What is the Best External Hard Drive for Xbox 360?
Ask a modern-day classroom what everyone’s favorite hobbies are. You will get the traditional “reading a book, playing outside, walking, biking” answers, of course, but there is one that is increasingly common: gaming. Not only are there more and more people playing video games, but they also like to play a variety of them. In some cases, the console’s internal storage space will not be large enough to hold the number of games the user would like. In these instances, reaching for an external drive is the optimal solution. The choice isn’t always simple though, so in this text, we would like to settle the question: what is the best external hard drive for Xbox 360?
The Seagate Portable 2TB External Hard Drive Portable HDD – USB 3.0 tops the Amazon best-seller list in the category of best external drives, so the general consensus is that it is the best option for anyone wanting to extend their storage space on their console.
Though the Seagate does win the first place, we wanted to stay impartial and give credit to a couple of other products as well, which are almost exactly as good as the Seagate. If you are interested to learn more about the #1 external drive for Xbox 360-s and a couple of competitors who have gotten quite close to it, this article is for you!
What is the Best External Hard Drive for Xbox 360?
According to Amazon, the Seagate 2 TB External HDD is your best option for increasing your Xbox storage capacity. It is a reliable, fast, and affordable option, and it is no wonder that it is the product that tops all best-seller charts in its category. Not only is it the market leader according to Amazon, but pages like hddmag.com also rate it as number 1. So what is the reason for that?
We are living at a time when Xbox series X is being launched into the market when games of hundreds of GB-s are starting to get more and more frequent. It only makes sense then, that if one wants to buy an older console, the 360, they are probably going to be able to afford more of the older and cheaper games (which can also be amazing, to clarify), which will also require more storage. The maximum external storage space that the Xbox 360 will recognize is 2 TB, so don’t bother buying an expensive, 8 TB external drive, you will be disappointed to find that you spent unnecessary cash.
However, even if you can’t go over 2 TB, it is worth it to top it out and buy a 2 TB hard drive. You will probably spend a lot of time playing on your console, even if you don’t plan like it beforehand. Not only will the external drive have to help out in storing all the games you own, but also the in-game progress data, possible DLC-s you will get, and more. 2 TB is a reasonable size from this perspective, and the most reasonably priced product with this sort of capacity that still delivers high-quality performance is the Seagate.
At around 60 USD for one of these gadgets (with 1-year rescue service included), we didn’t have to contemplate long in order to buy and test one. It really doesn’t break the bank, but on the other hand, provides all you would want a 2 TB HDD to provide. It is fast for an HDD, quiet, and though it might not be the absolute most important thing: it has a pretty neat design. Simplistic, yet not cheap-looking. We would absolutely recommend it, it worked perfectly well with our Xbox. It is quite a no-brainer, actually.
Another great option we would recommend if you aren’t in favor of Seagate drives is the WD 2TB Elements Portable External Hard Drive, USB 3.0. What we have to mention, though, that concerning any external drive that we mention in this article, is that Xbox 360 consoles are equipped with the previous USB technology, USB 2.0. This doesn’t mean that they won’t work with the USB 3.0 cables that come with these devices but don’t be surprised if they don’t work with the speeds written on the box, since they will only work at USB 2.0 speeds. But back to the WD: it is like the twin brother of the Seagate, except maybe a little bit louder and with a slightly different design. It is also a good, simple, fast HDD that will serve you just as well as the Seagate. The reason it is behind on the list, however, is the aforementioned noise it sometimes does produce, sometimes making it almost as loud as the Xbox itself when it’s running a heavy game.
The next and last alternative we wanted to include on this list is the Seagate FireCuda 2TB Solid State Hybrid Drive Performance SSHD. It is quite different from the usual SSD-s and HDD-s reviewed on tech pages; it is specifically designed with gaming in mind. SSHD-s are hybrid technology. This means they are a mix of HDD and SSD. This specific model has an 8 GB SSD (NAND flash storage) compartment in it to boost the processes which are repeated frequently. The way to actually gain the advantages of this special device is to only judge once you have turned on the console and started playing a couple of times. The system will recognize the usage pattern and use the flash storage part to quickly access data needed for repeated processes, thus providing a significantly faster gaming experience. We recommend this to anyone a bit more serious about playing on their Xbox since the casual gamer might not want the fuss of the hybrid system and also might not want to pay anywhere from 90 to 130 USD for such a product.
How do you format an external drive for Xbox 360?
Though usually, gamers know how to format an external drive for Xbox 360 consoles, there are definitely some people reading these articles who don’t even know that the process has to be done in order to be able to use the external drive in the first place. That is the reason why we put together a short summary of the instructions one must follow in order to execute this process smoothly.
So first of all, the drive needs to be formatted FAT32. The easiest way to do this is to connect the drive to your Xbox 360 console, go into the settings, then choose storage settings. When in storage settings, choose the drive and click on format. This way the drive will be formatted and you can go on using it properly.
The other way to format your drive is with your laptop or PC. If you have a machine that runs on Windows 10, you will also have a really easy job. Connect the external drive to your PC or laptop, open This PC, then Manage, then Disk Management. Once you entered that system setting window, chose your hard drive, and usually with a right-click or another pop-up window, you can access the types of formatting you can have the system do. Choose FAT32 and you are done.
If you have a Mac, it is somewhat different, though not much harder. Open up Launchpad and search for Disk Utility. Select your drive and click ERASE. Give your drive a new name and select the type of formatting, which in this case will be called MS-DOS (FAT). Then select Master Boot Record for Scheme and go on formatting your disk.
Can you put an SSD in an Xbox 360?
Though a better-quality HDD is more than enough to handle any task you might want to do on an Xbox 360, some people do wonder whether putting an SSD into their console would help with speed. The answer is yes, maybe. The fact is, SSD-s are significantly faster than HDD-s and also usually more durable.
The problem, however, is that Xbox 360-s are only compatible with USB 2.0. More precisely, you can connect an SSD with a USB 3.0 cable, but you probably won’t get much of a speed advantage because the data transfer speed will be capped at USB 2.0 speeds, since that is only what the console can handle. So if you are really motivated, feel free to try putting an SSD in your Xbox, it might speed it up somewhat, but we don’t recommend spending money for an SSD when a good HDD for half or third of the price will do just as fine.
