Can I Add a Hard Drive To The Xbox 360 4GB Model?


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FWIW, on the new 360 Slim you could change the hard drive without even using a screwdriver. All the needed to do was make the slot a bit smaller so a SATA drive would line up correctly, without having to be stuck in some janky plastic carrier.

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FWIW, on the new 360 Slim you could change the hard drive without even using a screwdriver. All the needed to do was make the slot a bit smaller so a SATA drive would line up correctly, without having to be stuck in some janky plastic carrier.

That's true. However those drives do come in different thicknesses so that would have to be allowed for. Either way, it is clear that Microsoft has no interest in allowing people to use standard off the shelf components to upgrade their console. They make too much money off of their proprietary add ons.

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The thing is for the "casual" crowd, the moment you mention screwdriver, especially combined with something that doesn't say Ikea, and ESPECIALLY if it's something electric/electronic. it's a task for a service person.

And techncially as far as HDD's go they are actually correct, if you are to follow the proper procedures, since a HDD as openly available boards, you are supposed to do any work involving them on an antistatic mat with a wrist chain, properly grounded. sure noone does it, but that's the procedure.

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That may all be true, however, every time I've had to mail my system in for repairs I have been told to remove the hard drive before sending it.

I already addressed that in another post...

That's true. However those drives do come in different thicknesses so that would have to be allowed for. Either way, it is clear that Microsoft has no interest in allowing people to use standard off the shelf components to upgrade their console. They make too much money off of their proprietary add ons.

They don't make as big of a profit margin off the HDD's as you would think. After you factor in the price of the drive, the price of the casing, the price of the packaging, and a few other small things like that you'd be surprised at how little profit there is in it being sold this way.

One way that you can judge this is by the price that is paid by FTE's in the MS Company Store. Copies of Windows, Office, Xbox Games, Mice & Keyboards are cheap compared to the retail prices. Prices on the hard drives? Not so much...it's very near retail pricing, which means there isn't much of a profit margin at retail. That's part of how the MS Company Store pricing model works.

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  • 1 month later...

There is one bit that was omitted in this entire thread. Each XBox 360 hard drive has a security sector that is unique PER drive. In order to get another one to be recognized as an XBox 360 drive via modification you have to duplicate the security sector from an official drive. Since most people use the ones freely available online then that means that there are a ton of drives out there with the same identical fingerprint. If Microsoft wanted to it would be very easy to ban all the consoles that use the same security sector at the same time or at least make the content inaccessible. There are drive checks in the system and they can see that. It is just that up until now they likely have chosen to ignore it.

Any modification is a bannable offense. Keep that in mind when you modify your console. As Shane Nokes has already stated several times modifying a drive just to cut the cost is strongly discouraged.

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I already addressed that in another post...

They don't make as big of a profit margin off the HDD's as you would think. After you factor in the price of the drive, the price of the casing, the price of the packaging, and a few other small things like that you'd be surprised at how little profit there is in it being sold this way.

One way that you can judge this is by the price that is paid by FTE's in the MS Company Store. Copies of Windows, Office, Xbox Games, Mice & Keyboards are cheap compared to the retail prices. Prices on the hard drives? Not so much...it's very near retail pricing, which means there isn't much of a profit margin at retail. That's part of how the MS Company Store pricing model works.

Amazon routinely discounts the $130 Xbox hard drive for close to $100. A 320GB 2.5 SATA drive can be bought for between $40-60 on any given day.

I think it is fair to say that MS has a good profit margin on the Xbox hard drive - not that I think it's anything wrong but just that they must be having a good margin (I think they have about $25-40 margin on the drive).

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So you're telling me that you know a bit more than me about what MS does and doesn't do internally, how the flag system works, and when the flags are and are not applied?

/Facepalm

Every post I see from you is some self righteous know it all post about how you worked at Microsoft.

I've been using a HDDHackr hacked HDD since the tools become available, which is now in my Xbox 360 Slim loose without a caddy.

I haven't been flagged yet.

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in addition to what shane said. The reason is also simplicity. ANYONE can replace or add a harddrive to a xbox 360, and it's guaranteed to work. and when they call support they know what it is and that it should work. there is no uncertainties and no difficulties.

Honesthly i would say a big part of 360 owners can change a hard drive without too much trouble. And those who can't probably don't care.

Yep my mon can't. But my mom doesn't play games either. My sister can't. But my sister owns a Wii.

I don't care what is the profit margin of the 360 HD. It's not relevant at all. They are just way too much expensive when you compare to price to HDDs sold separately.

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Every post I see from you is some self righteous know it all post about how you worked at Microsoft.

I kinda agree.

For one i don't think having worked for MS makes someone knowledgeable about every products MS makes unless he worked as a "know it all" apologist. And i don't trust apologist personaly. I'm sure someone who design or code part of Windows or Office doesn't know much more about the 360 than anyone else. And i'm sure someone who design the 360 or work as a tech for Live doesn't know much about Office or Windows.

I'm a computer engineer. I never worked for MS but i don't think it makes me far less knowledgeable about a particular MS product than anyone who did work for MS but did not work on that particular product.

I don't know everything. I specialised myself in web design. I kinda forgot a lot of things that is not used for making/hosting a web site.

But i think i know enough about computer to know the 360 HDDs are overpriced and there's simply no good excuse for it.

In canada the 320GB HD is sold at 150$ CAD. Is it still 5400rpm like the old one? I hope not for this price.

For 80$ you can buy a 750GB 7200rpm Momentus HD.

For 120-140$ you can buy a hybrid 7200rpm 750GB Momentus XT (which is faster).

At the time i'm writing this you can have the old 500GB 7200rpm hybrid Momentus XT for a mere 65$ CAD (2.3 times less than 320Gb 360 HD).

Yes the enclosure adds to the price. But if it really adds that much MS needs to think about its strategy.

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No actually the reason is GREED. Just look at how much MS charges for a Scandisk compatible USB drive after putting thier name all over it. Complete greed.

Actually the "reason" (since we're using air quotes for some reason) for the hard drive has to do with data integrity & security on the platform. I can't go into the detailed specifics (obviously for security purposes), but there is a reason why Microsoft has created a closed environment, and it's not about greed.

As regards memory cards, you do know that you can just use any standard flash drive on the market right?

As regards headsets, hmm my Ear Force Delta set would tend to disagree with you there.

In fact those same flash drives (since you can use just about any drive off the shelf) can be used on any hardware that supports it.

The headsets can be treated the same way. In fact I use my Ear Force Delta's on my PS3, Xbox 360, and PC.

Hmm sounds like I can use those items any way I wish doesn't it? Why would you make an accusation that is as easily proven incorrect as that?

I mean seriously it's like you just wanted to ramble off some random MS hate and didn't bother to check whether you were even in the same universe as having a legitimate response.

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No actually the reason is GREED. Just look at how much MS charges for a Scandisk compatible USB drive after putting thier name all over it. Complete greed.

Scandisk compatible?

LOL. That was a good laugh...

What are you even talking about?

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Shane Nokes, you are one loyal fanboy.

To the OP: yes you can add a Microsoft branded HD. You can hack it yourself but with all the effort involved, you're sometimes just better off getting a legit one.

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Shane Nokes, you are one loyal fanboy.

Yup so much so that I also have a PS3 and grew up playing Atari, Sega, Colecovision, and Nintendo.

Next please?

I mean the 'scandisk compatible' dude and now this guy.

/Facepalm

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A friend of mine had an old 360 and took apart the hard drive casing from it (the big thing that clips on the top), and stuck the hard drive from that into the side slot on his new 360 and worked right away.

I went out and bought an official 320 GB drive for mine.

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crap, using non-microsoft xbox 360 HD won't get banned!

No but it introduces compatibility issues as well.

For example, I couldn't play a few Live Arcade games that I had downloaded to my WD HDD-whatever'd drive. It just said there was some error. I pinpointed it down to it being non-MS.

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A friend of mine had an old 360 and took apart the hard drive casing from it (the big thing that clips on the top), and stuck the hard drive from that into the side slot on his new 360 and worked right away.

I went out and bought an official 320 GB drive for mine.

XBox 360 HDs are just normal HD (crappy HDs in fact i would not put one of those in my PC as a main drive even if you would give me one free). Once you reformat them with NTFS it's gonna work with a PC as any drive would do. In fact the 250GB HD of my old broken XBox is in my Vantec Nextstar enclosure right now and is used as an external HD for my PC.

If you are curious the drive real capacity is 232GB. And since it's painfully slow i guess it's a 5400 rpm drive but i would need to open the enclosure to verify that.

As long as the drive is formated for the XBox 360 and has all the crap they might put on it for security *cough* piracy *cough* it's gonna work i'm almost sure of it.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Yup so much so that I also have a PS3 and grew up playing Atari, Sega, Colecovision, and Nintendo.

Next please?

I mean the 'scandisk compatible' dude and now this guy.

/Facepalm

I've been using a 320GB WD scorpio for more than a year with no issues (Xbox Live, DLC, Game Install, GOD Games etc) on my fat 360; you don't have the slightest idea how much I've saved (prices on Argentina are more than absurd), you can say everything you want, mock that guy for misspelling Sandisk etc etc but at the end ... facepalm on you :D

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I've been using a 320GB WD scorpio for more than a year with no issues (Xbox Live, DLC, Game Install, GOD Games etc) on my fat 360; you don't have the slightest idea how much I've saved (prices on Argentina are more than absurd), you can say everything you want, mock that guy for misspelling Sandisk etc etc but at the end ... facepalm on you :D

Its been just over 3 years since i hacked a 250gb drive, it's served me perfectly since the day i did :)

At the time an 120gb official Xbox 360 hard drive was ?90, it cost me a total of ?30 to hack a 250gb drive. I love to tinker with stuff, so if i can save ?60 doing so even better! That's ?60 i probably spent on arcade games since then anyway!

In regards to hard drive reliability its all personal preference, i used to only ever purchase Seagate however Western Digital appear to be a lot more reliable these days from personal experiences.

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  • 8 months later...
  • 1 year later...

I bought a 320 gb Microsoft hdd for $100. It did me good. Until the control board died. Then I had a useless piece if plastic. I then took another 320 gb laptop drive I had and flashed the firmware. Now I have a working hard drive.

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