Aftermarket 360 Hard Drives

I know there have been a few threads about aftermarket storage for the 360. I'm finally fed up with my 20 GB drive and want to upgrade. I see several China-based sellers on eBay that are offering replacement hard drives, with the full case and everything. I was wondering if anyone here has bought one, what seller they got it from, and what their experiences were with it. Here's a few links to some of those I was looking at:

http://cgi.ebay.com/120GB-HARD-DISK-...

http://cgi.ebay.com/XBOX-360-120GB-N...

http://cgi.ebay.com/Brand-New-120GB-...

http://cgi.ebay.com/120GB-120G-HDD-H...

http://cgi.ebay.com/XBOX-360-250GB-N...

I'd never buy from any HK or China based eBay seller, but YMMV.

I bought my drive from THIS guy:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...

He's based out of Minneapolis, and has a lot of feedback and positive comments.

SommerMatt wrote:

I'd never buy from any HK or China based eBay seller, but YMMV.

I bought my drive from THIS guy:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...

He's based out of Minneapolis, and has a lot of feedback and positive comments.

Thanks Matt.

That guy hasn't sold any items since early November. Wonder if he's gone out of business?

bennard wrote:
SommerMatt wrote:

I'd never buy from any HK or China based eBay seller, but YMMV.

I bought my drive from THIS guy:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...

He's based out of Minneapolis, and has a lot of feedback and positive comments.

Thanks Matt.

That guy hasn't sold any items since early November. Wonder if he's gone out of business?

He seems to produce these drives in batches-- I had to email him and ask when he'd have more available, and he let me know when they were ready. Try sending the seller a question.

I was meaning to getting around to posting a thread on the very same question. Thanks man.

I ended up getting a 120GB for around $64 shipped off ebay from someone in Cali - it was pulled from an Elite (had the black case in the pic, too) and figured that it wasn't worth all the hassle to get one overseas for less when it would take longer to get. My only advice is making sure you are ready to migrate your stuff over - I used the internal memory as best as I could but had to re-download the large items (like Shadow Complex). Didn't have any major DLC, but you can go on Xbox Live and look at what you've downloaded and re-queue it.

trueheart78 wrote:

I used the internal memory as best as I could.

Huh? I've had 3 360s, and none of them have had any internal memory.

I heard rumours that MS were planning to ban people who used after marker hard drives or memory cards from Live, like they do with hacked 360s. Has that been debunked now?

Well, we had a transfer cable kit that was being passed around, but I have no idea what the hell ever happened with it-- last I knew, there was some FedEx shipping error.

spider_j wrote:
trueheart78 wrote:

I used the internal memory as best as I could.

Huh? I've had 3 360s, and none of them have had any internal memory.

My jasper chipset had about 80mb free memory - I would transfer saves from my 20gb and fill up the 80mb, then attach the 120gb and copy that over. I had to do it 2 - 3 times but made it work.

SommerMatt wrote:

Well, we had a transfer cable kit that was being passed around, but I have no idea what the hell ever happened with it-- last I knew, there was some FedEx shipping error.

Yeah, that still hasn't been resolved, either.

Given the price difference, the last one looks like a shoe-in to me. The transfer kit would save you some time. I'd definitely spend the extra $15 for a new drive and the kit.

These are ones I'd consider - USA shipping, Buy It Now prices and no worries about a Hong Kong seller.

From IL - $65 total

From FL - $70 total

From NJ - $71.97 total (4 for sale)

From IL - $75 total (elite pulled drive)

From RI - $79 total

From IL - $85 total, New and In Box 120GB HDD w/ transfer kit

Update: marked out sold drives.

spider_j wrote:
trueheart78 wrote:

I used the internal memory as best as I could.

Huh? I've had 3 360s, and none of them have had any internal memory.

The Arcade unit I have has 256MB of internal memory instead of shipping with a memory card. My guess this was done to make the arcade unit seem more functional than it really is. They used to ship with a memory card for your controller.

As an update, I bought a drive from this seller (still has 4 of them left):
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...

It ended up around $88 with shipping, but included the hard drive and a transfer kit. I just got the drive in today, and it looks like an open box return to a retailer. The drive doesn't appear to have been used. Working on transfer of data right now. Seems to be going pretty smooth.

That's great to hear - the transfer kit is definitely worth it if you have tons of stuff to move. Glad you got a good deal

Only problem with the transfer cable, according to MS, it erases everything on the destination HD.

From http://www.xbox.com/en-CA/support/sy...

If you have already saved games or stored content on your Xbox 360 Elite system's 120GB hard drive or the Xbox 360 Special Edition 20GB hard drive, those games and that content will be erased during the content transfer. (All preloaded content will remain when the transfer is complete.) Xbox LIVE® Arcade games and other content purchased on Xbox LIVE can be re-downloaded.

They're erased from the original drive, not the destination drive. Yes, if you have things already stored on the destination drive they'll be erased, but that's not really the situation the transfer kit is for.

I still had all my savegames and other stuff from my original 20gb drive on my 120gb after I did the transfer, but the 20gb is completely wiped.

And there's one more caveat: you can't transfer the contents again. Having transferred from the orignal 20GB drive to a 120GB driver, I wasn't able to retransfer to the official 250GB drive I acquired. And there are definitely items in my purchase history that are no longer available and can't be queued for download.

Arise, thread!

I recently bit on an official 250GB, which came with a transfer kit. Seeing as it is literally impossible for me to have any need for the thing again, I'd be happy to start sending it around as the official GWJ transfer kit, assuming I'll get it back eventually. If no one wants it I might eBay it.

LobsterMobster wrote:

Arise, thread!

I recently bit on an official 250GB, which came with a transfer kit. Seeing as it is literally impossible for me to have any need for the thing again, I'd be happy to start sending it around as the official GWJ transfer kit, assuming I'll get it back eventually. If no one wants it I might eBay it.

Didn't we have one of these already at some point, and an associated thread to boot?

Nosferatu wrote:
LobsterMobster wrote:

Arise, thread!

I recently bit on an official 250GB, which came with a transfer kit. Seeing as it is literally impossible for me to have any need for the thing again, I'd be happy to start sending it around as the official GWJ transfer kit, assuming I'll get it back eventually. If no one wants it I might eBay it.

Didn't we have one of these already at some point, and an associated thread to boot?

Yes, and the FedEx guy mis-delivered it (the transfer kit, not the thread)...