Can you legitimately install Xbox 360 disc based games on a 16gb flash drive?

Question

Even though I have a new Xbox 360 I find the drive noise it emanates when playing a game from a disc to be utterly distracting. From some cursory Googling it seems that in April of 2010 Microsoft released a firmware update that allowed for the use of 16gb flash drives with the console. The glut of press release regurgitating news articles all highlight that arcade games can be installed to flash drives, but do not indicate if DVD based games can be. I know installation is an option for hard drives, not sure if it's true for flash drives.

Can an end user legitimately use an unbranded 16gb flash drive install Xbox 360 disc based games?

Asked by ahsteele

Answer

Yes. If the flash drive doesn't meet the Xbox's recommendations you may get a message about performance problems, here's a compatibility list of some flash drives:

• 16GB PNY Mini Attaché 16GB USB 2.0 Flash Drive P-FD16G/MINI-EF
• 16GB Lexar JumpDrive TwistTurn 16 GB USB 2.0 Flash Drive LJDTT16GASBNA
• 16GB Kingston DataTraveler C10
• 16GB Lexar JumpDrive Firefly LJDFF16GASBNA
• 16GB Patriot Xporter XT Boost PEF16GUSB
• 16GB SanDisk Xbox 360 Drive
• 8GB SanDisk Xbox 360 Drive
• 8GB Kingston Digital DataTraveler 100 Generation2 DT100G2/8GBZ
• 4GB Kingston DataTraveler 101 DT101Y/4GB
• 2GB Sandisk Cruzer Micro SDCZ4-2048-A11

Answered by HenryHey

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Can I play Minecraft on a USB flash drive?

Question

I've got a 4GB SanDisk Cruzer here with practically nothing on it, and I'm about to go house-sit for a friend with a computer but no internet. It sure would be nice to play Minecraft while he's away, but I'd just as soon not muck around in his Documents and Settings\Application Files folders. Is it possible to have Minecraft and my world on the flash drive itself such that I can play it directly from the drive, rather than installing to each computer I bring it to?

Answer

PortableApps hosts a Minecraft Portable launcher that will run off a USB stick, though you have to run it once for it to download and store the data and binaries from minecraft.net (as required by the Minecraft end-user license). I haven't tested it, but it claims to use the native launcher to be forward-compatible as new versions of Minecraft are released.

On the Minecraft Forums, there is a Java-based portable launcher that explicitly advertises compatibility with version 1.8.

There is also an article about creating a Windows batch file by hand that will make Minecraft look for its files and your saves on a USB key.

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