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[mickey797]

Ave,

I'm looking to get a 1TB, 750GB or 2 500GB External Hard Drives to hook up to my XBOX 360 and play 1080p WMV-HD's off of it. I guess I'm looking for something which is somewhat reliable - won't die and won't hang or lock up or cause problems while playing videos off of it.

Is someone else using an External Hard Drive connected to their 360 to play WMV-HD's? What brand are you using and what's your experience?

Thanks!

[robert74]

QUOTE(mickey797 @ Apr 7 2008, 03:04 PM)

Ave,

I'm looking to get a 1TB, 750GB or 2 500GB External Hard Drives to hook up to my XBOX 360 and play 1080p WMV-HD's off of it. I guess I'm looking for something which is somewhat reliable - won't die and won't hang or lock up or cause problems while playing videos off of it.

Is someone else using an External Hard Drive connected to their 360 to play WMV-HD's? What brand are you using and what's your experience?

Thanks!

Before you decide to buy an external hd for your xbox 360, remember there is only a 4GB per movie limit for storing. I use IOMEGA drives which some people here dont recommend but Im pretty happy with the results(10 years using them with no problems). I would recommend hooking up your xbox 360 to your network at home for unlimited size storing for movies and if your buying a new external drive connect it to your network.

This post has been edited by robert74: Apr 7 2008, 04:08 PM

[mickey797]

QUOTE(robert74 @ Apr 7 2008, 04:07 PM)

Before you decide to buy an external hd for your xbox 360, remember there is only a 4GB per movie limit for storing.

What do you mean?

As far as I know, you can use MacDrive Software on your Windows PC to format the External Hard Drive as HFS+ File System (Apple Format). You can then transfer files (No Limit) to the Hard Drive, which plugs into the XBOX 360 and the drive is recognized without problems. HFS+ does not have the 4GB limit (Only FAT, FAT32) does, and I'm not using NTFS which is not recognized by the XBOX 360. So I'm not sure what you're talking about.

I didn't look into IOMEGA at all though - why are they 'not' recommended by users here?

[cerealkillajme]

QUOTE(mickey797 @ Apr 7 2008, 10:31 AM)

What do you mean?

As far as I know, you can use MacDrive Software on your Windows PC to format the External Hard Drive as HFS+ File System (Apple Format). You can then transfer files (No Limit) to the Hard Drive, which plugs into the XBOX 360 and the drive is recognized without problems. HFS+ does not have the 4GB limit (Only FAT, FAT32) does, and I'm not using NTFS which is not recognized by the XBOX 360. So I'm not sure what you're talking about.

I didn't look into IOMEGA at all though - why are they 'not' recommended by users here?

Your correct, with MacDrive you can store vids over 4GB. Someone wrote a guide a while back where you could format it to a FAT format and store over 4GB files, but it had to be done in Linux. Can't help much with that.

I'd recommend buying the drive and external case seperate. I stick to only Seagate and Maxtor for mine, they may be a little higher priced than some others, but I've found them to be more reliable than others. One brand I always stay away from is Western Digital. I'm sure at least someone will disagree with me on them, but I build PCs for a company and the Western Digital drives that we used years ago were the first to fail, funny, we also used Seagate and Maxtor drives in those same PCs and only saw 2 HDDs go bad from them over the years.

I can't really recommend an external case to get, but I will recommend one NOT to get, lol. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16817155514
I have 3 of those cases, they are complete junk, the fan in them wears out after about 6 months of moderate usage (would probably wear out in 3 months or less if you left it running 24/7 on a PC).

[mickey797]

QUOTE(cerealkillajme @ Apr 7 2008, 05:17 PM)

Your correct, with MacDrive you can store vids over 4GB. Someone wrote a guide a while back where you could format it to a FAT format and store over 4GB files, but it had to be done in Linux.

That's quite alright - I'll using MacDrive to format the Hard Drive as HFS+.

QUOTE(cerealkillajme @ Apr 7 2008, 05:17 PM)

I'd recommend buying the drive and external case seperate.

I didn't even give that a thought!! So you're saying buy an Internal Hard Drive & an External Enclosure and pack in the HDD inside the Enclosure and use that? Hmm, let me look into that.

You're definately the first one 'not' recommending Western Digital. I've actually had great success with their Internals - in fact that's all I use. But I have to admit I have never used their Externals.

Thanks!

[Scan-C]

There are no internal or external drives. The external ones are normal HDDs which are put into an enclosure with a converter circuit board (like IDE->USB).

For the HDD I'd recommend Samsung or Maxtor. If it needs to be quiet Seagate or Samsung spinpoint line.
Stay away from Hitachi/IBM they'll die in no time if heavily used. Western Digital is only a tad better. You may be lucky and the drive lasts but I've seen a lot more defects with these than with Samsung or Maxtor.  I'd investigate a few bucks more and get a reliable HDD.

This post has been edited by Scan-C: Apr 7 2008, 07:03 PM

[mickey797]

QUOTE(Scan-C @ Apr 7 2008, 07:01 PM)

There are no internal or external drives. The external ones are normal HDDs which are put into an enclosure with a converter circuit board (like IDE->USB).

For the HDD I'd recommend Samsung or Maxtor. If it needs to be quiet Seagate or Samsung spinpoint line.
Stay away from Hitachi/IBM they'll die in no time if heavily used. Western Digital is only a tad better. You may be lucky and the drive lasts but I've seen a lot more defects with these than with Samsung or Maxtor.  I'd investigate a few bucks more and get a reliable HDD.

Sounds good. I didn't see any Samsung External Hard Drives at Newegg, but definately in the Internal ones. I'm certainly looking for some reliability. They have these 'Eagle Tech' 1TB External Hard Drives for $169 which sound absolutely fitting the bill - only problem is, I have never heard of this brand.

Let me ask you something - if I get 2 Internal Hard Drives (Eg:- 750GB each SATA 3.0Gb/s) and put them in this Enclosure that holds 2 Drives and does the usual SATA -> USB) ... once I connect it to my XBOX 360 - Will the XBOX 360 see two separate Hard Drives - or one mass storage?

I did look at this combination:
Samsung 750GB X 2: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16822152100
External Enclosure: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16817193040

I've never done this before - put together Internal Hard Drives in External Enclosure, so I'm a little unsure about these things. Just want to make sure I get the right things.

Thanks

[StrictPuppet]

If you have a spare old pc, you could also look into Windows Home Server.  Its a headless OS (no monitor, keyboard, mouse required after initial install) which has an unlimited amount of storage space, only limit is the number of hdd's you can fit in there.  They dont run as a raid setup but more as a JBOD array, but the OS performs its own storage mangement as well as data mirroring for protection of files.
WHS is automatically detected by the 360 and requires no fancy setup to get it to stream to your 360 as well as stream to any pc or connected appliance in your home.  Additionally it can be configured to do automatic backups of your pc, which can allow you to revert back incase of hardware malfunction.  Something to consider if you like messing around with stuff like that.  You can add or remove storage from the drive pool at anytime and it makes a great backbone for a home network.  It also offers a web server interface that allows you to acess your data from anywhere over the internet (assuming your ISP permits running a server).

Sounds like I am trying to be a salesman..hahahhah.

[mickey797]

Sounds cool, but don't really have a spare old pc. Also, right now I just want to get something going without too much trouble so I can start playing those WMV-HD's.

Is there anyone else using an External HDD solution to play WMV-HD's?

[wallace4793]

I use a linksys network storage link (nslu2) with a 500gb usb drive attached. This is attached to my wired home network and serves all my media (including 1080p wmv) without the need for a pc to be switched on.

[wallace4793]

also 4gb limit is not in effect with this method

[Scan-C]

Hm, with that enclosure you can do RAID-0 which would show the 2 HDDs as a big one to the xbox but if one drive fails the data on the other one is useless... If you use the enclosure for 2 HDDs without RAID-0 I'm not sure how the xbox would see it. Maybe only one drive, or both or none (IMG:style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

Eagle Tech only produces enclosures the actual HDDs are Western Digital or in rare cases Seagate. I guess they use whatever they have in stock.

[mickey797]

QUOTE(Scan-C @ Apr 8 2008, 06:33 PM)

Hm, with that enclosure you can do RAID-0 which would show the 2 HDDs as a big one to the xbox but if one drive fails the data on the other one is useless... If you use the enclosure for 2 HDDs without RAID-0 I'm not sure how the xbox would see it. Maybe only one drive, or both or none (IMG:style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

Eagle Tech only produces enclosures the actual HDDs are Western Digital or in rare cases Seagate. I guess they use whatever they have in stock.

That Eagle Tech drive is looking better & better, especially for the price. I actually found out from other sources as well that they mostly use Western Digital or Seagate. And their Enclosures are reviewed great.

Anyhow, as for showing up as one big mass storage, I'll be using JBOD, which comes supported on the Eagle Tech drives.

[Ian2400]

I've been using a WD Mybook for some time now, I just keep it in my desk with a USB extention cable going through the back and coming in behind my 360. No problems so far, other than that you can't queue multiple TV episodes with the 360.

[mickey797]

QUOTE(Ian2400 @ Apr 9 2008, 08:10 PM)

I've been using a WD Mybook for some time now, I just keep it in my desk with a USB extention cable going through the back and coming in behind my 360. No problems so far, other than that you can't queue multiple TV episodes with the 360.

Interesting you mention that. I was just looking at the Western Digital My Book Essential 2.0 at Newegg, where it just dropped in price to $211 Shipped! I think I'm going to get it while it's on sale!!

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16822136186

This post has been edited by mickey797: Apr 9 2008, 09:43 PM