How big is the 360 hard drive REALLY?

[norkusa]

I know they say it's 20Gb, but I've read a review of the system on Gamespot where they say it's actually about 14.5Gb after it's set up. I know HD's can "shrink" in size after your format them but loosing more than 25% of the space on a HD because of this ridiculous.

360 owners, how much available space was on your 360 hd's when you first set it up?

[pacmanhat]

Once I set mine up it had 11GB (11!). But it came preloaded with a lot of promotional junk, so I'm not sure how much of that can be easily removed.

[njiska]

Mine says it has 10 GB free and i've only downloaded about 1 GB on top of the pre-loaded promo content. Something is fishy.

[Kejoriv]

Mine says it has 10 GB free and i've only downloaded about 1 GB on top of the pre-loaded promo content. Something is fishy.

Can't you just delete all the promos, demos stuff?

[njiska]

Mine says it has 10 GB free and i've only downloaded about 1 GB on top of the pre-loaded promo content. Something is fishy.

Can't you just delete all the promos, demos stuff?

Yes you can and to aide anyone who want's to delete the stuff wasting space here are the file sizes.

A Look inside the Xbox 360 - 376 MB
Impossible Field Addias Commercial - 60 MB (This is actually pretty cool)
Warren Miller Films - 412 MB
Rebuilding the Titanic - 903 MB

All themes range from 1-3 MB

Gamer Pictures are Approx 60 KB each

The Stock music file sizes are unknown.

All in all it's about 2 GB of preloaded content

Near as i can tell the updates for playing emulated games are applied directly to the Dashboard and can't be removed.

[Mad Q]

My 360 is showing 12 gigs of space. Haven't downloaded any content to it yet.

[Kejoriv]

I know it shouldn't but would it matter what hd it was. Either the Premium one or the hd you can buy seperately for $100.

[TurboGenesis]

got 12 here

[THATinkjar]

I know it shouldn't but would it matter what hd it was. Either the Premium one or the hd you can buy seperately for $100.

I don't think the seperate hard drive is supposed to have additional promo content... which is, depending on how you look at it, a bonus. But, as others have already said, you can delete it, so...

[Mr.FoodMonster]

Whoever thought it was a good idea to have them stock with only 20 gigs should be fired. That wont last long at all, and it should've ATLEAST been 60 gigs.

[hezeuschrist]

I know it shouldn't but would it matter what hd it was. Either the Premium one or the hd you can buy seperately for $100.

I don't think the seperate hard drive is supposed to have additional promo content... which is, depending on how you look at it, a bonus. But, as others have already said, you can delete it, so...

I just set mine up, it does indeed have all the promo content on it. 12 songs, the 4 videos, 10 or so themes and a bunch of gamer pictures. I deleted most all of the themes, all the videos and all the music. I'm downloading a 100mb Condemed trailer right now, I'll tell you what I'm at after this finishes.

On a side note, I loaded the PDZ Theme to my HD from the bonus disc, but I don't know how to set themes. How?

[njiska]

I know it shouldn't but would it matter what hd it was. Either the Premium one or the hd you can buy seperately for $100.

I don't think the seperate hard drive is supposed to have additional promo content... which is, depending on how you look at it, a bonus. But, as others have already said, you can delete it, so...

I just set mine up, it does indeed have all the promo content on it. 12 songs, the 4 videos, 10 or so themes and a bunch of gamer pictures. I deleted most all of the themes, all the videos and all the music. I'm downloading a 100mb Condemed trailer right now, I'll tell you what I'm at after this finishes.

On a side note, I loaded the PDZ Theme to my HD from the bonus disc, but I don't know how to set themes. How?

From the Dashboard:
XBOX Guide Button>Personal Settings>Themes

I was wondering that myself after i downloaded the Penny-Arcade skin.

[doomedpeasant]

Mine had 12 GB

[Arkaign]

I've just gotta say, and this is almost certainly going to be similarly crappy on the PS3 but ...

WHY DID THEY GO WITH A TINY SLOW 2.5" HARD DRIVE?

Argh.

Laptop hard drives are twice as expensive, twice as slow (or slower than 2x!, think areal density + rotational speed), and the capacities are about 3x smaller than desktop drives.

Going with regular 3.5" Desktop hard drive could have meant having a FAST 160GB hard drive to start, and maybe a slightly larger design.

20GB is so 1999.

[njiska]

I've just gotta say, and this is almost certainly going to be similarly crappy on the PS3 but ...

WHY DID THEY GO WITH A TINY SLOW 2.5" HARD DRIVE?

Argh.

Laptop hard drives are twice as expensive, twice as slow (or slower than 2x!, think areal density + rotational speed), and the capacities are about 3x smaller than desktop drives.

Going with regular 3.5" Desktop hard drive could have meant having a FAST 160GB hard drive to start, and maybe a slightly larger design.

20GB is so 1999.

It's simply a matter of size nothing more.

[Arkaign]

I've just gotta say, and this is almost certainly going to be similarly crappy on the PS3 but ...

WHY DID THEY GO WITH A TINY SLOW 2.5" HARD DRIVE?

Argh.

Laptop hard drives are twice as expensive, twice as slow (or slower than 2x!, think areal density + rotational speed), and the capacities are about 3x smaller than desktop drives.

Going with regular 3.5" Desktop hard drive could have meant having a FAST 160GB hard drive to start, and maybe a slightly larger design.

20GB is so 1999.

It's simply a matter of size nothing more.

Trust me, it's also a matter of performance. I work in IT for a living, and you can tell a distinct improvement in performance (by observation and by benchmark) of drives with higher areal density, even at the same exact RPM.

Not to mention the cost factor. Look at prices of laptop hard drives vs. desktop hard drives. Yeah I know I always love to pay a lot more for a much slower smaller drive. Yes they're necessary for laptops, but it's an absolutely idiotic choice for a desktop/console. Sony will make the same exact decision no doubt.

Excellent article comparing 80gb platters vs 60gb platters, as well as the impact of varying cache sizes : http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/sto...xtor-hdds.html

I'll bottom line the article for you : Even with such a small difference in platter/areal density, the larger density drive was noticably faster. Now compare something with say a 20gb platter on a 5400rpm platform to a 160gb platter on a 7200rpm platform. You will likely discover that the 20gb item will be at least 3x slower in data throughput.

[Arkaign]

oops. Please delete this post thanks!

[njiska]

I've just gotta say, and this is almost certainly going to be similarly crappy on the PS3 but ...

WHY DID THEY GO WITH A TINY SLOW 2.5" HARD DRIVE?

Argh.

Laptop hard drives are twice as expensive, twice as slow (or slower than 2x!, think areal density + rotational speed), and the capacities are about 3x smaller than desktop drives.


Going with regular 3.5" Desktop hard drive could have meant having a FAST 160GB hard drive to start, and maybe a slightly larger design.

20GB is so 1999.

It's simply a matter of size nothing more.

Trust me, it's also a matter of performance. I work in IT for a living, and you can tell a distinct improvement in performance (by observation and by benchmark) of drives with higher areal density, even at the same exact RPM.

Not to mention the cost factor. Look at prices of laptop hard drives vs. desktop hard drives. Yeah I know I always love to pay a lot more for a much slower smaller drive. Yes they're necessary for laptops, but it's an absolutely idiotic choice for a desktop/console. Sony will make the same exact decision no doubt.

Excellent article comparing 80gb platters vs 60gb platters, as well as the impact of varying cache sizes : http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/sto...xtor-hdds.html

I'll bottom line the article for you : Even with such a small difference in platter/areal density, the larger density drive was noticably faster. Now compare something with say a 20gb platter on a 5400rpm platform to a 160gb platter on a 7200rpm platform. You will likely discover that the 20gb item will be at least 3x slower in data throughput.

I know all that, but i think you missed my point. I mean for MS it was nothing more then a size issue and that's all it will be for Sony with the PS3. The fact is in order to make the 360 small enough they had to go with a smaller drive.

Appearence and size were very important for Microsoft because a large bulky system doesn't cut it with the Japanese. Thus we have a laptop drive.

Beleive me i'm no fool i know there's a considerable performance difference between and full sized drive and a 2.5"

[Arkaign]

Sad 3x slower drive, tiny capacity (which is further gobbled up by spam and backwards compatibility that is undeletable?)

The power supply is already huge, they could have just put the 3.5" drive on top, and connected it with a .5mm sata wire that connected with it seamlessly. Would have added a little over 1" to the height of the bastard. And the console would be SMALLER

Anyways, don't take this as a dig on the 360 specifically, I just think it goes to show the priorities of Microsoft and Sony are pretty screwed up.

HD-DVD already got chopped, the backwards compatibility is wobbly, and we get a gimp hdd. If this is how the next gen is playing out, I fully expect a similar debacle with PS3.

[devilman]

I wouldn't have thought that the speed of the hard drive would've been a top priority. The differences wouldn't be all that noticeable when saving games and downloaded content wouldn't be accessed all the time would it? Just loaded up initially. I'm no expert, but I'd rather they kept the cost down by using modest drives.

[Arkaign]

That's just the thing, Dman, if they had selected a desktop drive, it would be :

(1)- CHEAPER
(2)- Tons more capacity (at lower price point)
(2a)- Resulting from this capacity, you could save TONS more music, video, add-ons, backward compatibility stubs, etc.
(3)- FASTER (probably 3x or more)

[devilman]

Could it be a power issue? Are 2.5" drives less draining perhaps?

[Arkaign]

Only a fraction of what the rest of the system is consuming. They're both 12v devices, and the x360 power supply is VERY capable

I think Nj hit the nail on the head : it was a factor of 'pretty design' winning out over practicality and performance.

[PS2Hawk]

th hard drive it 20 gigs, but you should know this...
xbox had a 10 gig hard drive but only 5 gig was for game saves.. by the way those 10 gigs were 8 and later on some people got lucky and got 10 gig in their xboxes.. so back to the point, the xbox hard drive had/has 3 partitions

X Y Z each is about 750 mb...
i think they have same sort of setup for 360
the hard drive is 20 but they have
X Y Z sorted out for Xbox Emulation and the some space
reserved for the 360 games...
so at the end you get abou t13~14 gigs on ur hands...

[Arkaign]

I'm really curious about something, and this won't make much sense unless you work on PCs a lot.

Step 1 : Locate another SATA laptop drive with the same FF, 9.5mm I believe, 100gb 7200rpm drives are available.

Step 2 : Remove 20gb tiny bastard hdd from the 360

Step 3 : Use Ghost 10.0 to image 20gb to 100gb drive, keeping various partitions proportionally identical.

Step 4 : Install 100gb drive in 360, boot, test.

Any word on hacks for 360 yet? Linux, divx/xvid playback?