Would simply locking a CF card make it viable for long term storage use?

[ConsoleTechUS]

Right now there are three main options for the Xbox storage:

Us an HDD: Will likely fail after 10ish years according to random people online. It will die slowly with some software here and there failing 

Use an SSD: Will likely fail after 5ish years according to random people online. One day they just apparently die

CF Card: Die after a few years because of constant rewrites. The CF card can only take so many write cycles

 

But what if for the CF card I locked the card (Like an SD has, a physical switch) so that the console could only read from the CF? Then do my game saves on a memory card in the controller? Or just ignore saves altogether if im using it for just system link or emulation?

Would that, theoretically, give me the most stable storage option? Or would that cause issues because nothing can write to the card? Or would the Xbox simply not care that its locked?

[nikeymikey]

"Or would that cause issues because nothing can write to the card?"

This would be an issue. The Xbox writes a cache to the HDD.

[ConsoleTechUS]

1 hour ago, nikeymikey said:

"Or would that cause issues because nothing can write to the card?"

This would be an issue. The Xbox writes a cache to the HDD.

Exactly what I was looking to learn. Thank you. 

[prtscn]

Most stable storage option is HDD. If you don't smash any HDD with a hammer it will last looooong time. Don't read BS on the internet.

 

 

 

[KaosEngineer]

17 hours ago, ConsoleTechUS said:

Right now there are three main options for the Xbox storage:

Us an HDD: Will likely fail after 10ish years according to random people online. It will die slowly with some software here and there failing 

Use an SSD: Will likely fail after 5ish years according to random people online. One day they just apparently die

CF Card: Die after a few years because of constant rewrites. The CF card can only take so many write cycles

 

But what if for the CF card I locked the card (Like an SD has, a physical switch) so that the console could only read from the CF? Then do my game saves on a memory card in the controller? Or just ignore saves altogether if im using it for just system link or emulation?

Would that, theoretically, give me the most stable storage option? Or would that cause issues because nothing can write to the card? Or would the Xbox simply not care that its locked?

The Xbox has to write to the hard drive storage device.  It is constantly updating the cache drive: X, Y or Z's content to play a game.

 

Edit: IIRC, Game saves are stored on the E drive and only saved to a memory unit when the user copies it from the hard drive to the memory unit using the stock dashboard's Memory menu.

[SS_Dave]

Here is my view on using solid state drives 

A SSD drive is silent, faster, draws less power, A HDD makes some noise, gets warm, consumes more power, and is a little bit slower.

I still use a HDD in my workhorse PC as a storage drive and it has a 250gb SSD boot drive with a 2TB WD black slave drive

My current laptop is on it's 2nd SSD in 5 years, and I have several SSD drives here from desktop PC's that have failed and I had one that was a 128GB but I could only use less that 50% due to bad blocks/sectors, That drive was about 6 or 7 years old and was the only drive in a pc.

Yes SSD drive have improved since then.

  

Years ago I tried using a SD as a Xbox drive and while it worked I soon ran out of space and the cost of a large SD verse a 2tb HDD cost made it not a viable option.

 

 

Cheers

SS Dave

Soft modding is like masturbating, It gets the job done but it's nothing like the real thing.