As long as your internal drive hasn't yet failed, you can clone the stupid hidden partition easily enough and it'll work, upgrade for half (or more) the cost of this proprietary BS

[–] jordanlund 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Cloning it is the easy part, getting to it to remove it is a 40 step process:

https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Xbox+Series+X+SSD+Replacement/141752

[–] cm0002 3 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (2 children)

Meh, those guides always make it seem more daunting than it is, once you actually start it'll probably take you 20-30 minutes if you're even moderately good with your hands and another 30 to put it back together again. Less than 30 minutes roundtrip if you're decent at disassembling/reassembling things

It's absolutely worth an hour of time to save $100 AND not be a party to rewarding ever more proprietary bullshit.

[–] teamevil 5 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

You're absolutely right...just but the proper tool set and give yourself room to work and you're good.

Edit: OH Shit an IFIX link, not only are you good to go it's going to be thorough too.

[–] jordanlund 1 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

An equivalent 2TB WD M.2 is $175. So you're really only saving $15 plus time and effort. I make $65 an hour, so a plug and play solution is well worth my time. :)

Bonus - swapping the internal 1 TB SSD with 2 TB only nets me +1 TB for a total of 2, vs. +2 for a total of 3 going through the external port.

In order for the swap to be a better deal, I'd have to upgrade to a 4TB internal SSD and now it's the time, effort + more money.

If this were a Steam Deck swap, it's kind of a no-brainer, but this isn't like doing a Steam Deck swap.

[–] cm0002 4 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Yea I misread 2230 what was actually a 2280, actual 2230s are around ~140-170

But still, my comment was not strictly about the time, it was also the principal of not rewarding proprietary shit like this, which is priceless. I was also very conservative with my 1 hour round trip estimate, looking at the guide in detail I think one could do it in ~30-40 minutes roundtrip (not including time to clone, because that's a set and forget operation) mostly because there's no adhesives or annoying clips (like the 360, ugh what a pain that bitch was lmao)

We make about the same money, and I'm absolutely taking this route, if for nothing else but on principle

Unfortunately, 4TBs are not available in the 2230 size though

And also, this is a sales price, if you miss it or they're out of stock or whatever then the calculation goes back into favor

[–] jordanlund 2 points 2 weeks ago

And also, this is a sales price, if you miss it or they're out of stock or whatever then the calculation goes back into favor

Oh, DEFINITELY. When the 2TB C50 launched it was $260, IIRC? Definitely a different animal at that price.

[–] teamevil 2 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (2 children)

Why the hell would you trust WD over Seagate‽ Genuinely curious, I've had nothing but bad luck with spinning WD drives to the point where I don't trust them.

Edit: it's an honest question and I'd like to know if I'm playing dumbass Russian roulette with SD ...I am a past victim of the death star WD drive. (Deskstar)

[–] dai 5 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I'm on the other side of this argument.

I've got old WD 1TB / 2TB drives that were shucked' from enclosures around the time of the original Xbox. Those drives were thrashed, dumping / copying games / movies / whatever. Thrown into backpacks and dragged around to LAN parties.

Have some refurb HGST (post acquisition) 4tb drives that are still going strong.

[–] teamevil 1 points 2 weeks ago

Right on...well the best of luck. I think I need everything encased in concrete.

[–] jordanlund 5 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

I've been working in tech for over 30 years and every drive I've had catastrophically fail (including my very first) has been a Seagate.

It's at a point now where I pre-emptively just replace anything Seagate. "I can do it now when it works or wait for it to fail..."

Backblaze releases regular statistics on hard drive failures, this may not necessarily apply to SSDs, but once you've been burned on hard drives it's hard not to apply it to all their gear:

https://platinumdatarecovery.com/blog/most-reliable-brand

"According to the last test, for 4TB drives, you should consider skipping Seagate and opt for Toshiba and HSGT. However, even among different capacity drives, different models at different price ranges can be expected to be more or less reliable over time.

For example, Backblaze found that the specific models of the Seagate 6TB, HSGT 12TB, and WDC 16TB, have had a 0 percent failure rate in 2021 – which is quite impressive. And they can be one of your next disks."

[–] teamevil 3 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

That's pretty damning... I'm in broadcast engineering and deal with lots of storage myself but never followed the failing drives. I've had luck with Seagate in the past but I bet I'm missing the reality.

-Funny how some brands burn you once and they're dead to you....Seagate seems to have gone full scorched Earth.

Is it SSD or just spinning drives?

Edit: I got burned by WD years ago and kinda have applied it to all this stuff incorrectly too.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

It really isn’t damning. Seagate is fine as is WD, HGST, and Toshiba. They all make bad drives once in a while, none of them are perfect. Scroll to the conclusion in that link and it says the differences are not significant and there’s no clear winner or loser.

[–] teamevil 2 points 2 weeks ago

So I'm Looking to go to microcenter tomorrow and pick up some internal storage....wtf is going on with all the drives now days? I can't tell what's what anymore

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

I don’t understand the point you’re making when it also says in your quote that Seagate 6TB has a 0% failure rate. The 4TB models were an outlier. Modern 10+ TB Seagates have failure rates that are comparable to the rest. HGST is a bit better than them all.

I pay attention to the Backblaze stats, and both WD and Seagate have stinkers once in a while. I just don’t get HDD fanboyism. They’re all mechanical, they all can fail. Mitigate this with RAID and 3-2-1 backups. There’s no magic perfectly reliable HDD. Always plan on them failing.

[–] jordanlund 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Again, this is simply the latest stats, year after year, after year Seagate drives are the least reliable compared with other brands.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

From your own link:

At the end of the day, it’s still difficult to figure out which manufacturer to trust.

[…]

Luckily, unless you’re actually in the business of data storage, these tiny percentage differences won’t make that big of a difference for you.

As I said, no significant difference. Guess who is in the business of data storage and uses a shit load of Seagate drives? Backblaze.

[–] Zahille7 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Or be like me, and buy a 3TB USB drive for like $80 years ago and just use that.

[–] jordanlund 5 points 2 weeks ago

You can't use a USB drive to play Xbox Series S or X games, only for storage. You have to transfer them to the SSD to play them.