Customer Reviews

Datel XBox 360 XSATA USB Hard Drive Linking System

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

The XSATA is an interesting product. To sum it up, it acts as a bridge between an Xbox 360 and its hard drive, with the ability to convert the SATA connection and convert it out to a USB port. This allows you to directly access the file system on the Xbox HDD, allowing for a "normal" viewing of the folder hierarchy. This means that data, including save games, movies, and really anything can be backed up to your computer's hard drive. The main use is to have a copy of your saved games in case a file gets corrupt or your HDD dies, although there are other uses, as I'll explain later.

The first impressions of the device are not very good. Physically, it is light, and rather simple looking, and getting it onto the Xbox is a hassle. It uses a few plastic tabs that connect where the HDD normally would go, and getting it on properly can take several minutes the first time you try it. Once it is on, you'll find that it adds about 1/3" to the width (or height) of your Xbox, and fitting right between the console and the HDD. If you use your Xbox horizontally, like I do, you'll find that the XSATA also protrudes about 1/16" on the top and bottom, and when laying flat on the table, your Xbox will actually rest on the device itself instead of on its rubberized feet. I've used the XSATA for almost a year now with no side effects, but it's still an uncomfortable observation. Note that because the XSATA is a physical device that connects to your 360, you must have your Xbox turned on and in close proximity to your PC to use it.

But once you get past the initial reactions, it gets better. Fuctionally, this device is flawless. The XSATA has a standard mini-USB port on the back, and comes with a 4 foot cable for connecting to your computer (could be longer, but...). The Xplorer 360 software that is included has worked fine for me, but I highly suggest doing a Google search for the latest version, which fixes some bugs and adds support for the 512MB memory card and the 120GB HDD. (The software works on Vista, too.)

Due to the limitations of the Xbox HDD, you can't access it with the Xbox and your PC at the same time, but that's not a major issue. The Xplorer 360 software is simplistic but functional. It only takes a few clicks to access a connected 360 HDD. It only takes a few more clicks to start the backup process, which creates a 20 GB (or 120 if you have the bigger HDD) image file which you can save anywhere you want. The backup process takes about 45 minutes on a USB 2.0 connection, and virtually ensures that your files up to that point are safe. I've never had to actually use an entire image restore before, but the process is painless to perform once about every month or so.

Those that have done any amount of hacking or soft/hard modding of the original Xbox will find themselves right at home viewing the file hierarchy of the 360. For others, though, there is a good sized learning curve. Microsoft makes use of unique hexadecimal strings for each game, and until you learn them or look them up, the entire system will just seem to be random files and folders.

But once you get past that, the XSATA becomes more useful. It is possible to extract and backup individual game saves, which is a much faster and more convenient process than backing up the entire drive. Even better, if you have a way of extracting or downloading game saves from original Xbox games, those can be injected into the appropriate place on the 360 HDD and played as long as the title is BC. This can save literally hundreds of hours of playtime if you don't want to spend time getting back to where you were. This is probably the most useful function of the XSATA, as transferring original Xbox saves is virtually impossible otherwise.

Functionality aside, there is a final fringe benefit to owning the XSATA. It has blue LEDs on the sides, which means that you'll have a gentle blue light on the side of your 360. No point whatsoever, but it does get you compliments, hehe.

The XSATA isn't for everyone. While anyone can go in and backup their entire drive, it takes a slightly more advanced user to get the full use out of it. There are the abovementioned problems with installation, but once you get past those, the XSATA is a useful device that may be worth it for the ability to transfer old Xbox saves alone.

If you compare the price of the XSATA to the price of additional (or larger when they are available) XBox 360 hard drives this seems like a great deal. That's what prompted me to buy one as the 20GB drive fills up with downloads really fast. I ordered one of these the first day it was available for order online at the end of May.

First let me describe the construction of the unit. It's hollow on the inside with two plastic half rings on either side of the unit. At each end there are a pair of LEDs, one touching the end of each half ring to create the blue glow. Because of this, the lighting is uneven, and really is only strongly blue in the front and the back, and it's a very light blue color. If you were so inclined, it would be very easy to swap LEDs (of any size) for the ones in the unit, if you don't like the color. Aside from this, there are two PCBs in the device: the one in the front has a pass through from the proprietary XBox 360 SATA interface with two short SATA cables and a power cable connecting it to the back PCB which has SATA to USB adaptor, and also provides power via another short cable to the back LEDs. The back PCB outputs to a custom mini USB 2.0 port (they include a mini USB to USB cable in the box). The front PCB is loose, connected only to the cables but not to the unit, so that it may be adjusted to fit the port well.

The XSATA doesn't use the same type of locking mechanism that the 360 drive uses to snap on to the 360. It has these plastic nubs that snap under the top plate that were extremely hard to get in, and it also makes the unit almost impossible to remove once it's on the 360. The drive does not snap on easily and it does not rest flush with the top of the unit.

The custom mini USB to USB cable they provide is very short, it's probably somewhere around 4-6 feet which I guess is fine for some setups but I have to have it go out the back of my entertainment center, around the side, and out to the couch, which clearly requires a longer cable than this. I had to use a USB extension cable to make use of it, but as they don't have a standard USB port in the back, you can't use your own USB cable.

I don't have my 360 in the same room as my PC, so I had to connect this to my laptop, and I set up a share on my network to use for the 360 backups and whatnot. It's a shame there's no ethernet output, as then you could just access the 360 as a wired/wireless (with an adaptor) network storage device. As it is, you're tethered to the 360 with a USB cable.

It doesn't mention this on the box but you cannot access the 360 hard drive with your PC and your 360 simultaneously. The XSATA doesn't share the drive between the PC and 360, it switches dedicated control between the 360 and the PC. You have to boot the 360 with the USB cable attached to the PC and it will have the 360 power on to power the drive (but not boot the console). Then you can access the files with your PC. When done, you reboot the console without the USB cable attached and it boots to the 360 with drive control. This is just in theory as I couldn't get it to work.

My first attempt at connecting the unit had it working backwards. Without the USB cable, the 360 didn't boot, with the USB cable connected to the PC, the 360 booted, but didn't have access to the drive (and neither did my PC). This was clearly no good. I removed the unit with great fear of damaging the console housing as it was nearly impossible to do and put it back on and re-seated everything. This time the 360 booted no matter what, but with the USB cable attached it didn't have drive control. This is at least closer to how it was supposed to function, but I couldn't access the files (and yes I'm using the software they supplied on the mini CD).

I figured I'd try to get it to work later and unplugged the USB cable and rebooted the 360. Everything seemed ok but I noticed some serious slowdown on the dash and then the console froze. I rebooted and it seemed fine but then I tried to get some downloads on marketplace and it froze again. I rebooted yet again everything seemed fine but my gamertag loaded with 0 reputation and 0 gamer points. At this point I had had enough. I shut it down and again struggled to remove the unit. Thankfully my rep and points were intact when I booted up, but I think it's safe to say I won't be using the XSATA again (did I ever really get to use it?)

Datel's customer support is nonexistent. After a maze of menus, you are told you will speak to a live representative, but then it goes to a machine that says they are busy and it hangs up on you; there's no queue to wait in. If you press 0 to speak with an operator, there's no operator, just a machine asking you to leave a message. I tried many times over a period of about 2 hours during normal business hours and got the same results.

I will definitely be returning this item. All in all, this was a device that could have been really cool and should have been way better than it was, even if it did work as advertised (which it didn't). A total disappointment. Stay away from this and hopefully someone else will release one that actually works well.

This product is a must have for anyone who wants to try out softmodding on the xbox 360. This product works well but it doesnt really fit well onto the xbox and i will bet many people have broken it in the past upon istallation, Come on guys there really shoouldnt be a losse circuit board and some wires without at least a little covering but all in all this is a very good product. The harddrive was a little hard to fit on and once its on you should really start studying up on your hexidecimal coding system because microsofts sata harddrives are all coded with that system but luckily i was able to figure it out.

The seller i used was PNP Games Inc and they were just awesome so i highly recomend buying from them. They shipped the item 1 day after purchase and came to me in 3 days and i live all the way in NY so i was pleased.

Pros

Very fast transfer rates

Cool Blue LED light tubes around the hardware

Stops the hassle of removing the harddrive to put on a docking station.

Cons

Very cheaply made(i could have done better)

Hard to put on and i dont recoment taking off the xbox if u force it it will break

No customer support from Datel who make this product

This product is very good 5/5 from me!!!!

Easy to install (I have installed many computer hard drives). It took about 6 hours to back up my 20 MB Xbox 360 hard drive. Unfortunately, I can't restore individual files, just the entire partitian (as far as I know).

I disliked the 4 foot USB cord (It uses its own type of USB plug), meaning I had to move the Xbox 360 to the computer -- A real pain. It would have been nice if they had either included a 6 or 10 foot cable; or used a standard USB cable.

I cannot figure out how to move individual files (Mostly you can just back up your hard drive onto your computer for safe keeping). It is nearly impossible to see what you are looking at since Microsoft uses hexadecimal filenames for everything.

I wanted to move my Xbox game saves to the Xbox 360 but it turns out I need to go buy an Action Replay unit to use that feature (transfer them to the computer and then move them to the Xbox 360 hard drive in a super complicated process). Fortunately, you can get the AR devices on Amazon.com.

I would recommend getting this to back up your Xbox 360 hard drive for safe keeping &/or moving to another Xbox 360 hard drive. Worth the [...] to me for that but I need to learn more to do much else with it.

Jaelus' review above was dead on.

Doesnt sit right. A pain to remove and really not designed for use when the xbox is laying flat, if you do use it lieing flat the LED tubes stick out a little further and the 360's weight is put on the LED lights. Its just cheaply made and poorly designed all around. When opening the package my first thoughts were "wow this looks like someone put this together in their basement"

The first one i got the harddrive did not attach correctly at all and was loose, i returned it for another and it fit but didnt sit flush. not a good start.

Usage wise when you do get it connected it works but dont expect to be able to navigate or understand anything using xplorer 360 (the provided software). All the files show up as random numbers and letters. I was expecting to be able to go to specific game saves and back them up but I had no clue what was what. I guess my only option was to backup the whole thing. probably not the softwares fault and more how microsoft manages the files on the HD but regardless it's not user friendly. Your basically stuck backing up everything instead of specific items.

i will be returning it, again, this time for my money back or possibly just to go the simple route and use a memory card.

great idea horrible implementation.

Jaelus' review, as well as mikem's were both correct. I bought an XSATA from EB Games thinking the same thing as everyone else probably was: backup stuff as well as manage content, as that 20 gig drive is nowhere near enough. I also thought it would be cool to get my photos from Test Drive uploaded, but that's another story.

I never got that far.

I'll leave the hardware description to Jaelus and mikem, but the thing is a cheap piece of crap and it is really hard to put on, but IMPOSSIBLE to remove, without damaging it or your console. I managed to remove mine, but i considered myself lucky after doing so. And you will definitely need to remove it.

I turned on my console and it worked fine until one day it gave me a message that it needed to download an update. This is normal for XBOX live and usually takes no time. However, when the progress bar showed up, it froze. I left for 20 minutes and came back and it was still at 0%. I took off the XSATA, a process too difficult, frustrating, and dangerous to describe in detail, and put the hard drive back on and turned the xbox back on and it worked fine. The download completed, and i had no more issues. So i put the XSATA back on. D'oh!!!

It worked fine for about a day until i tried to play one of my original XBOX games, one that I used in the past and it worked fine. Once again, XSATA failed. My console froze with a white and green xbox logo on it. I restarted it, same problem. I took the piece of crap off again, it worked fine. I decided to return it, but my father, who bought it for me as a gift, lost the reciept. And he bought it from Gamestop. And now, it was opened. Trying to avoid getting five bucks for a fourty dollar purchase (at the time), it's been sitting on top of my busted VCR ever since.

Beware.

I ordered this item for my son after Christmas, Jan 10, 2010 to be exact. I heard nothing but waited patiently for the 18 days. I had been informed when I ordered the XSATA unit that the longest time for delivery would be 18 days. I e-mailed the company and heard back that the product would not be available until 2/10/10 and that I could cancel the order, which I opted to do. I have not heard from the company confirming my cancallation and I have not received any product. Getting ready to officially complain but just thought people ought to know about the service.

I'll start this by stating that if you are running Windows Vista (Or Windows 7RC - that would be me) then you need to disable the UAC (Under Control Panel->User Accounts). With UAC enabled, you cannot copy any files from your computer, back to the 360 hdd. This was my biggest set back the entire time.

Hardware: Obviously cheaply made, but done in a way that suits the purpose. The outer shell is fairly solid, but there is hardly anything supporting the connectors that connect to the hdd and 360. I think this was done so that they could be lenient on the QA side of the house.

Software: Ships with Datel's Xport 360 software. Make sure to download the latest version from their site, although I think this ships with a version capable of handling the larger hard drives (120GB, etc).

Instructions: Weak at best but worth a read. They tell you that you can use Xplorer360 software [...], but they don't tell you that you need to have an account there. The site is strictly forum based, which means you need to register in order to download the software. The site is invite only, so you can't register unless a current member had invited you. There are other ways to get the software, but they shouldn't be necessary in my opinion.

Issues: As described above, the UAC problem with WinVista & Win7. The only other issue was with trying to get Xplorer360 downloaded.

Overall Opinion: Bottom line up front, it works as advertised. My only true goal was to transfer my profile and game data from a 20GB hdd to a 120GB hdd, and I accomplished that.

The product does what it is supposed to, which is why I gave it three stars. I know I pointed out negative items a bit, but that's so that anyone contemplating purchase can know what issues they may see.

I think backups are invaluable, so it's worth the money until someone comes out with something better.

I don't usually write reviews, but just a public service that might help a lot of other people.

Getting this product to work is a chore (although mine worked fine at the end) and removing it is impossible. You're better off with the memory unit transfer kit instead of this one.

Though the memory unit doesn't have enough space for backing up videos you've downloaded off the marketplace. But using the XSATA for this particular reason is no good either cause almost all marketplace downloaded videos are digitally signed.

This means, you won't be able to play them unless they are on your X360.

And it's even more convenient to delete movies from your hard drive and redownload them again from marketplace when you need them than using the XSATA to backup and restore them.

Hope this helps

I dont usually review anything but Video Games, but this accessory is so helpful that I just had to.

The Datel XSATA is really user friendly. Unbox it, snap it into place, connect the hard drive, run the software. Boom! Now you have full access to your files. Drag and drop, copy delete, thats all you need to do. No messy geek jargon or anything that would hinder your experience.

I was a HARDCORE XBOX gamer. Half the reason I bought a 360 was so I could have more fun with my XBOX games what with the HD graphics and the wireless controller. It would be a shame to restart on those games from the beginning. But, with the XSATA and any third party XBOX memory card transfer kit, you can easily get your XBOX game saves to your 360. This was so relieving, cause I can tell you there is no way I could beat Halo or Halo 2 on legendary all over again. Thank you XSATA!

This device also looks gorgeous on the 360. It barely sticks out of the console, only about a centimeter, and its smooth look and texture really fit with the console. Also, the blue light it emits looks incredible in a dark room and if you watch it, you can see it glow and dim slightly, perfectly complimenting my grunt fragging on Halo 3.

Like many people, I have accidentally erased something from my hard drive. Catch this: I was going to a Halo party, and was trying to get my save on to my memory card. Instead of hitting move, I hit delete! I was freaking out, until I remembered I had backed up my hard drive onto my computer about a week before. Five minutes later I was driving to the party with my Halo 3 save.

Overall this is a great product. It retails for $60 in most places, but I would say its worth about $70. If you want to be a real 360 gamer, this product is a must have.

Ease of use: 5/5

Price: 4/5

Look: 5/5

Recovering your save after an untimely deletion: Priceless

Their are some things that money cant buy, for the XSATA, Theirs Mastercard.