USB 3 drive only recognised for media storage.

I have a 1tb USB 3 portable hard drive that I've been using as a backup device on my PC but thought it would see better use as storage for my Xbox One S. So I formatted it as NTFS and connected it to the One S.

The problem is that when I connect it to the console it is only recognised as a media storage device and there is no option (that I can see) to use it as storage for games.

I've tested the read/write speeds on my PC and it is definitely USB 3, so where am I going wrong?

Any advice you could all offer is appreciated.

:)

 

2 Tb Hard Drive but cannot save games?

Is this Hard drive USB 3.0? If it isnt, then it will only be recognized for media storage, and not for game storage

 

Usb storage isnt working

Have you been using the drive as 360 storage or to play media files from when plugged into the console?

If the former, are you leaving it permanently plugged in to the console? Some have reported that in doing so the drive is not recognised. Try removing the drive, restarting the console and then putting it in again, it will then hopefully be recognised again.

If the latter, have you recently formatted the drive to NTFS? The 360 only recognises FAT32 and HFS+, so you will need to go back to one of those in order to get the drive to be recognised again for media playback.

 

Well it turns out that I can answer my own question after a little bit more digging.

It turns out that not all USB 3 drives are created equal and the one I have operates at the lower end of the transfer speeds capable with USB 3. So even though it is a USB 3 drive, the Xbox doesn't think it can keep up for game storage.

A somewhat disappointing result but a lesson learned.

 

Oh and another lesson I have just learned is that I am an idiot.

Turns out that you have to press A on the device in storage settings to get the option to format it for game storage, whereas I was expecting the console to ask me what I wanted to use it for.

I'm spoilt by software doing things for me automatically it seems.

 

Thanks for this info - I am about to get an external drive any day.

And in general miss what 360 do - have options shown on screen for you everywhere.

Having thumb drives on 360 I can store games and gamesaves and anything, but not on X1.

And no games can use usb for anything, clips or something else - at least have not found any game that do.

And also special format not compatible with PC for external drives tell a story.

So seems MS do this for a reason - security probably - not introduce virus or malware for anything executable on Xbox.

The other day, and a couple of times before, I had this strange app-looking showing up in Updates - saying just Store.

I've had it once before and install it does not show anything installed, going for details it said Currently Unavailable and button Launch, which did nothing.

Manage it and it shows 0 GB.

Had no idea what this was so contacted chat support to get it sorted.

Turns out they have separated something belonging to OS this way - being able to update things about store without full system update.

But how the F-k are we to know?

At least if Help showed something useful - real context sensitive help - but you usually get a menu of options instead.

Maybe most people have all on automatic updates and never notice - but having not endless internet I must be in control.

MS keep so many things hidden from us - compared to 360 - which was more user friendly.

To me it's obvious the A-button showing Format drive on screen would helped you from a lot of grief.

These things give me less hope about X1X and anything in future - too many rookies on the developer team.

 

Try a different USB 3 cable.

 

@BookishFlunky90

The first time you connect a USB storage device to an Xbox One, it does pop up a notification asking if you want to use it for Xbox One storage or media storage. That didn't happen in Zen's case because the hard drive he was using didn't meet the performance
requirements for being used as Xbox One storage, but the console does walk you through the initial format process as long as your drive is compatible.

As for not having access to saves/profiles via USB, I would guess that's largely done to stop the modding that went on last gen, where people would mod saves and profiles to, for example, unlock achievements they hadn't legitimately earned. I don't think
they're concerned about people being able to access the data from an external formatted for Xbox One storage via a PC, as it's actually pretty trivial to do that - it's more about what content is stored on there in the first place.

Once the new dashboard update comes out, you'll be able to use a USB storage device to record Game DVR clips, and doing that will allow you to capture them at considerably higher quality than the clips you can capture now.

The only thing I really miss is the ability to use one external storage device for both media and game/DLC storage, which you could do on the 360, but on the One it's either one or the other.

I do get that some people liked having their 360 saves/profile on a USB stick as that makes them portable, but as long as you're using Xbox Ones that are connected to Live I think it's even more user friendly now thanks to cloud saves and the ability to
quickly sign into any Xbox One with your username and password without going through a "recover gamertag" process that can take a few minutes sometimes.

 

I have a feeling that the two posters above me have not bothered to read the thread in its entirety. This I suspect is because they ignore almost everything in it.

My external didn't offer a prompt when I put it in but it turns out that it is fully compatible to play games from if I press A over it in the Storage section of the settings menu.

Now I fully admit I'm an idiot who should have done some more tinkering before posting but I would have thought that people would have read the timeline of the thread to understand what had actually gone on.

 

I read what you said: -

"It turns out that not all USB 3 drives are created equal and the one I have operates at the lower end of the transfer speeds capable with USB 3. So even though it is a USB 3 drive, the Xbox doesn't think it can keep up for game storage."

And yes, I know you went on to say this.....

"Turns out that you have to press A on the device in storage settings to get the option to format it for game storage, whereas I was expecting the console to ask me what I wanted to use it for."

.....but that isn't true. You don't have to do that, so I interpreted the lack of a pop up as your drive being incompatible, as you stated in the previous post, given that at no point did you actually say you'd got it working.