USB Mass Storage Support on XBox 360 Coming April

Microsoft [MSFT] are releasing a firmware update for the XBox 360 on April 6 that will bring mass storage support on USB drives. This move will allow saved game date to be stored on a USB flash drive as well as other data including demos, profiles and more.

Once the firmware update is applied you need to visit the memory section of the menu system and configure the XBox to accept USB flash drives at that point. When inserting the drive a quick integrity check will be performed to ensure the flash drive is up to scratch and once done it will be ready for storing your saved data.

USB memory sticks up to 16GB in capacity can be used on the XBox 360. Well, I should say the XBox 360 will only take the first 16GB leaving the rest of the space to be used on your PC or Mac.

The information over on Major Nelson also states that USB hard drives “might” work, although the 16GB restriction will still apply leaving the rest of the space for use on a PC or Mac. He does however, recommend using flash drives for performance reasons.

USB Mass Storage Support

* You can have 2 devices connected to the console at a time, enabling up to 32GB of simultaneous storage.
* The system won’t just configure the device once it is connected to the console. You’ll need to head to the memory area in system settings, select your USB Device, and choose from Configure Now (Format and Configure the Full Device), or Customize (you can choose how much memory you want configured for Xbox360 from the free space on the device.)

A screen shot can be found below showing what the configuration section looks like.

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