Xbox 360 hard drive purpose

[roselegend]

Hi, I get that Xbox hard drive is used to store games on it, does that really needs to be done?
Can I just load games from a disk and save my progress on USB Flash drive, without a hard drive?
Thanks!

 

[ssddx]

no. part of the game gets installed onto your xbox. this in fact is the majority of data written onto the drive.

also, i do not think the console would play nice trying to save/load progress from usb.

 

[roselegend]

The game installs only on ps3, on xbox you can install it or just put a disk everytime you play

 

[ssddx]

hmm... looks like it was an option on the xb360. not sure why you'd want to do that though.

are you referring to the 4gb internal storage the xb360 came with on newer models (its internal memory) or the expansion drive they sell for it?

internal memory is required absolutely as it is not just used by games but also for system updates, dashboard, etc, but the removable upgrade is completely optional, yes. this is why many of the newer models were sold without hard drives. its optional for them.

if the game requires no install to work then yes you could make do without one (though loading from the disk would be horrible and frequent load times). gamesaves would be saved to your internal memory. generally its best to have the game installed to a drive for acceptable loading speeds. i'm not sure how multiplayer would work due to game updates being required (unless the xb looks at both the disk and installed updates on your internal memory when loading).

it looks like transfer of saved games is possible via usb but i havent seen any confirmation on loading from usb though.

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is the point of this thread whether or not you should buy an upgrade hard drive for your xb360?

if so, its quite beneficial but not required (though if you run out of internal space, you'd need to free some up).