The Xbox 360 was made compatible with USB drives as storage in the spring. To get past limited USB ports in Xbox 360s, would it be possible to hook up a USB hub and make use of many USB drives. This would be useful for when there are 4 people with profiles on separate USB drives (for example).
I know USB hubs work in Xbox 360s. I am more wondering if the OS software in the Xbox 360 can support N (where N is any number) USB devices, each with profile and save game data.
I use a generic hub and it works.
Also note the new Xbox 360 has 6 ports, over the old one's three.
Just a note, but be careful when using larger drives or too many devices with your 360 unless you're using the latest one. I had a 2Tb USB drive connected that contained movies and profiles, etc; however it has to scan all the devices when the 360 turns on or when they are plugged in, and I found that overall performance on the 360 dropped tremendously with the 2Tb drive. I plugged in smaller drives and it was no problem. Just FYI.
I just bought a four-port USB hub on Amazon specifically stated to work with a 360, but the 360 refuses to recognize more than two USB storage devices, even if I have them all plugged into the hub at startup. It will work with controllers and other devises, but I believe Microsoft has programmed the 360 to only allow two USB storage devices because they want you to buy expensive official Microsoft Brand hard drives.
Yes, you can use USB hubs. For example, this is the hub used for Rock Band.
As I recall, hubs are a part of the USB specification. Offhand I can't think of any USB controller that doesn't support hubs. As I recall reading on Major Nelson, there is a limit of 2 USB volumes per console. I've never tested that myself, so I can't say if that is still true now.
There are 3rd party usb hubs that are sold specifically for the purpose of connecting multiple usb drives to an xbox, so I would assume most usb hubs would work. For example, http://www.buy.com/prod/3-port-usb-2-0-hub-with-multi-card-reader-sd-smart-media-compact-flash/q/listingid/39987765/loc/108/203270790.html.
Remember that MS is just a PC, and as such, any USB Hub that doesn't require any additional drivers can be used with the 360.
I use a cheap $10 hub to connect all of my wired Rock Band gear. (You may need a power adapter since you're planning to use a 4-person one, but it'll probably come with your hub.)
Rock Band provides a USB hub, so the 360 is definitely compatible. I have had the RB guitar, the wifi adapter, the RB drums, and a charging controller plugged in at once.
I would say find a hub or build one that will allow you to switch between 2 sets of USB ports, but has multiple ports. Example total of 6 USB ports switch one uses USB port 1 and 2, switch 2 uses USB ports 3 and 4, and switch 3 between 5 and 6. So I would think if you had 32gb flash drives in each that would give you a total of 192 gb of external storage for games and such. The only problem with this is Xbox has made it so you can't play games from the flash drives (or I've only tested that theory with Destiny) so you would have to x-fer them back and forth from the flash drives to the HD. Maybe something like this ...
Surely any hub would mostly work...BUT...if you are about to plug more than 2 USB drives, then the rest will be recognized ONLY for media files, not for gaming storage.
USB is an industry standard and therefore should be unaffected by device ambiguities. Unfortunately, some device manufacturers, purely for monetary considerations, deviate from these standards in order to make it difficult or impossible to use hardware other than that of the manufacturers' brand.
Then they have the audacity to label their products "proprietary,"so that no one else can emulate their bastardization of the standard. Can you say" Microsoft"?
