Can I use an SSD instead?

[Hambrew]

Can I, if I unlocked an XBOX (i don't have any XBOXs, but just wondering) to support other hard drives, could I possibly use a SSD in place of an XBOX hard drive?

 

[Deleted User]

Can I, if I unlocked an XBOX (i don't have any XBOXs, but just wondering) to support other hard drives, could I possibly use a SSD in place of an XBOX hard drive?

Yes will need adapter

 

[Hambrew]

yay

are usbs a possibility

 

[WD_GASTER2]

for original xbox's no.

 

[Hambrew]

for original xbox's no.

AS A HARD DRIVE using some adapters

 

[Deleted User]

AS A HARD DRIVE using some adapters

Yes if its usb header isnt soldered on and will also need ide to sata adapter kingwin etc

 

[DinohScene]

Xbox only supports USB 1.1.
USB loading doesn't exist, only way to play games is disc and from the HDD.

 

[FAST6191]

Softmod only supports drives that can do the locking thing. While it is part of the IDE spec not all drives will. http://xboxdrives.x-pec.com/?p=list has a nice list you can search.

TSOP/chip supports any drive as they don't need to lock. Recall that TSOP models of xbox are the older models and the last ones made will need a chip.

Most SSDs you will find today are going to be SSD in nature. IDE/pata SSDs did exist for a hot moment but they are rare these days, usually very small and probably quite slow as these things go.

SATA to IDE/PATA adapters do exist. I am not aware of any that support/emulate locking, and if there are any then you will have to look for very specific model numbers (no such list or anything). Someone in the future might have a look at this sort of thing similar to how we see optical drive emulation devices being made for all manner of other systems this last few years but that would be the future.
To that end you would have to couple a chip/TSOP mod with an adapter and cram it all in the case (there is some space for such things but some of the adapters I have seen might see you struggle a bit, though in this case with a 2.5 inch SSD that might offset things).

Said adapters are not typically the fastest things on earth either (it is kind of a niche thing) so I don't expect much in the way of speed boost or anything, and frankly loading things from a hard drive is already prone to considerably boosting things over what a DVD (or even worse a file by file dumped ISO) would achieve.

If you have a stock of such SSDs for some reason then yeah, otherwise a decent IDE drive should still be reasonably available, and you can probably pick up a few IDE drives of decent nature, set them up ahead of time and set up a thing to auto copy your saves and whatnot whenever it sees the xbox on the network.

 

[thetechbros]

yes but the xbox doesnt have the technology to read ssd that fast so a waist of money

 

[NeMesiS]

If you want to use SSD I recommend the ORICO 2.5 to 3.5 adapter as it will put the SATA and Power connections where they would be if it was a full size 3.5
I've used cheaper chinese adapters without issues but I do replace there chinese capacitors with RubiCons...
In this case I would use a Ultra IDE (80 wire) cable...

HINT: I use 80cm IDE cable and can fold it in a way where there's no rats nest and doesn't require flipping of the HDD IDE connector...
Another HINT when using an SATA to IDE adapter... It is possible to take the molex connector apart and put the wires in upside down,
so that you have nice fitting cables (cable management)...

I can post an image if anyone's interested...

 

[barronwaffles]

@FAST6191

One of the more common PATA -> SATA ICs (JM20330 ? ) supports locking - I'm fairly certain it's actually still part of the standard.

Speed isn't really an issue with the adapters - the biggest problem is some of the common board designs have a pretty sluggish
power supply / filter that doesn't provide power to the conversion IC fast enough - the XBox usually ends up throwing an error
requiring you to cycle the power again.

I played around with the filter caps on some of the cheaper ones and had some success (lower value ceramics), but requiring
a power cycle wasn't a big enough issue to worry about for most users.

 

[NeMesiS]

TSOP/chip supports any drive as they don't need to lock. Recall that TSOP models of xbox are the older models and the last ones made will need a chip.

Only the v1.6 requires modchip all others can be TSOP flashed!
Hard modding will make things alot easier...
If you can't solder you could try and use conductive glues (for TSOP only)
Something I've been meaning to try, even though I can solder...

 

[FAST6191]

Interesting info on the adapters. While locking is part of the standard most things we have ever seen as far as caddies, adapters, end user cards... don't really support it or have seriously bugged support for it as it is so rarely used.

As for 1.6 xboxes then they always seem to be the most common whenever I go looking for things.

 

[barronwaffles]

I haven't actually run across any internal adapter that has had issues with locking, but I can imagine it's pretty common issue on external caddies/adapters that don't provide their own specific device driver - it's most certainly not part of the USB external storage standard.

I think I recall a modified linux distribution targeted at this issue for xbox users - it had a modified external drive module that forced support for the required ATA commands.