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E3 2010: Xbox 360 Slim Propietary HDD

by Jun 14th 2010 3:20PM 12 Comments

E3 2010: Xbox 360 Slim Propietary HDDIn a big announcement at E3 today we saw the new Xbox 360 Slim looking all shiny and black coming with wireless N, 250 Gb HDD and a much smaller case. It is available now for all those gamers looking for new hardware but in a look behind the scenes Aaron Greenberg showed how the HDD worked. The HDD on the new system is completely different than the previous iterations and is not a normal laptop HDD that can be easily removed via a bay in the back of the system. Aaron also showed the interface for the Kinect on the back of the system.

What does this mean for gamers? You will not be able to switch out your HDD easily and upgrade to a 1 Tb drive or bigger without buying it directly from Microsoft. The big HDD is cool but it is a bit of a shame that they went the propietary route and did not leave it as a normal laptop HDD like the Playstation 3.

We will be trying to get more specs and hands on with it shortly so stay tuned for more info.

  • The

    The thing with standard HDDs is that you can pop it in to your PC and screw around with the data, if it hasn’t been done yet, it will be very shortly.

    Even thought Proprietary HDDs costs slightly more, I think it’s more secure.

    PS. Hex editing game data on PS3.

    • http://dualshockers.com Jon Ireson

      That is a very valid point. I didn’t think of it that way. However, I would *hope* that Microsoft and Sony can easily combat this given that they run an online network that most people are constantly connected to.

      You do bring up a very valid point though and this may be a good solution to that issue. From a consumer standpoint it still hurts that they are punishing the entire crowd for a few bad apples.

    • Munkee

      @The: But the most recent dashboard update enabled usb drives as game save devices. So the same thing is already possible w/ USB drives which is much more convenient than removing the units HDD and hooking up to PC to hex edit data. This just boils down to M$ wanting rake in more money w/ future HDD storage upgrades.

    • Hum

      That is a moot point.. The fact of using a standard storage medium doesn’t equate to instant tampering.

      1) Games already come in DVD (for Microsoft) or Bluray (for Sony). Does it mean you can tamper with games trivially using a PC drive? No.

      2) Non-standard file-systems can make life harder to any hacker. Add encryption and digital signatures on top of that and you have something just as hard to break as a bank digital security, only that this one is not so lucrative.

      – Is it impossible to hack either way? No. It will just take longer.
      On the other hand, it sure is more lucrative to the one and only maker of those non-standard devices, hence the choice.

      • Munkee

        That argument makes no sense.

        1. No you cant screw w/ the files on DVD/BR because the discs are READ ONLY. Thats a limitation of the medium itself. you can however rip the info from the disc w/ a standard PC, mod as you wish, then burn back to your own disc. But in this case the protection is handled by the system ODD itself which wont read a non MS burned disc. the protection doesnt come from the medium but the console hardware. if they really wanted to be secure they would have taken a page from SEGA and the DC and use a really obscure medium like they did w/ the GD-ROM.

        2. The file system on the 360 has been cracked for a while. whether your reading the HDD itself or a USB, its the same thing. And the file system on this new box is exactly the same as the old box. only difference is the physical connection of the drive (that is if its not already the standard SATA type connector) in which case its jsut a matter of figuring out the pin outs to a standard PC SATA connection and Xecuter or some other team will just create some sort of adapter like they did w/ the classic drive.

        and honestly at that point, if i were an xbox “hacker” and really wanted to edit my game saves, i woud just copy them to a usb drive, connect to my pc and edit as i wish, then copy back through the NXE dash, all w/o touching the internal hdd. Its already being done on the current box and the new box changes none of that. Just adds a new proprietary accessory to the list.

        • Hum

          1) My point exactly. Disc formats are standard, yet you can protect them against burned/tampered ones. (Looking at current gen 360 hard-drives. Yes there are working “non-official” ones, but so there are working burned games…)

          2) Of course FATX is hacked, but can you hack a proper implementation of file encryption and signatures? If you can don’t loose your time with games, start “doing” banks since they use basically the same stuff.

          Ditto about the USB update.

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  • john

    Yeah. “proprietary” – that’s why its connection looks like a standard laptop 2,5″ sata hdd. It connects thru plain old sata – and I bet that it’s just a standard sata laptop hdd in that black molded plastic case. And I also guess that that black hdd case can be torn apart and we will find a regular toshiba/hitachi/fujitsu/wd hard drive in there. No biggies. The fact that they give it with the machine makes flashing those 250 gb wb bevs/bevt hard drives a thing of the past. 250 gb is enough for holding quite a few installs / arcade games.

  • garrr

    seriously, guys, its microsoft… the only people MORE proprietary than them are the people @ apple/mac! let us not mince words… FACT: M$ has been successfully circumventing the rights of every consumer who purchased a 360 from the day it was released(while achieving the highest failure rate of any game console ever released, for the record!) without any substantial protest; in the absence of any motivating factor to induce a change of their tactics, could anyone really expect them to vary from their tried-and-true business strategy that has brought them nothing but profitability and global success? (yes, this is meant as a rhetorical question…)

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  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_I3B74YR6WOHJ2LVHTBDBBOVZ6A Maecenasies Maecenasies

    This is accessible now for all those gamers searching for new accouterments but in a attending abaft the scenes Aaron Greenberg showed how the HDD worked.

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