Save your Games! (and other stuff too!) (Microsoft Xbox 360 Hard Drive 20 GB)

Member Name: hackersuprciao

Product:	Microsoft Xbox 360 Hard Drive 20 GB
Date:	09/03/08 (2062 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Looks good, Space for savegames/live arcade games, Speed up load times

Disadvantages: Not really big enough for movies/xbox originals, not 20GB!

The Xbox 360 20GB Hard Drive is a necessity for all Xbox 360 users. It provides basic features that everyone will need.

Look
The Xbox 360 20GB Hard Drive is quite good looking, for a hard drive, it is very different from your basic PC hard drive. It has been modelled perfectly after the Xbox 360 styling so it will obviously fit in perfectly with your Xbox 360 console. The Hard Drive itself is a rounded rectangular box; it has a reasonable weight to it and feels pretty solid in its construction. On the top you get a shiny metallic badge which reads HDD in faded white lettering (in the Xbox 360 font of course) the metal finish makes it feel really nice and makes me think of a quality device like the metallic skinned iPod.

Around the drive you get a chrome finish, unfortunately this isn't metal but it looks really nice and blends in nicely with the Xbox 360 disk tray. On the back of the drive you have a connector which slots into your Xbox 360 as well as a small diagram which shows you how to install it. There are also some cooling vents but they are slightly pointless as they are on the side that sits on your Xbox 360 so no air would go in! The only disappointing, yet very important bit, is the catch that connects your Xbox to your Hard Drive is a little flimsy and feels like it could easily break if you pushed it to enthusiastically, so be careful.

Using the HD
Installing the Xbox 360 hard drive is very easy, simply sit it on top of your console and then press down, once you hear a click it is done. Now you can enjoy all the benefits that a hard drive has to offer. The first thing you will notice when you go to use your hard drive is that it is not the 20GB that has been advertised you get more like 13GB, which is significantly less.

The hard drive has a multitude of uses, of course you can use it to save your game data, as it is 13GB and game data takes up a few MB at most you will basically be able to own as many games as you like and have the ability to save whenever you want. Secondly you can use it to get content from Microsoft's online service Xbox Live, here you can download arcade games which are around 100mb at most so will fit on your drive with ease, themes and gamer pictures which are also a couple of MB at most, Movies, here's where the Hard Drive starts to feel a little small, a movie can take up over 7GB so as well as taking a long time to download it will eat half your disk space! The same can be said for the Xbox Originals service as an Xbox game takes up from 5-9GB. If you are going to be getting a lot of movies and Xbox Originals I would recommend stepping up to the 120GB drive. Slightly less space consuming are the demos which can clock in a few hundred MB to around 1GB so you have enough room for at least 13 of them.

As well as providing space for your content, the Hard Drive can improve your gaming experiences, it can cache data from games to speed up loading times and issues like texture popping, it is also necessary for some games so if you want full access to the Xbox 360 library a hard drive is a must.

Price & Conclusion
If you have bought the Xbox 360 Premium package you will be delighted to know that this Hard Drive comes as standard, if you have the Elite you will be lucky enough to have the 120GB version. If you have bought an Xbox Core or Arcade system, I highly recommend you put your memory card on eBay and purchase this, you will have a much more pleasant experience with your console. The drive is a little pricey for the amount of space it offers at around £69.99. It offers you space for your save games and online content, looks good, will speed up loading times as well as give you full access to every Xbox 360 title. On the downside you won't get the fully advertised 20GB, if you download a lot of movies and Xbox originals you will be disappointed and the catch is slightly flimsy. Overall it's a good device that is a must for Xbox 360 owners. 4/5

Summary: A great 13GB Hard Drive for your Xbox 360.

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