Is the new Xbox 360 model really 60 gig?

Question

I just purchased the new Xbox 360 model of Pro, the debut of the 60 gig and noticed that its maximum capacity stated on the hard drive is 51.1 for its capacity. Does the OS really use 9 Gigs? And if so why do they state it as a 60 gig when you can only use a little over 50?

Answer 1

The 9 GB are not only for the OS itself. That resides inside the ROM of the console (otherwise the Arcade models can't boot, if the OS is on the nonexistant Arcade's harddrive).

First of all: the 60GB written on the drive are calculated differently.

Those 60GB are calculated with 1.000MB=1GB. But in reality, 1GB = 1.024MB.

So if you take 60.000 MB divided by 1024 you will get 58GB.

The "missing" 9GB are split up into space reserved for Game Updates, so you don't have to redownload title updates, 4 GB are reserved for game caching (so games like Halo 3, GTA IV or Oblivion load faster after they copied some content into the cache), and the Media Center Extender software, so it doesn't need to be downloaded from your PC every time, making it start faster.

And 2 GB are reserved for the Xbox 1 emulator and the space the Xbox 1 game uses normally.

So 7GB are reserved for the system and 2 GB are missing because of the "marketing" Gigabyte being 1000MB instead of 1024.

And that's where your 9 GB go.

Answer 2

1Gb of the 20 is reserved for the machine's OS, 2Gb is reserved for the Xbox Emulator to run smoothly and 4Gb is for game caching and other in-game software trickery - things like enhanced asset streaming and so forth.

Found that out about my 20gb one but yeah it has space used for OS Emulator is what runs old games, and and 4gb of cache which is nomral with any harddrive.