The Elite has more memory and of course is a different colour. you can get external hard drives for the normal 360 but they will probably cost more than getting an elite
what is the differences between Xbox 360 Elite and the regular Xbox 360? [:sameerr]
first of all when choosing any xbox make sure that the mfring date is above october 2009 so u get the newest jasper chipset which is a 60nm cpu and gpu. currently both the regular(im assuming the arcade) and the elite both ship with it! basically the only differences are accessories like a bigger hard drive on the elite(plus xbox live). however as i know, the elites dont have an hdmi cable any more and ive herd that the arcades dont ship with HD AV cables, only standard.