Gonna need a bigger harddrive

[Glockstar]

http://xboxmedia.ign.com/xbox/image/article/664/664787/jaws-unleashed-20051104094529214.jpeg
Carcharodon Musicarcharias

I recently copied a whole bunch of songs to my harddrive - about a hundred, give or take - and then saw my available disk space shrink by 10GB!

We only get 13GB to work with in the first how (7GB is used before you even finish taking your new 360 out of the box). Now I'm already down to just 2GB?!

If this puts a damper on how many downloads - how many demos, how many trailers, how much extra game content - I can make, then this is going to put a serious damper on my overrall feelings about this system. At this rate, I reckon that 2GB will last me about two years (as long as I don't put any more songs on it). But the thing of that is: times are slow! Come November I expect content - all content - to double.

[Cuddly Knife]

I've been thinking about this ever since I got the 360, and my solution is to keep things prioritized(Z or S?). BTW, those are some long songs if 100 took 10 gigs of space!

I'll get rid of demos as soon as the game comes out or I get it in a magazine demo disc. No worries about LA since all games must be under 50 megs. Demos become pretty useless within a month of me getting them, since I pretty much do all there is to do in them, so they can also be discarded. It's going to be hell when that 1.5 gig demo of Crackdown comes out, though. Trailers also get the boot pretty quickly after I dl them.

Music- I really think about what I want to be hearing, and what songs and such from albums that I don't like and such, and then I keep only the very best. Don't take that too litteral though, because I have 1,026 songs on my HDD, and I'm still adding and taking away from playlists, and generals, so it's really always something that's evolving. Not evolving, but constantly changing. Just yesterday, I added The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust, and The Great Southern Trandkill, and took out about half of Final Fantasy X OST(which is 3 discs!).

[Fivespot]

To save hd space, I use my ipod whenever playing tunes (plugging it in to a USB port). It's an extra step but a helpful one.

I have a request for future updates from MS that is relative to this thread - stream trailers rather than making us download them. Or at least provide a choice (stream or download).

[Glockstar]

BTW, those are some long songs if 100 took 10 gigs of space!

Yeah, actually, they are. (It's all electronica.)

Guess I'm going to have to do some weeding.

Still, I have about 75 songs on my Xbox HDD, and have at least that many game saves, plus DL-content... none of it makes a dent.(!)


-

To save hd space, I use my ipod whenever playing tunes...

Yeah? How does that work? I mean, I know how it works (for the most part) but how does it function; how easy is it to access; does the music read instantaneously, or are there delays...?

I've been meaning to try linking up my PSP. Just for the heck of it tho'; not as a real goto source for custom soundtracks. Because I have the same problem with it as I do with the 360 HDD - I put a few songs on, and bam!, there goes all of memory space. I put 21 songs on a 512MB card, and (coupled with my 7 game saves) now only have 11MB left. Again tho', it probably should be noted that it's all electronica (all Juno Reactor, as a matter of fact) and that those 21 songs provide over 2-1/2 hours of music. This works great when used for it's intended purpose (which is as a backup car stereo for long trips for when my real car stereo eventually konks out - which it always does (long story)) but I need way more songs than that for gaming purposes. I would need a huge azz memory card to hold 100 electronica songs - and those are like $250! (Plus, not all of Juno Reactor is fit for gaming - a lot of their songs are too ethereal/spacey/atmospheric/trippy; they're not hard enough, or fast enough, or aggressive enough, for racing.)

Guess I'm going to have to get an iPod after all, eh? (Nuts; I was trying to save up for a new set of irons.)

Seriously, tell me how that works, Five. Please. And tell me if you have any "support" issues. Because the following info raises a lot questions...

http://www.xbox.com/en-US/support/systemuse/xbox360/digitalmedia/supporteddevices.htm#MP3FullySupported

[Renzatic Gear]

Whoa hell. Did you rip these songs yourself? What bitrate did you encode them at? There's no way that 100 songs can take up to 10 gig unless you're going at almost nil compression.

Something's obviously not right here.

[Glockstar]

I don't think there's a choice, Beer. You just pop a CD in, it starts to play, then you press the button to "copy tracks", then select or deselect the tracks you want, then press "ok".

Unless there's some option in the general setup of the machine that I missed?

All I know is that it said I had 12GB remaining before I started copying tracks, and 2GB after. :(

[Fivespot]

Since the 360 has two USB ports on it's front, I plug my ipod directly into one. The music player recognizes the mp3 player and makes it an available selection (you can alternately choose the HD). Now choose the mp3 player and hit play. Blamo- that's it. Nothing overly exciting or complicated and a simple fix to quick game songs rather than uploading music directly to the 360.

My PC already has 24gig of music loaded so I can access that library via my mp3 player. Although I haven't started using 360 media center functionality (firewall, security issues to resolve), I could also access my mp3 catalog over the home network and play it through the music player and use it for in game music as well. I hope to get that working real soon. I hate dealin' with that junk :(

[Fivespot]

Five. Please. And tell me if you have any "support" issues. Because the following info raises a lot questions...

http://www.xbox.com/en-US/support/systemuse/xbox360/digitalmedia/supporteddevices.htm#MP3FullySupported

I've had no problems in that regard. I believe CK has however. If I understand correctly, XBOX 360 doesn't support AAC music files which is native to ipods but a download fixes the problem (or doesn't according to some). The new dash update supposedly resolves all AAC file issues however so it should no longer pose any concerns.

In theory, and someone please chime in here, you could probably buy a small USB pen-type storage device and put a bunch of mp3's on it. Insert it directly via a 360 USB and access the songs through the music player. Haven't tried it, but I don't see why it wouldn't work. The 360 does support all USB devices (for the most part). It's another option - I should test that.

[Jaa Phaanom]

I've had no problems in that regard. I believe CK has however. If I understand correctly, XBOX 360 doesn't support AAC music files which is native to ipods but a download fixes the problem (or doesn't according to some). The new dash update supposedly resolves all AAC file issues however so it should no longer pose any concerns.

In theory, and someone please chime in here, you could probably buy a small USB pen-type storage device and put a bunch of mp3's on it. Insert it directly via a 360 USB and access the songs through the music player. Haven't tried it, but I don't see why it wouldn't work. The 360 does support all USB devices (for the most part). It's another option - I should test that.

If it lets you use a USB pen-drive, I wonder if you could plug an external USB hard drive into it via a USB cable. Then you could get something like a 80GB external HD for the same price as a 2GB pen-drive. I can try it out tomorrow to see if it works.

[Glockstar]

If it lets you use a USB pen-drive, I wonder if you could plug an external USB hard drive into it via a USB cable. Then you could get something like a 80GB external HD for the same price as a 2GB pen-drive. I can try it out tomorrow to see if it works.

FRIG! I knew I should've checked here first!
I just ordered one of those "pen-drives" online. (Sandusk 2GB for $90, including shipping.)

Still, please try it and post back with your results anyways. Thanks.

Obviously, the simple pen-drives work (otherwise I wouldn't be ordering one); you don't need a fancy-shmancy MP3 player - or PSP - to hear your tunes.

That's the part that pleases me. The part I don't like tho' is how these songs are accessed. They're played from the 360 dashboard not from within the game, like they were on the original Xbox. Essentially this equates to listening to music from a CD player, or any other totally seperate music system; the songs just play thru continuously, without any regard to context. Like on the old Xbox, Custom Soundtracks meant that your music was subbed for the games music but otherwise your music would start and stop whenever, wherever, the game's original music would. That was cool. This way... not so cool. Right now I'm wondering why I'm even bothering ordering that new pen-drive - why don't I just listen to the music thru my CD player - if it's going to have the same damn effect.(?) :( :mad:

Oh well, at least I'll get my HDD space back. (Tho' I won't ever get that 2.5 hours that it took me to copy all those songs onto it.)

[Cuddly Knife]

The iPod connection didn't allow me to hear itunes, only ripped cds. I'll try it again tomorrow to see if the update works.

I actually prefer the 360-style custom over the XBOX, for the exact reasons Glock mentioned. Now if only my R button would work on Revenge to switch songs on the fly. Grrr. The only game my R button doesn't work on.

[Jaa Phaanom]

I just confirmed that you can stream music from an external HD, which is something I guess I'll start doing from now. I just wish you could stream videos and save demos.

[Glockstar]

I just confirmed that you can stream music from an external HD, which is something I guess I'll start doing from now. I just wish you could stream videos and save demos.

Yep. Figured.

-

And last nite - when I was searching for info on this subject (as well as trying to find out what one of the button-icons on the music player stood for) - I found out that you can system-link your PC. The procedure for doing so is quite a bit more complicated than simply plugging a device into the USB port on the front of the 360 - and it's not something that I have a need for personally - but it does sound like a neat thing.

(Is this what you were talking about, Five?)

[Fivespot]

(Is this what you were talking about, Five?)

Yes, exactly. It is a bit complicated however as you mentioned.

[Cuddly Knife]

Did you ever figure out the deal with a few songs taking up all your HDD space, Glock?

[Mochan]

13 GB is more than enough to do whatever you need with an XBox. 1GB of mp3 alone is enough music to last you a day (a full 24 hours) at least. That would be like 200 songs and then some.

Demos are demos.... you want to buy the real game later on right? So get rid of them. Videos shouldn't be too large. I dunno.

BTW -- just how complex could hooking your 360 and PC be?

[BoyVsCar]

using Windows Media Connect to provide Media Center functionality from a Windows XP SP2 or Windows XP Media Center PC to a 360 is simple... simply ensure they are on the same subnet, have adequate bandwidth [54Mb from 802.11g is adequate although MS recommends 802.11a due to signal quality and latency... or, of course, simply hardwire over Cat5e+ for 100Mb fast ethernet goodness] and that any software firewall/security suite is allowing the Windows Media Connect application to communicate to the IP address of your 360 and vice versa. [Of couse ensure the Windows Media Connect application is installed from Windows update - the configuration process of the application aides in locating and authorizing the 360!]

[Glockstar]

Did you ever figure out the deal with a few songs taking up all your HDD space, Glock?

Well, it turned out it wasn't the songs. (Not directly anyway.) After I deleted all of those tracks I only got 1 to 2 gigs back! (Which is probably good news for most, because that should tell people that putting a bunch of songs on your harddrive does not eat up that much space.) So somewhere in there you'd think that human error had to come into play... but I swear, just moments before I started copying tracks it said I had 12GB of HDD space left. I remember this quite clearly, because just the fact that it said anything other than 13GB was something that I thought was noteworthy - like I said, the Xbox HDD space-counter never budged once, and here I am with only a handful of games and some demos and some (well okay, maybe a bunch of) trailers and already I've lost a gig. The error had to be with me... I surely must have read it wrong(?)... but what I think it was was that putting those songs on, while they didn't eat up the space on their own, they woke the counter up or something... it's a crazy theory, I know... but I swear I saw what I saw when I saw it...

Anyways, I'm still only at 6GB. I reckon it's all of those E3 trailers.

[DarkJason]

I downloaded a bunch of game demos.