Xbox One 500GB hard drives can't be replaced

[spaceelf]

Just as an aside here, my Xbox 360 HD died and I'm pretty sure its just because the securing mechanism and cooling they had for the 360 ones was crap. I'm all for a properly built in one whether I can replace it or not. And being able to attach a USB3 HD makes this an awesome upgrade over the 360 on the much rarer case that one dies.

I never touched a 360 slim so can't speak for the stuff in between.

[compl3x]

He posted several rumors that MS has already said isn't true or isn't final and the final workings are still unknown. Meanwhile he hasn't posted any of the many many news posted on Polygon discounting all these rumors or talking about them and how they will actually work in a positive way. He's cherry picking news for the sole purpose of flame baiting.

Honestly he should stop worrying about the XBOX ONE that he won't buy, and get back to the Sony forums and post positive things about his own baby.

Posting rumours isn't forbidden. Games sites the web over do it.

Anyway, MS are like every other company: they don't comment on rumours, remember? So how would he know they were false rumours before posting them?

The gaming section would be pretty inactive if AB didn't post. You mightn't like or agree with everything he posts, but until he starts breaking the rules I suggest everyone should lay off the guy and post their own positive topics.

[jakem1]

I'm not familiar with Audioboxer's posting history but I found his posts helpful (there is a lot of information to get through and I think it makes sense to break it up into targeted posts) and didn't think they were negative - he's just been reporting the news as it comes out. People will have different opinions about some of the decisions MS have made but I haven't seen any evidence of trolling and think the discussions have been generally civil.

[xWhiplash]

Why is it such a big deal to hook external hard drives up? If there are no size limitations to the drive, you can have unlimited storage in the sense that you can just go out and get another external hard drive. Plus if one drive dies, it is NOT a single point of failure. If your internal drive dies, you still have your data on your externals. If one of your externals dies, your internal is still there.

I guess most of the complainers never experienced data loss. I will never again put all my stuff in one hard drive. If that thing dies, everything is gone. I never buy anything more than 1TB, so I have several internal 1TB drives and several external 1TB drives. My important data is on several drives and in the cloud. If one of my drives dies, it will be an issue for sure, but nothing drastic as if I had one 4TB drive die.

[George P Global Moderator]

Why is it such a big deal to hook external hard drives up? If there are no size limitations to the drive, you can have unlimited storage in the sense that you can just go out and get another external hard drive. Plus if one drive dies, it is NOT a single point of failure. If your internal drive dies, you still have your data on your externals. If one of your externals dies, your internal is still there.

I guess most of the complainers never experienced data loss. I will never again put all my stuff in one hard drive. If that thing dies, everything is gone. I never buy anything more than 1TB, so I have several internal 1TB drives and several external 1TB drives. My important data is on several drives and in the cloud. If one of my drives dies, it will be an issue for sure, but nothing drastic as if I had one 4TB drive die.

People also forget that things are tied to your account/profile and save files get saved up to the cloud as well as long as there's a internet connection to do so. This means that, although it will suck if the internal does die on you, that you'll just have to red/l things on the new drive after you get it serviced and returned to you. We don't know if you can move things off to externals from the internal but if you can then having a backup would be great I'm sure.

[BajiRav]

Posting rumours isn't forbidden. Games sites the web over do it.

Anyway, MS are like every other company: they don't comment on rumours, remember? So how would he know they were false rumours before posting them?

The gaming section would be pretty inactive if AB didn't post. You mightn't like or agree with everything he posts, but until he starts breaking the rules I suggest everyone should lay off the guy and post their own positive topics.

I'm not familiar with Audioboxer's posting history but I found his posts helpful (there is a lot of information to get through and I think it makes sense to break it up into targeted posts) and didn't think they were negative - he's just been reporting the news as it comes out. People will have different opinions about some of the decisions MS have made but I haven't seen any evidence of trolling and think the discussions have been generally civil.

I see your point but I think two threads are sufficient to cover two topics, right? Besides, I am not the only person who has noted his behavior since the conference (which I found was awful and only good thing I can talk about is the HyperV stuff).

[spaceelf]

I see your point but I think two threads are sufficient to cover two topics, right? Besides, I am not the only person who has noted his behavior since the conference (which I found was awful and only good thing I can talk about is the HyperV stuff).

It was focused on what's new. Being able to play games on a gaming machine isn't new.

It makes more sense with E3 being right around the corner. If it'd been a big all in one announcement it would've been more impressive, but they'd have nothing to show at E3.

[BajiRav]

It was focused on what's new. Being able to play games on a gaming machine isn't new.

It makes more sense with E3 being right around the corner. If it'd been a big all in one announcement it would've been more impressive, but they'd have nothing to show at E3.

Well with that logic...

Watching TV on Xbox is not new

Video calling on Xbox is not new (although Skype is)

Sports apps and games on Xbox is not new

Smart Glass is not new

Watching movies on Xbox is not new

Halo TV series had nothing to do with either the gaming part or the hardware.

CoD on Xbox is not new

[spaceelf]

Well with that logic...

Watching TV on Xbox is not new

Video calling on Xbox is not new (although Skype is)

Sports apps and games on Xbox is not new

Smart Glass is not new

Watching movies on Xbox is not new

Halo TV series had nothing to do with either the gaming part or the hardware.

CoD on Xbox is not new

And yet, how it all worked in one modern OS without any delays or only doing one app at a time is. Pulling the video from another source instead of its own marketplace or recordings from a computer is.

Having the sports app working alongside/with the actual TV stream is.

Having a massively upgraded Kinect sensor tying all this together is.

I assume you have a point.

[BajiRav]

And yet, how it all worked in one modern OS without any delays or only doing one app at a time is. Pulling the video from another source instead of its own marketplace or recordings from a computer is.

Having the sports app working alongside/with the actual TV stream is.

Having a massively upgraded Kinect sensor tying all this together is.

I assume you have a point.

I was just pointing out that not everything they showed is new. My point is simple: games should come first for a new console. Good games, even sequels should've been shown with actual gameplay.

[George P Global Moderator]

One thing I just heard listening to Windows Weekly is that the X1 has RemoteFX support, i.e., it can push out graphics from a server to the device. This hasn't been talked about in detail, probably waiting for BUILD or maybe E3. I think that the X1 can in fact stream games from the cloud and that developers can use this to push out parts of the game to you.

E3 should be good for more games and general details but I think BUILD will be even more interesting once we see how developers can use everything.

[Graimer]

Am I the only one who noticed that the USB3.0 plug on the left side of X1 was inside a "hole"? It looked like the hole could work with a lock that snaps into place, so you could attach some accessory using the USB3.0 If I'm right, Microsoft would propably provide an external harddrive as accessory later, which would attach like the original 360's hdd did.

[ctrl_alt_delete]

One thing I just heard listening to Windows Weekly is that the X1 has RemoteFX support, i.e., it can push out graphics from a server to the device. This hasn't been talked about in detail, probably waiting for BUILD or maybe E3. I think that the X1 can in fact stream games from the cloud and that developers can use this to push out parts of the game to you.

E3 should be good for more games and general details but I think BUILD will be even more interesting once we see how developers can use everything.

I think that's where the cloud computing comes in.

just wishful thinking but they should make the x1s connect and share resources.

[Sylar0]

Ill state I've never owned an Xbox so i'm dumb on this but why would the HDD fail since a few people seemed to mention it I have had millions of HDDs over the years and not one has EVER failed. Used all different brands.

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

Why is it such a big deal to hook external hard drives up? If there are no size limitations to the drive, you can have unlimited storage in the sense that you can just go out and get another external hard drive. Plus if one drive dies, it is NOT a single point of failure. If your internal drive dies, you still have your data on your externals. If one of your externals dies, your internal is still there.

I guess most of the complainers never experienced data loss. I will never again put all my stuff in one hard drive. If that thing dies, everything is gone. I never buy anything more than 1TB, so I have several internal 1TB drives and several external 1TB drives. My important data is on several drives and in the cloud. If one of my drives dies, it will be an issue for sure, but nothing drastic as if I had one 4TB drive die.

Some of us salivate at the idea of replacing an internal drive with a SSD. Unfortunately due to the costs creating this consoles neither Sony or MS will use SSD drives. That of course isn't a big deal, it's just nice to use a fast drive. I know you can use external, but one wonders if MS by default will use the internal drive for OS features/or by default till it's full before using external.

[compl3x]

I am not the only person who has noted his behavior since the conference

Noted his behaviour? Come on, dude, you're making him sound like he is posting some hateful ****.

[spenser.d]

Some of us salivate at the idea of replacing an internal drive with a SSD. Unfortunately due to the costs creating this consoles neither Sony or MS will use SSD drives. That of course isn't a big deal, it's just nice to use a fast drive. I know you can use external, but one wonders if MS by default will use the internal drive for OS features/or by default till it's full before using external.

I understand that desire, but can you really see any significant performance gains by throwing a SSD into a console that wasn't created to take advantage of one? And I imagine you'll just be able to choose your save location like you can now (Cloud, HD1, HD2, etc), but who knows until they say more. OS features will probably always be on the internal drive (probably why you can't replace it).

[Goldenheaven]

I for one think this: Same architecture as pc, just open a new xbox one and take out the hard drive and try to make it work on that said pc.

That being said, if possible could point to one of the reasons MS wont allow you to change the hdd, the second and probably the most accurate is MS states you can't Legally change the hard drive to avoid piracy.

[+Warwagon MVC]

Cool. So install your games there, and take that with you to your friend's flat. Issue solved.

Seeing how Hard drives are the #1 computer component likely to fail, I can see this biting them in the ass. I can see failing hard drives as the next RROD.

[HawkMan]

Seeing how Hard drives are the #1 computer component likely to fail, I can see this biting them in the ass. I can see failing hard drives as the next RROD.

:facepalm:

[TheLegendOfMart]

Why is it such a big deal to hook external hard drives up? If there are no size limitations to the drive, you can have unlimited storage in the sense that you can just go out and get another external hard drive. Plus if one drive dies, it is NOT a single point of failure. If your internal drive dies, you still have your data on your externals. If one of your externals dies, your internal is still there.

The OS has 3GB RAM reserved just for itself, it is almost guaranteed that the OS will live on the HDD, if your HDD dies you Xbox will die and if you aren't in a position to get it replaced, you don't want to wait a week or two to get it back or it is out of warranty you are screwed.

[HawkMan]

Well since you're in Europe you have 5-6 years warranty on HDD failures.

[TheLegendOfMart]

So after 4 years 11 months I can go to Microsoft and say my HDD is broken and they will fix my Xbox for free?

No.

[The Evil Overlord]

Well since you're in Europe you have 5-6 years warranty on HDD failures.

ok but I didn't think that warranty would cover a hard fitted (or non user removable) drive

on a side note, are you sure about the 5-6 years? Some retailers can offer extended warranties, but I didn't think it included hard drives, and I thought 1 or 2 years manufacturer's warranty was the norm....

[George P Global Moderator]

Uhh, I get that the OS might reserve a good chunk of RAM for things, it has to since it can multitask, but reserving it and using it all at the same time are two different things. Windows by default has always done this but if it's not in use at the time and something else needs it, you know, like a game, the OS is smart enough to release it to the game. This is also why we have the pagefile, idle apps that have been sitting in the background doing nothing for hours get paged out though the RAM is held until something else needs it.

I still believe that the core OS and bits needed for the console to actually work, just not at 100% are stored on the board and not the hdd, the hdd looks just like a standard, though encrypted SATA hdd. It'd be a security target for anyone trying to hack the X1 to pirate or do w/e and can be taken out and attached to a PC to tinker with. I'm sure parts of the system are on the hdd, no doubt, but the core could very well be stored off it. If this is the case, and I think it is because it makes more sense to do it this way for security, then we honestly don't know what state it'll be in if the hdd does die or how they'll handle it.