USB Storage Coming to Xbox 360 April 6

We've been hearing rumors about the possibility of USB storage for the Xbox 360 for a while now. On Friday, Microsoft's Major Nelson confirmed the reports and said a system update to allow USB storage would land April 6.

"On April 6th, we will be releasing a system update over Xbox LIVE for your Xbox 360 that will allow USB flash drives to be used for storing profiles, game saves, demos and more. I’ve been testing this feature out for a few weeks, and I have to say it’s really great. Once you take the system update on April 6th, you’ll be able to connect your USB flash drives to your console and head over to the memory section to configure your new storage device."

Nelson writes that when you connect your drive to your Xbox, the will conduct a one time performance and integrity check to confirm the drive is working properly. With that out of the way, you're free to configure how much storage to use on the device, with the option to go up to 16GB. Though USB hard drives "might work," you'll still get the same 16GB limit that's present with the flash drives. Users can connect two devices at once for a limit of 32GB.

You can use any 1GB+ flash drive you like but Microsoft is partnering with SanDisk to bring out pre-configured Xbox-branded flash drive. Expect to see these in May.

In related news, a hacker claims to have gained access to Major Nelson's online account, and Microsoft is now investigating.

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JMcEntegart 8 years ago

zoemaynewho cares about an xbox

Sigh. Lots of people care.
TomsSound 8 years ago

16GB

tipooThis is great, no more buying overpriced Xbox hard drives. The 250GB one that is coming out works out to 52 cents per gigabyte, whereas a PC hard drive usually lies betweeh 12-16 cents per gigabyte. Add in an external USB enclosure and you're good to go.
lamorpa 8 years ago

zoemaynewho cares about an xbox

You do zoemayne, unless you have such an empty life that you take the time to read articles and post comments about something that you are not interested in.

Other Comments

tipoo 8 years ago

This is great, no more buying overpriced Xbox hard drives. The 250GB one that is coming out works out to 52 cents per gigabyte, whereas a PC hard drive usually lies betweeh 12-16 cents per gigabyte. Add in an external USB enclosure and you're good to go.
TomsSound 8 years ago

16GB

tipooThis is great, no more buying overpriced Xbox hard drives. The 250GB one that is coming out works out to 52 cents per gigabyte, whereas a PC hard drive usually lies betweeh 12-16 cents per gigabyte. Add in an external USB enclosure and you're good to go.
zoemayne 8 years ago

who cares about an xbox
soky602 8 years ago

This is great and all but why the 16Gb limit?
JMcEntegart 8 years ago

zoemaynewho cares about an xbox

Sigh. Lots of people care.
lamorpa 8 years ago

zoemaynewho cares about an xbox

You do zoemayne, unless you have such an empty life that you take the time to read articles and post comments about something that you are not interested in.
Regulas 8 years ago

You mean MS is finally allowing it's followers to do this, they should all get down on their knees and kiss MS's feet. All hail the great proprietary Crapbox 360. Can I buy more add ons at ridiculously marked up prices like their WiFi is.
phoenix777 8 years ago

using USB storage on consoles must be a really tough technology, that's why it took them so long to do it, right?
warmon6 8 years ago

soky602This is great and all but why the 16Gb limit?

Yeah really....... im surprise that it's not higher scene there are usb flash drives reaching 256GB. (although im doubting anyone has such a large flash drive. it makes the 360 250GB hdd look cheap. )

But there plenty of cheap 32 GB flash drives.
bourgeoisdude 8 years ago

warmon6Yeah really....... im surprise that it's not higher scene there are usb flash drives reaching 256GB. (although im doubting anyone has such a large flash drive. it makes the 360 250GB hdd look cheap. ) But there plenty of cheap 32 GB flash drives.

These things are always about money. If they allowed full size, most people'd just start buying the 360 Arcade versions and buying external hard drives for them. MS makes alot of money off of their hard drives and Elite consoles. They make less/lose more on the Arcade consoles--unless they sell them 360 hard drives with the consoles.
matt_b 8 years ago

Quote:

You can use any 1GB+ flash drive you like but Microsoft is partnering with SanDisk to bring out pre-configured Xbox-branded flash drive. Expect to see these in May.

Expect pricing to be along the lines of the absolute steal that the official Hard drives are! Seriously, about as many people will fork over all the extra cash for these things as the original 256MB memory cards.
sliem 8 years ago

Next: Xbox 360 Arcade with two 16GB flash drives: $299
"Expand your XBOX Live experience with more storage to store your videos, photos and music! Now only $299 limited time only!"
Anonymous 8 years ago

The flash drives are great for someone whop might only download a few things and does not install games. If you price out a couple of 16gb flash drives your at about 70 bucks, makes the 250gb hdd look like a steal. Thats why they are doing this
gruntboyx 8 years ago

This is great. Yeah 16gb is rather useless for media storage. However it allows me to back up my profile and hopefully make it more portable.

Additionally, this may be the beginning of a Xbox slim? If they can use this for distribution of content then they can remove that noisy dvd drive. Also, it opens up games to sizes greater than a dvd, allowing them to compete with bluray. Now publishing costs will increase, as 16gb of flash is more expensive than a dvd. Also, removing the dvd drive would be a bummer, if you use it to watch movies a lot.

I guess it puts more life into the system without redesigning the whole thing.
JohnnyLucky 8 years ago

How much space is required for storing profiles, game saves, demos and more? What does "more" mean?
False_Dmitry_II 8 years ago

lamorpaYou do zoemayne, unless you have such an empty life that you take the time to read articles and post comments about something that you are not interested in.

No they're doing it in preparation of removing the memory card slots from the slim version.

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