Can you legitimately install Xbox 360 disc based games on a 16 GB 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 16 GB 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 a user legitimately use an unbranded 16 GB flash drive to install Xbox 360 disc based games?

Answer 1

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 Corsair Flash Voyager 16 GB USB 2.0 Flash Drive CMFUSB2.0-16GB
• 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

Answer 2

Yes but you can not play the games without the disc. The disc has to be inserted to boot the game, then once the game starts, the informations will then be taken from the Flash Drive (Installation) and the disc tray will stop spinning the disc (reading information from disc)