD of course

I have trailers and content of the games i like on Xbox360 (20 games) NO CoD MW2 NO BFC2 by the way.

and i still have 48 gb of free data! oh and by the way i have music videos too!

so WTF the drama?

MS is giving you an option but remember you can also use your PC.

Now do you really need more than 120gb? DO YOU?

WHY? Can you please explain me why?

HEY CAN A PS3 Loyalists explain me why an xbox 360 gamer needs more space of storage?

Because i dont know why you guys care about xbox360 and their fans? Why you guys keep bringing the same excuses and B.S.? What did anybody at MS rape you in your azz?

RIGHT NOW WHAT I HAVE INSTALLED ON MY HDD IS

Forza 3, Op.Flashpoint DR & MASS EFFECT 2

once i finish mass effect 2 is deleted from my hdd EASY.

So tell me loyalists WHY DO YOU GUYS CARE?

I have a damn iPod DO I NEED TO INSTALL MUSIC ON MY HDD? NO!

[darthv72]

I was talking to my friend who is a die hard playstation fan. Told him about the usb update and how you would now be able to use USB drives to act as "memory units" (keep that thought in mind...we will come back to it). He still found reason to downplay it as having a limit of 16gb. I laughed...16gb is a hell of a huge jump up from 512mb (see..we are going back to the memory unit example).

We are not talking hdd's but rather memory units (as MS likes to call them). I told him to try and weigh the two in the old "put out your hands" example. In one hand you have 512mb MU, the other you have 16gb MU...which one is the better choice? The biggest official MU was 512mb (I have a 256mb myself) and this update basically ups that cap to 16gb (32gb if you use 2). How he could find fault in that was beyond comprehension but hey...to each their own.

Not only did this update work with simple flash drives but also ext hdd and pretty much anything else that is USB and can be seen by a PC as a mass storage device. I went and picked up an HP 4gb flash drive from Fry's for $10 yesterday and plugged it in. It formatted it real quick and now I have a 4gb (3.3gb actually) memory unit. I offloaded a few demos to it and plugged it in to another 360 and the demos were listed in the game library.

If there is still one grip I have about this is that you can't import music (nor can you export what you have ripped from CD). Why the "Music" section of the 360 is so secure is beyond me. If I can move video files from the 360 hdd to a flash dr and not music is just strange.

This is a big improvement to the system.

[Greywulf]

1. You will find PS3 fanboys complaining about Sony mistakes & short comings, bad games, rip-offs.

2. You will never find 360 owners complaining about anything Microsofts mistakes & short comings, bad games, rip-offs.

Examples

- 6+ years to develop games. Perfectly fine!
- Gameplay element removals, bodies, sandbox, limited # of online players. Great
- Overpriced equipment and hardware? Excellent!
- Xbox Live going down during the holidays for weeks at a time? Sweet.
- Faulty Hardware? YESS!
- Overpriced DLC? Where do I line up?

Less is more.

Right 120gb is fine because you can install and uninstall.By that logic, 50gb is fine, thats about 9 games.

The argument isn't that you can work around hdd/mb. The argument is that everywhere else in the world, you aren't paying Microsoft Tax on a hard drive, which seems to be a 50% increase. You guys are the reason companies are just rushing out garbage, charging for things like versus modes and old maps. Its ruining multiplatform gaming, but thank the heavens for first party.

[NaiNaiNai]

will we be able to install games onto them. *like we do to the HDD.*

if so wouldn't that like massively improve load times, since it would be running from flash memory?

[Imallvol7]

That would be nice. I only have a 20gb hard drive and have been wanting a bigger one so bad to install games. I could get a few games saved on 32gb of space!

[Dave1351]

20gb!? thats enough for like 3 demos and a movie lol

[fr0sty]

No, you won't get any speed advantage. In fact, it'll be quite slow.

Typical fast drives claim to read at up to 30 megabytes/s (MB/s) and write at about half that. SATA hard drives transfer data at 1.5-3gbps.

Using usb for gaming will be sloooooooow. It's just a last ditch effort to get those millions of arcade units downloading from Live! in order to convince developers that Live! is a better place to sell their downloadable content vs. PSN which is available out of the box and with a hard drive on every ps3.

[maxcer]

"Using usb for gaming will be sloooooooow"

some tests have been done at gaf with various games and it seems the times are comparable to the dvd drive/HDD

"FF13 Initial load goes like this for me:
USB HDD = ~18sec
20GB XBOX HDD = ~16sec
Disc = ~22sec"

[fr0sty]

initial load... to what, the menu? i'd like to see more data on the rest of the game.

[darthv72]

YES you can install full games to the memory unit (as they are referred to by the 360 after setup).

Also, there is difference in quality from USB drive to drive. Some of the cheaper ones are using less quality chips which results in slower transfers. The better known ones (sandisk, kingston, sony, hp) yield better performance. Also, keep in mind that these flash drives are solid state. No moving parts to slow down loading.

So far I have seen similar load times running games from the flash drive as is the case for the hdd. I even had some that performed quicker but they were mostly older smaller live arcade titles.

[Jew Unit]

Can't wait to see these USB drop in price fast...Amazon has been only decreasing the price of the Wireless N adapter ever since it launched. At any rate, the 16GB should be at the $30 price point in no time :). Can't wait.

[Gamer71]

I just got this 16 gb USB 2.0 flash off Amazon...

http://www.amazon.com/gp/pr...

$28.80, and no tax OR shpg. It works beautifully...even passes MS's certification tests for performance. :)

[Brklynty1]

Seriously, the whole Linux thing is last weeks news. Move on, because a PS3 fanboy can easily counter you with at least they can use any external USB while your limit is what 32GB? Thay and yea Sony removed Linux yet Microsoft is now adding a feature Sony had since launch. See what I did there. Just keep it inside for the community. Its bad enough there's a Sony thumb drive in that 360 in that pic XD.

[SDF Repellent]

Starting a flame war? Man, where have you been. Take a look at all the PS3 trolls on this and other X360 articles the past week or so. Alan Wake have a great trailer out, and guess where the majority of the comments are from?

[Pennywise]

A dark corner? :)

[greatjimbo78]

You should write comedy for a living, you're clearly very good at it.

[Godmars290]

So what's happened to all of those 1/2GB and 1/4GB drives that probably still costs as much if not more as a 16GB card? And by that are they still selling them? Did they sell them "cheaply" to all of those unsuspecting - stupid - consumers they're targeting?

[Bzone24]

Unsuspecting? It's posted on the dashboard in a couple places that you can use a usb flash drive now and there have been announcements on the dashboard before this feature came about it also.

You seem a little irritable about this, what's the matter? You got a little sand in your vagina? Does it itch?

[Godmars290]

Are you only capable of offensive/insulting remakes when commenting?

[greatjimbo78]

I thought the first sentence of his comment was clear and concise, no insults that I could see. The second part though, that was the icing on the cake.

[Godmars290]

Basically I'm asking if you walked into a general or game store, would you see the old memory cards besides the new approved 360 flash drives.

Who else is going to buy one except someone who's clueless?

[The Simple Truth]

have they EVER released a single piece of software that wasn't plagued by glitches and bugs?

[awesomeperson]

10 bucks the OFFICIAL 360 usb stick will be allowed to go over 16gb, complete with an overpriced price tag to match it, M$ style.

[Cherchez La Ghost]

People around here find anything to beoitch about. What some of you guys fail to realize is there are some people who don't use that much HD space at all. I'm only using 15 out of 80gig on my PS3, and 53 out of 120gig on my 360. I stream movies, pictures and music from my laptop wirelessly. Everything is wired to my wireless router (no need for an adaptor).

So there are ways you can work around media storage. I have no need for more HDD space for my 360 & PS3 at this time. It could have been more, but 16gig is not a bad start.

[divideby0]

MS just plain sucks with this stuff. Let me use my external USB harddrives like I do with my PS3. Dont gimp me on the storage size.
This is just pure greed from MS, who once again sucks and shows how it luvs to screw gamers.

[Solidus187-SCMilk]

CRY CRY CRY.

[darthv72]

as far as I know (personal experience) you can use the same ext usb hdd you use on the ps3 with the 360. If you are talking about plugging in the drive and watching movies or pics and music then the answer is yes.

If you are talking about backing up game data then you would need to configure that same drive to be a 360 memory unit with a cap of 16gb.

You should be more clear about what you use the usb drive for. I can plug in an external 160gb to my 360 and watch all the movies and stuff i want. If i want to "USE" the drive as additinal storage for the 360 then I need to configure 16gb of space as dedicated 360 space. This will obviously remove 16gb of usable from the total of the hdd but it will now allow me to move game, video data from the 360 hdd to the usb.

I can still use the remainder of the hdd for non dedicated stuff to share between pc, ps3 and 360.

Did that make sense? If not, then the short short version is...

You can use any size ext hdd on 360 for viewing like you can on ps3. If you intend to dedicate storage for 360 use then you have a cap of 16gb. That doesnt mean the remainder wont be "seen" by the 360 and in such you can still view content from the remaining space.

[Rowsdower]

"with list of gotchas"

the article itself has no such list, and the link in the article that mentions a list links to Major Nelson's site and even there there is no such list. The only piece of info being the size restrictions and one bullet point does not a list make.

[Captain Tuttle]

Typical N4G story fishing for hits from the anti MS crowd.

[greatjimbo78]

I was thinking the same thing myself. Where's my list? I Want a list goddammit!

[AuToFiRE]

Microsoft: It only does shafting

Come on, take a look at the ps3, weve had the ability to attach as much storage as we want with no limitation, we are not confined to overpriced hardware, we can put on what we want when we want

[Solidus187-SCMilk]

Im glad to see the update as now I have a bunch of USB drives that I can use for free as MEMORY CARDS.

All the morons hating on this update dont realize this is to replace memory cards NOT hard drives.

how could this be a bad thing to people who ACTUALLY OWN a 360. Now 360 owners have an alternative to a crappy overpriced 512mb memory card from microsoft.

Also if you dont need much storage you could just use a usb stic instead of getting a HD.

[rezzah]

the limitations suck, but hey atleast you got something to use =/

[skyblue14213]

If you live in new york state like I do then yes psn does charge tax on everything that you buy off of their store. The only exception would be free game vouchers.

[spooky205]

lets be real for just one second. To my fellow 360 owners do you think there is any justifiable reason why i should pay 130 bucks for a 250gb hdd when i can and have purchased a 500gb hdd for the same price? This update is perfectly viable with the onwers of the arcade console but it still is more or less a slap in the face to 360 owners in general. Yeah remind me MS how i cant buy my own HDD instead of your overpriced proprietary crap.

[GameScrubs]

People here are complaining because MS added a new feature?

I fail to see the negativity here. I don't get the hate about size cap or anything of the sort.

Yesterday I went and bought a 16 gig scandisk flash drive, formatted it and moved my arcade games over to it so my son doesn't delete them.

I can now carry all my arcade games with my profile to my friends house. I can get rid of the stupid small memory card.

I'm sorry but people here on n4g complaining about this new feature need to concentrate on something with a little more substance to hate on. I mean really? A new free feature and you guys are hating?

And then you have the audacity that PS3 removing sim cards, usb ports, backwards compatibility and linux is ok and accepted.

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOW

[kornbeaner]

I agree with you to certain point especially when it comes to linux removal. But has far as removing slots and BC I don't, because those (like myself) who have an OG system we still have those functions its the new consumers who got the slimmed down but also less expensive systems that miss out, so that's not the same thing. But the linux thing though yeah f*ck Sony for that one.

[kornbeaner]

I actually like this move for a few reasons. But the main one being. Now I can seriously consider buying an arcade unit since I have tons of usb stick around I at least have storage option for the immediate time and can wait a bit for HDD markdowns or sales. Nice move MS and I don't say that very often.