Xbox 360 - connect to usb hard drives? Network hard drives?

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Hi,

I got an XBOX 360 last Saturday. God knows why as I really wanted a Wii a month ago but saw an excellent pack and just went for it.

Great bit of hardware, superb interface and Xbox Live is such a fantastic thing. Brilliant how I can connect it to my Windows Media PC so very easily, though rather pointless as both are connected to the same HDTV and sitting right next to each other underneath it!

What I was wondering is if anybody knows if the 360 can connect to a networked hard drive and how? I assume it could see the files on a USB hard disk connected to it as it does on a 4gb USB memory stick I got, but I would like to be able to have a central place for media files accessible by the Media PC, my gaming/work PC, my laptop, and the 360... if I keep it.

Not sure if I'm going to keep it you see as I just can't get used to the controller after 10 years of PC gaming with a keyboard and mouse... plus most of the overpriced games are boring war-based shooters or sports sims with names like NFKHL 07 or what have you... the only saving grace is actually how much fun it is to sit on my sofa and play Oblivion - I think the controller works okay for that, though it still feels a bit awkward.

Plus I'm expecting a delivery tomorrow of a 8800GTS 320mb for my gaming PC and feel maybe I've overstretched my credit card and overblown my Gaming Quotient! And I still have a lot of fun with my old Gamecube (the new Zelda is fantastic!) and don't really need an Xbox 360, do I?

Perhaps I ought to get out more.
 
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keep the 360 i was in the same boat as you i had been a pc gaming most of my life and i got a 360 just for the sake of it and was tempted to sell it on but i kept at it and i love it now, there just not the same feeling on a pc when your playing rainbow 6 vegas or call of duty on live woth a load of friends, granted if your not a fps or sports guy then yea its limited but theres still loads out there and you also have the original xbox games to try as well, as for the hd am not sure as i was wondering this myself as 500gb hds now are like a 100 pound and would love to connect it up to both my pc and 360
 
Great bit of hardware, superb interface and Xbox Live is such a fantastic thing. Brilliant how I can connect it to my Windows Media PC so very easily, though rather pointless as both are connected to the same HDTV and sitting right next to each other underneath it!
lol, I'm in the same boat... I do wish there was some way I could make use of this more fully, I was thinking about getting the media remote...

I would say go with your gut, I was goign to upgrade my PC this month, but instead I decided to get an xbox 360 (and get a few *ahem* minor upgrades to the pc) instead. I've missed console gaming, I've always played both PC and console games, but lately I've not played my consoles much at all, the one with the most use has been my DC. But I was attracted by being able to play games with grapics like GoW and Mass Effect without having to spend ~ £400+ on upgrading my PC....

Also Its nice to have something that you can multiplay on one screen, having mates round to play is so much more fun than JUST playing online, and I'm an avid online gamer.

Also I like the way the 360 looks on my desktop :) And I can use the 360 controllers to play on my emulators on the PC...

Edit: Oh and to answer your actual question lol; I havent tried this, but I can test it (when I get home from work) but as long as your network share is setup as a network drive and the media from that drive is in media player library it should work, again though I havent tried it but can do.
 
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I'd honestly say stick with it mate, i hated the 360 pad at first after 10 years of playstation gaming, but now i love it, give it a few weeks, try Test Drive UNlimited or PGR3, rent some varied games and then see how you feel fre there :)

On the other hand, i'm in the total opposite boat to you, loving my 360 but for some reason bought a 320MB 8800 GTS OC thats just sat here apart from a few hours of WOW and 3DMark in 5 weeks :(
 
I think with 20/20 hindsight, you'd approach things differently..

I've just embarked on my next 'step'..

That is I've ditched the HTPC/MCE (sold it for £400) and made a 'file server' running MCE located in the Study.. with over 2Tb's I hold all my music/video and even have a TV Card installed.. It doesn't matter that it's huge and noisy, it's nowhere near the front room.. and if I want to add USB/eSata or further NAS drives, they just go next to the server..

I then use the 360 in the front room connected via Gigabit LAN to stream TV/Video/Music to the front room TV/Projector.. I;ve got a Media streamer in the kitchen connected via a uPNP server running on the main fileserver, and my laptop and PDA can connect wirelessly as well..

The server cost £200 to build, £80 for MCE, 4 x 500Gb Sata HDD's cost £400, I've connected several 320Gb USB drives I previously kept using to move content to other PC's..

The best find was a massive 10 Bay server style case for £45.. it's tall and ugly, but it's not on show..

I was contemplating a PS3 just for Media duties, but it's the storage that's the issue, there is just no way on this planet that any console with even a 500Gb HDD is going to provide enough 'future' room.. and adding loads of external drives just messes the whole setup, and isn't available to other devices.. hence you really need some sort of NAS setup, but it's far far cheaper to build/trun a permanently on fileserver, and it means you can set it up as a PVR as well..
 
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