Hobbies And Interests
Limitations
The strictest limitation is in storage capacity. While there are a great variety of USB flash drive capacities (from 512 megabytes up to 128 gigabytes) the Xbox 360 will only support devices that are between 1 and 16 gigabytes in capacity. It will also only support the use of two such devices at once, so the maximum storage capacity on USB devices is 32 gigabytes. Technically, larger devices can be used, but the Xbox 360 will only use the first 16 gigabytes of storage.
Usage
Using a flash drive with the Xbox 360 is simple. All you have to do is plug it into one of the USB ports on the front of the console. The Xbox will ask you if you want to use the device for storage, and will then format it to use the proprietary Xbox 360 file system. The files contained on the device can be used on any Xbox 360, either the original model or the 2010 redesigned model.
Considerations
Microsoft sells its own brand of 16-gigabyte USB flash drive for the Xbox 360. While this drive is ready for use with the Xbox 360 right out of the box, it has no other advantages over any other USB flash drive of similar capacity, and carries a price premium.
Technically, USB hard drives can also be used, but they suffer from the same 16 gigabyte size limitation, making this impractical, as the smallest external hard drive available as of 2010 is in the 80 gigabyte size range.