How To Add a Flash Drive to the Xbox 360 Slim for Extra Storage

If you enjoy gaming and are on a budget, a good solution is the Xbox 360 Slim. However one thing that is lacking is hard drive space – only a 4 GB internal drive. Here we look at getting more space by adding a USB flash drive to your Xbox.

Note: You can add an external drive to the Xbox 360 Slim 4 GB model, however, you can only use up to 16 GB of the space. So, if you were to add a 160 GB external drive for example, you’ll only be able to use 16 GB of it for Xbox storage.

1. For this example we’re going to hook up a 16 GB flash drive since that’s the limit. If you don’t have one, they’re incredibly inexpensive on Amazon. Insert the flash drive into an available USB port on the back of the Xbox Slim. Turn on the Xbox and from the main menu, navigate to My Xbox -> System Settings

the My Xbox landing screen

2. Then in System Settings select Memory.

the Xbox System Settings page

3. In Storage Devices select USB Storage Device

selecting a storage device

4. Xbox will need to configure the USB flash drive so it’s compatible for data storage. Select Configure Now

an arrow pointing to a button titled Configure Now

5. On the Configure Device screen select Yes when it asks if you want to remove all content and configure it for Xbox storage.

a Yes button

6. Then wait while your Xbox tests and configures the flash drive. In our tests it took under a minute.

configuring a flash drive on the xbox

7. After it’s done go back to your flash drive or Memory Unit as it’s called in the menu.

the Memory Unit

8. Now here you can see it’s ready to use to store data.

checking a USB drive

9. A quick test to make sure it works is to start up a game from your collection. For example here we started playing BioShock, and when the game started it asked where to store game progress, and were able to select the USB flash drive.

storing game save data on a flash drive on the Xbox

10. After playing it for a bit, we created a new save point, and when you go back in to look at your drive, you should see the that it was stored on the flash drive.

a Memory Unit flash drive on the xbox

saved game data on the xbox

Using a flash drive versus an external hard drive is a good idea to get extra storage space for the Xbox 360 Slim. This way you won’t need to mess with more wires and an extra piece of hardware cluttering up your gaming area. You can use an external hard drive as well, but just keep in mind that you’ll only be able to use 16 GB of space.


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5 thoughts on “How To Add a Flash Drive to the Xbox 360 Slim for Extra Storage”

  1. I bought a 16 g sandisk thumb drive and it works great. Will it accept another drive at the same time?

  2. Xbox automatically formats it just look for something windows compatible and configure it
    just remember you can only use that for xbox and not cpu’s or anything else

  3. What kind of flash drive did you use. I’m currently looking for one and I don’t want to waste money on trying to format one that won’t work.

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