Owners of the console will be able to use big hard drives

Apr 9, 2015 18:40 GMT  ·  By

Microsoft confirms that it's soon going to roll out a special system software update for the Xbox 360 that allows owners to connect larger external hard drives of up to 2TB in capacity to the console. Right now, however, a beta firmware version with this feature is live for preview program members.

The Xbox 360 has been around for quite some time, and while it was developed with retail games on discs in mind, in recent years Microsoft has pushed digital titles, both smaller ones and full-fledged experiences, onto owners of the old console.

As a result, many fans have had to either upgrade their hard drives with expensive ones made by Microsoft itself, or use external storage options, like hard drives or memory sticks, to store content. Unfortunately, so far only 16GB of storage has been available to the Xbox 360 from those external options.

The old console will soon support 2TB

Things will change soon, as Microsoft confirms that it's going to release a special firmware update for the Xbox 360 that enables it to support up to 2TB in storage from external drives.

According to the announcement made by Microsoft Community Manager Larry Hryb on his blog, the feature begins rolling out to Xbox 360 preview program members today, April 9, as part of a beta system software update.

"The next update for Xbox 360 Preview Program members will allow the use of 2TB hard drives to store Xbox 360 data. If you are not part of the Preview program you will get this functionality later this year. In addition we will also no longer reserve space in advance on your hard drive.  If you are using 16GB of hard drive space for games – we will only take 16GB of space," Hryb mentions.

Some drives might be incompatible or exhibit performance options but these problems should be resolved before the firmware is released worldwide for all Xbox 360 owners. As of yet, however, it's unclear when that might happen.