Question about Upgrading/Adding an HDD to 360

[L3gi0n0fh311]

I have some unmodded Xbox 360 Slims and I want to add internal HDDs to them...

I am using this guide. In the guide it is mentioned that:

Hddhackr 1.40 will only work with the following Western Digital drive series: BEAS/BEVS/BEVT/BPVT/LPVT/BEKT/BJKT/BPKT/BUDT/HLFS/BLFS/BPVX/LPCX

The drive must be a compatible WD drive listed in the guide ? or is there a way to use any brand of HDD ?

--------------------------------

Some more questions:

- Does SATA2 vs SATA3 matter for Xbox 360 ? Does a SATA3 HDD make things faster compared to a SATA2 HDD ? (I am guessing it doesn't matter since the SATA interface for Xbox 360 is SATA2 anyway ?)

- SATA3 HDDs are more recent and less likely to fail ?

- Does 7200RPM vs 5400RPM matter(loading speeds, copying the game to the disk and etc) ?

 

[master801]

The drive must be a compatible WD drive listed in the guide ? or is there a way to use any brand of HDD ?

HddHackr works only with those specific drives iirc. Other models may be compatible but isn't guaranteed.


https://digiex.net/threads/xbox-360-how-to-flash-your-hddss-bin-in-windows.8569/

In this guide it shows how to manually edit the hard drive and could potentially allow for other drive manufacturers to be used, but it is never explicitly stated that it will work with other drive manufacturers - just that it "may".

But from the response given in that thread, the compatibility is extremely poor and a complete tossup on whether it works or not.

tl;dr It's a safer bet buying the known compatible models, rather than buying and experimenting if the (cheaper) drive works or not with either method. If you have spare drives laying around you can experiment on and don't mind potentially destroying, more power to you.

- Does SATA2 vs SATA3 matter for Xbox 360 ? Does a SATA3 HDD make things faster compared to a SATA2 HDD ? (I am guessing it doesn't matter since the SATA interface for Xbox 360 is SATA2 anyway ?)

Absolutely not. If a SATA3 or SATA6 drive were to be used on a SATA2 system, it wouldn't be able to use the SATA3 or SATA6 speeds.

- SATA3 HDDs are more recent and less likely to fail ?

All hard drives fail one day or another, it just depends on whether or not it was built like crap. In my opinion, it also depends on manufacturer. But that may be superstition.

- Does 7200RPM vs 5400RPM matter(loading speeds, copying the game to the disk and etc) ?

Yes, RPM does matter - although not by much.

RPM - "Revolutions per minute"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutions_per_minute

Basically means how fast the platters inside the hard drives spin.

You'll have better read and write speeds, but in my opinion, not by much - especially considering the Xbox 360 still uses SATA2 and can't take really advantage of any full potential.

Though this question is pointless in my opinion, considering that the given compatible 7200 RPM drives (WD5000LPLX @ 11-12 USD) cost even LESS than the given compatible 5400 RPM drives (WD5000BPVT @ 15 USD).

 

[FAST6191]

The main way to use other hdds than the ones with hdss.bin files for is to modify it to be a RGH machine (JTAG if you can on earlier models). In that case you can use whatever 2.5 inch sata drive you like of any size/manufacturer you like, or full size if you fancy making a way to get 12V to it or it is one of those ones without it.
If you are not willing to do that then time to find a compatible one, I would not even mess with trying to get another type to appear as the requisite type for this right now. Maybe in a few years if prices of compatible ones shoot up and options to mod things to emulate drives easily drop down, though I would hope by then Live would be dead on those models and some kind of nice and easy RGH equivalent mod will be available.

Slower drives might well be old stock but for mechanical drives then it is all about the condition and usage anyway. I have had ones last 30 years, and I have had them fail in less than one. They are delicate mechanical things so dropping them and cooking them is not advised, people do anyway. If doing the RGH thing you do also end up with SSDs being an option.

 

[veraci_00]

I did this on a stock system a long time ago, and it worked without issue. however, iirc, the maximum size for this mod is 500GBs. I think the ss.bin only allows for up to that size. I only did it, because microsoft rips you off with their hdds. a laptop hdd at three times the price?

 

[L3gi0n0fh311]

Yes, RPM does matter - although not by much.

RPM - "Revolutions per minute"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutions_per_minute

Basically means how fast the platters inside the hard drives spin.

You'll have better read and write speeds, but in my opinion, not by much - especially considering the Xbox 360 still uses SATA2 and can't take really advantage of any full potential.

Though this question is pointless in my opinion, considering that the given compatible 7200 RPM drives (WD5000LPLX @ 11-12 USD) cost even LESS than the given compatible 5400 RPM drives (WD5000BPVT @ 15 USD).

Out of the compatible WD HDDs, Does it matter which model it is ? Are WD blacks better than blues ? which one of the following models is better ?

WD5000BPKT SATA2 7200RPM Black
WD5000BPKX SATA2 7200RPM Black
WD5000LPCX SATA3 5400RPM Blue
WD5000LPVX SATA3 5400RPM Blue
???

 

[FAST6191]

https://www.westerndigital.com/solutions/color-drives

Blue tended to be the slightly cheaper options (they claim a storage focus but that is marketing slime talk) where black were performance focused.

How much the performance will change anything, especially if you are doing DVD based play,

Sata2 vs 3 in this context is meaningless as the 360 is 2 only as far as I am aware (3 did not come about until 2009 or so and was a minute before drives/motherboards appeared with it, granted that is before the slims appeared but eh).

5400 vs 7200...
If it was purely a matter of speed then the 5400 not be considered, however if we are to consider which is more likely to go the distance then it probably still depends who dropped it between the factory and its years long path to today but assuming a vaguely good life and not being one of the exceptions* then 5400s might stand a better chance.

I am not aware of anybody reporting any big deal breakers compared to something like early hybrid drives where 1 year lifetime was often the way. Could have missed it though as that side of storage world is dry and nerdy even by my standards. At the same time whether a 5400rpm rated blue is the junk they just about got to work where the 7200 black is when all the materials and stars aligned to give them a cream of the crop I can't say either, can be that or it can be that they figured they would sell more blues so downrate the blacks and send them out to make money rather than it sitting on the shelf.


*I have had otherwise good drives from good makers die -- the mtbf thing you might see advertised being measured in thousands of hours is not how long it expects to last but how long if you had say 1000 of them running in your data centre you would expect to see a total run time of before one failed. Or if you prefer keep backups of anything you care about. By similar token I would also prefer one that has has its first 500 hours in this as failures tend to happen out of the box as it were and years later, make it to the first 500-1000 hours and death by old age becomes far more viable.

 

[master801]

Out of the compatible WD HDDs, Does it matter which model it is ? Are WD blacks better than blues ? which one of the following models is better ?

WD5000BPKT SATA2 7200RPM Black
WD5000BPKX SATA2 7200RPM Black
WD5000LPCX SATA3 5400RPM Blue
WD5000LPVX SATA3 5400RPM Blue
???

Depends on what you want. If you want a higher performance drive, go with a (Scorpio) Black.

How Western Digital markets their drives:
(Scorpio) Black: 7200 RPM (enthusiast / top shelf)
Blue: 5400 RPM (consumer)
Green: 5400 RPM (consumer - no longer being marketed for HDDs)

In my opinion, BPKT and BPKX will perform the same, but technically BPKT is SATA3 and BPKX is SATA6.

Pick your poison - either one will work.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

I have some unmodded Xbox 360 Slims and I want to add internal HDDs to them...

I am using this guide. In the guide it is mentioned that:



The drive must be a compatible WD drive listed in the guide ? or is there a way to use any brand of HDD ?

--------------------------------

Some more questions:

- Does SATA2 vs SATA3 matter for Xbox 360 ? Does a SATA3 HDD make things faster compared to a SATA2 HDD ? (I am guessing it doesn't matter since the SATA interface for Xbox 360 is SATA2 anyway ?)

- SATA3 HDDs are more recent and less likely to fail ?

- Does 7200RPM vs 5400RPM matter(loading speeds, copying the game to the disk and etc) ?

SATA 2 vs 3 only matters for SSDs. 3.5" HDDs are barely able to saturate SATA 2, and 2.5" HDDs don't get close.