Inside Microsoft's Xbox 360
by Anand Lal Shimpi, Kristopher Kubicki & Tuan Nguyen on November 16, 2005 5:09 AM EST- Posted in
- Systems
Disassembling the Xbox 360 HDD unit
The Xbox 360's HDD unit only currently comes if you purchase the $399 Xbox 360 system. For those who purchase the core system, no hard drive is included. However, if you are interested in finding out just exactly what Microsoft has offered in terms of storage, the following are instructions on how to disassemble the Xbox 360's HDD module.
Start off by first removing the HDD unit from the Xbox 360 main console and lay it flat with the connector side facing upwards. You will see 3 screws. The 4th screw is located underneath the silver "Microsoft" sticker -- removing this sticker instantly voids your HDD unit's warranty.
Once you have removed all 4 screws, lift up the plastic cover while being careful that it is latched onto the button-release end of the unit. You'll want to be careful as not to pop the spring loaded button and lose the tiny spring.
Once open, you will see the 2.5" Serial ATA notebook hard drive encased in a metal shell. Lift off the cover of the protective shell by first removing the four black screws holding it down. To proceed further you will need to have a thin knife. The metal casing is attached to the plastic shell by a very strong adhesive, and to remove the actual hard drive from the housing, you must first pry off the plastic shell from the metallic HD casing. Simply insert a thin knife and slowly "saw" away at the adhesive. Shortly after you will be left with the following:
Once this is done, you can simply remove the attached Serial ATA data cable from the HD and slide out the drive.
Microsoft previously used a regular 3.5 inch desktop drive in the old Xbox but this time has chosen a smaller unit that is separate from the main console. We're quite certain that this move allows them to offer upgrades for those who want to add more storage capacity to their systems as upgrades become available. Currently, the HDD that ships with the Xbox 360 Premium package is a 20GB drive running at 5400RPM. The drive is manufactured by Samsung although it isn't listed on their website as it is an OEM drive for the Xbox 360. The drive itself uses a standard Serial ATA connector (both data cable and power cable) so attaching other drives or the Xbox 360 drive to a computer for data transfer is very possible.
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DrZoidberg - Wednesday, November 16, 2005 - link
Aww.. u guys shouldnt say that. Now it doesnt sound that amazing anymore.
24 pipe x800 doesnt sound as good as 48 pipe x1800xt.
Still great work disassembling console. It looks like it takes a while to disassemble it. Would this mean it would be hard to mod xbox360?
jkostans - Wednesday, November 16, 2005 - link
Well if a 700MHz P3 with 64mb ram and a geforce 4 can run doom 3 then imagine what you can do with mid-range hardware today. There is a lot of processing power in that box, especially for the price. I mean yeah a high-end PC is more powerful, but that's the way it's always been. I'm not a console person, mostly because I like shooters and a mouse/keyboard is completely necessary. Did microsoft change their policy towards keyboards and mice? I would love to lay the smack down on my friends in halo, but gamepads suck! Also whatever happened to the console being able to play with a pc over the internet? Didn't dreamcast have something like that?coldpower27 - Wednesday, November 16, 2005 - link
Heh, they should say that if the computational power of each pipeline is inferior to the dedicated Pixel/Vertex Pipes used in the R520. They are more versatile in the fact that they can execute both pixel/vertex shaders, but in exchange for that versatility each pipe is made more simple, and there are more of them over conventional GPU's.CZroe - Wednesday, November 16, 2005 - link
Why didn't they take apart the HDD unit's enclosure? Wouldn't be any less interesting. I'd sure like to know what brand, size and interface it uses. True capacity?DRavisher - Wednesday, November 16, 2005 - link
Have I understood correctly that the GPU and CPU share a 22.4GB/s 512MiB memory? Isn't that kind of low compared to PC graphics?Pythias - Wednesday, November 16, 2005 - link
Nope. Its on par with low/midrange. But they be making games with it for years to come. Unlike the current flavor of the month gpu.
Slaimus - Wednesday, November 16, 2005 - link
The article says the chip has the processing power of a 24-pipeline R420, but only about 1/3 of its memory bandwith. Although you do have to keep in mind the bandwith that does not get wasted on AA thanks to the daughter chip.lexmark - Wednesday, November 16, 2005 - link
with the tedious security features, i wonder how many people will bother modding with the new $399 version...BigandSlimey - Wednesday, November 16, 2005 - link
Looking at the internal shots it highlights the huge area taken up by the DVD drive, I wonder if they used laptop DVD drive tech, they could've made the console much smaller.tuteja1986 - Wednesday, November 16, 2005 - link
yeah... but then we would get a crappy laser that would die !