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Microsoft Xbox 360 Hard Drive 20 GB
by m_illie
I game a lot and my console of choice is usually my Xbox 360. We have two in my house, downstairs an old warn-out larger white console which is where I actually use this hard drive, and in my bedroom my boyfriend's Xbox which he leaves round mine, a newer more up-to-date version (that is until the new console is released, which I believe ... is happening at the end of May). The older console simply doesn't have the space I require to play the games I like as they tend to be hefty in terms of memory and alone doesn't possess the storage space I require.
Before using the hard drive I had simply stored my game data onto a memory card which slotted into the machine and gave me very little memory space, so getting a separate hard drive to attach to the console was a god send for me. The hard drive gave me the opportunity to experience more Xbox components than I had prior to purchasing, such as the market place where you can play game demos and download trailers. I felt like this added to my overall gaming experience, as well as making me feel more connected particularly when I didn't feel like playing online but could still reap the benefits of the online features.
If you are playing Xbox Live which is the only section of the console, where you can play with friends or random people across the world playing the same game, this hard drive is essential. Well, perhaps not strictly essential but if you desire a fuller gaming experience then I would definitely recommend as it gives you the option to download additional content. For example, I am able to download extra 'maps' when playing Halo/Call of Duty online which gives me much greater variety in my game playing, and means I can be entered into more parties of players.
The hard drive is very easy to set up as you simply slot it into place on either the left side (left of the disk tray if laying flat down) or the top depending on how you stand your Xbox. The storage space is marketed at 20GB but in reality its around 75% of that as some of the space is used in the running of Xbox original games and functions built in straight to the console. Around 13GB is enough for me but it is still quite annoying they are able to steal this extra space (and money!) off of you.
Though I do appreciate the extra components this hard disk allows me to have, it is essentially a rip off. It is marketed at around £50 which I simply wouldn't pay for it, especially now that the console itself is becoming more outdated. I purchased mine used on amazon for around £15 but now you can buy it used for closer to £8 or £9 which I think is much more reasonable. Having stolen 7GB off of you for system files and saves, it seems logical they would charge a less ridiculous price, but Microsoft do like to be extortionate in their pricing. This is why I would only buy this component used, as you can get a similar quality hard drive to one brand new for one-fifth the price.
Overall I would recommend this product to anyone looking to enhance their gaming, although bewarned it is expensive brand new and you will be robbed of space. I do think Microsoft should be a lot more upfront in this but they weren't (or at least I was so caught up in my brand new 'thingy' I simply didn't notice lol!) and this did leave me grumbling a little. I can play without having to trawl through old data searching for space and haven't yet receieved any warning or error messages (as so often is the case with Xbox products) and it has served me well in the time I've had it, which is well over a year now. For those who are more experienced gamers the space may not be enough, but for me it has served me well. Additionally it runs very well on my aging console downstairs, which has got to be around 6 years old now, which was a worry of mine when I purchased it. I would rate it only 3 stars however because of the capacity isn't huge for the price they charge, and for those who game more often than me may be left wanting more.
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Microsoft Xbox 360 Hard Drive 20 GB
by illusiveman
-When I bought this Product-
I first received an Xbox 360 for Christmas 2007 (I think it was 2007, I'm not a 100% sure), and almost immediately realized that I would need a hard drive as a 256mb memory card would nowhere near enough storage for my save games (I believe this was before they introduced being able to install ... games to the hard drive).
I started looking around at Hard Drives and found that I wouldn't be able to just buy a standard hard drive and fit it to the console, I knew straight away I would have to shell out for Microsoft's expensive option (although not as expensive as the bigger hard drives).
I paid roughly £70 from GAME for it at the time (I don't know the exact price as I bought something else at the same time so I only see the total amount I spent that day)
-Features-
At the time I bought this hard drive it was before they introduced being able to install games to the hard drive (this feature came about a year later according information I found online) so there were fairly limited options on what you could do with it.
This hard drive can be used to download game demos from Xbox Live, you can also download games that you may have paid for as long as you have the room on your hard drive.
You can also store your saves on the hard drive to save room on the memory card you may have had when you first received your console, you can also store your own music on it to play as part of a custom soundtrack during game play.
As of November 2008 this hard drive can also be used to install games to your hard drive which helps save wear and tear on the components inside the 360, it also helps the Xbox run quieter as the console doesn't have to read from the DVD all the time.
-Disadvantages/Limitations-
This hard drive is basically just a laptop hard drive installed in a plastic shell which makes it harder for upgrading later on as you would have to buy a very specific hard drive model and size, it would then have to be flashed using software on a pc which could be very difficult to do.
As mentioned above upgrading to a bigger hard drive through the official means would be expensive, although this was when the hard drives were new, nowadays you could easily buy a second hand hard drive from a store such as CEX for as little as £10 depending on the size of the hard drive.
-Overall Rating-
If you own an original style Xbox 360 console this hard drive (not necessarily this size though) would be a very useful investment. If you own the newer slim style Xbox this hard drive isn't suitable straight out of the box but can be inserted into the slot on the side of the Xbox (I would highly recommend buying a plastic case to make it a lot easier as they cost less than £5 from sites such as Ebay).
Due to the disadvantages mentioned above I will be giving this a 3/5 rating, if it was easier to replace the hard drive (without having to use a specific type of drive or annoying installation methods), overall this is a worthy investment if you have an original style Xbox (they are available dirt cheap from various second hand stores nowadays).
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Microsoft Xbox 360 Hard Drive 20 GB
by zombieflesh
I've been a big fan of video games since childhood and when the big three released their new wave of next-gen consoles I hopped straight on the bandwagon and settled in camp Microsoft, purchasing an Xbox 360 shortly after release. This poor old console has suffered from many issues including the notorious Red Ring Of Death, and the ... helpful people at Microsoft kindly replaced my hardware after my original console suffered its untimely fate. Since then there have been several modifications released, including the 360 Arcade console and the 360 Elite console, but I stuck with my original and have not been tempted to upgrade. It was only after gaming on my friends newer consoles that I realised my version is clearly outdated and the main cause of this problem lies within the hard drive. The hard drive itself was a bit of a revolution in gaming terms, as previously you only had two options: to play on cartridge games which would store the saved game within its own memory chip, or to play on disc games which required a separate memory card which plugged in to the console and allowed small segments of storage space for saved games.
The original Microsoft Xbox 360 console was released with a 20GB hard drive fitted as standard and at the time this seemed pretty generous, but since then there have been vast leaps in storage solutions and it's not unusual to find external hard drive storage weighing in at a whopping 1TB these days. I have recently chosen to upgrade my Xbox 360 hard drive rather than purchasing a whole new console, and thought I should give a fair review of my previous hard drive which has served me well over the years. Because this came as standard within my original console package I did not have to purchase it as an individual component. The RRP for an official Microsoft Xbox 360 20GB Hard Drive is £39.99, which I feel is overpriced, particularly when considering that an official Microsoft Xbox 360 120GB Hard Drive is around £79.99 so you get 6 times the storage space for just double the price. You can pick up a preowned 20GB hard drive unit for less than £10.00, and I was offered a trade in value of £4.00 for my old one, which I declined as I preferred to keep my old unit as a backup / spare.
Product description: "Expand your Xbox 360 experience with downloaded content. Save your games, Xbox Live gamer profile, game demos, and custom soundtracks from your own music collection. The Xbox 360 Hard Drive also lets you play an array of original Xbox games and even comes preloaded with an Xbox Live Arcade game, music, and videos."
The hard drive unit is a small little block that neatly slots in and out of the front side of the console. Mine is a light shade of grey in keeping with the white and grey accents from the original colour scheme. It came fitted into the console when I first bought it so I did not need to do anything to set it up, and I was simply ready to start playing games! The 20GB hard drive is actually a little misleading, as a full 7GB is already spoken for in terms of formatting, drivers and system files etc. This gives you a total of 13GB leftover to work with, and as soon as I hooked my Xbox 360 up to the internet I found that the amount of space I had on my hard drive rapidly dwindled, until my most recent Arcade game download where I was left with a few measly MBs remaining and then I panicked and realised that this hard drive was no longer sufficient for my needs. As a handy hint, every time you create a new save game file it will display all of the available storage devices and show a little meter with the remaining available space and how much in MB/GB this amounts to, so it was no surprise that my hard drive was getting full as I was able to see this amount frequently and know exactly how much space was left over. Everything that you can access via the Xbox Home pages will use up some of that space and even though I like to keep my hard drive clean and up to date, the amount of games and applications I was running became too much. I store my gamer profile on the main hard drive, along with my best friend's profile and my boyfriend's profile for when we're playing 2-player games. There's also a big backlog of save game data from all of the games that I am currently playing and have previously played through. I have some music saved onto the Xbox for when I want to use my own soundtrack playing over a game but this is a minimal use and I think it's best to avoid putting too much music on here as it's quite a laborious process and not really necessary unless you're going to listen to the music and game at the same time, otherwise I prefer to keep the bulk of my music files stored on my computer and transfer to my MP3 player or phone as needed. I like to use my Xbox for viewing content through Lovefilm, Netflix, youtube, iPlayer and 4oD, each of which needs to have an application installed to allow direct access to the video content. I have also found a few great games through the Xbox Marketplace, and downloading these has taken around 2GB of space each time, so in order to continue getting new game downloads through the Marketplace it was obvious that I would need more storage space.
Considering that I have had the console for about 7 years, and only started using it with my wireless internet connection about 18 months ago, I would have to say it has performed perfectly so far. If you are just going to use your Xbox to play games and only need the storage space for save game records then this 20GB hard drive will probably be enough to see you through. It's only since I got more into using my Xbox Live Account and discovered some great download-only games and add-on content that I've really started eating away at the memory space. You can directly access your storage devices through the main Xbox system menu, and this is a great way to keep a check on what you currently have saved. Everything is laid out clearly and you can find exactly what you're looking for through the menu sections. Next to each piece of data is a column that shows how much hard drive storage space is allocated to that individual item, which is really helpful for finding out what items are crowding the hard drive. Here, you can delete any outdated information that is no longer required. By viewing the information and file sizes, I decided to delete some of my old avatar items which were not really ever going to be used, and this freed up some extra space which was essentially just being wasted on pointless items. I also noticed that there were some applications I had downloaded but never used, so once again these were deleted straight away. You are also given the option to copy and move data, which I have done before to transfer save games onto a portable memory unit so I can continue with previous game progress through a friend's console. The hard drive has always performed reliably for me and I have not once had any issues with accessing any of the saved data. It is essential to have the data stored securely and Microsoft's expertise ensures that this hard drive is a safe option.
Overall I am really happy with the performance of this hard drive as it has allowed me to safely save and retrieve information for years without any problems or errors. The menus are incredibly user friendly and it's simple to use this hard drive to maximum effect as you can clearly see each thing that it stored on it and access/move/delete this as necessary. The only problem which I am now experiencing is that it has become outdated in terms of size, and I require a larger storage space to allow for the way in which I use my Xbox features. I can definitely recommend this hard drive unit in terms of performance, ease of use and reliability. However, based on price and value for money I think it makes more sense to purchase the larger 120GB hard drive if you need a replacement.
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